As we begin a new year of policy work and a new legislative session, there will be a lot of talk about funding public services and thinking about tax burden. It's important to understand property tax trends as they are a key source of revenue for counties. Effective rates - the median tax paid by county compared to median home value declines after 2021. Tax burdens - the median tax paid by county compared to the median household income declines beginning in 2018.

We @WVUPolicyRes continue riding some context for West Virginia elections. This week, precinct - level vote share for Senator Manchin in 2018.
#politics #Election2024 #publicpolicy #Governance #Campaigns Alongside the state, the figure shows Kanawha (guess how we say it), Cabell, and Mpnongalia counties, housing our 3 largest cities - @charlestoncity, @huntingtoncity, and @MorgantownGov.

If you find yourself in West Virginia in February or June, especially on Friday afternoon, you might be without power... #WestVirginia #energy #utility #powergrid #publicpolicy #governance As climate change alters our weather patterns, residents and citizens alike must account for stresses on the power grid and the potential for changes in outages.

On to the WV Gubernatorial race—as before, an AG race is not a gubernatorial race, and Steve Williams is not Sam Petsonk, but here is how AG Morrisey fared in the last statewide tilt. #WestVirginia #Elections2024 #publicpolicy #politics The top right map is the vote % for AG Morrisey. The top left is the vote for his opponent Sam Brown Petsonk. The bottom right is AG Morrisey's win margin. The bottom left is the total votes cast.

Some context for those watching the US Senate race in West Virginia. Senate races are different than Gubernatorial races and opponents certainly are different. But, this is how the Governor faired in 2020. #westvirginia #Election2024 Top left is the % vote for Justice, top right is % vote for his opponent, Ben Salango. Bottom left is Justices' win margin and bottom right is the total votes cast. The Governor won all 55 counties, but this shows the relative strength of support.

Folks were interested in seeing the median age of residents in #WestVirginia. To provide context to those voter turnout maps, the figure below displays median age by county from the @uscensusbureau. #politics #Election2024 #government #demographics #politicalscience #appalachia As you can see, there is something to say here, though WV is uniformly very "mature." Tried to use some fall-ish colors - wishful thinking on my part as I'm ready for the Tyranny of the Sun to end. #rstats #data

Its election season in #WestVirginia, a 🧵on #turnout in the Mountain State. #politics #Election2024 #Appalachia The figure above displays the percent turnout in our major elections since 2018. On the left are primaries, and on the right are general elections. The typical #polisci pattern of greater turnout in general elections holds.

🎯Public health, public policy, and the drug epidemic, 🧵...
Working in the epicenter of the problem, one deficient aspect of drug policy is the never-ending search for a silver bullet in experimental-type clinical settings.

https://twitter.com/KeithNHumphreys/status/1822996312952053951

For public policy, it's better to imagine a suite of tools. Such that different localities require different mixes of public policy based on demographic, social, economic, and behavioral characteristics.

Siting economic development projects, a 🧵...
#economicdevelopment #econdev #WestVirginia #Appalachia #investment #publicpolicy #workforce #governance #rstats Siting economic development projects in West Virginia usually engenders a debate between conservatives who want to site the project at the most advantageous location for businesses and folks on the left who believe that sites near the border will fail to employ West Virginians.

#Travel, a 🧵 - rolling down the turnpike in #Pennsylvania 2/3 of the way through what will be a 29 hour travel 'day'. Yesterday's weather was brutal and hints at something larger going on given reports around the 🌐. This will be the third time in the last four trips booking with @AmericanAir that I will have to drive 4+ hours to get home. To be fair, this one was the weather (the other two were not).

Hot off the press. 𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙣-𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 (𝙊𝘼), my colleagues @ejfagan, @herschelfthomas, @zfurnas, @PolicyProcessor, @corinnenconn and I examine changes in issue attention in the science of public policy at @PSJ_Editor.

doi.org/10.1111/psj.12… We trace academic attention in policy scholarship to issues over time and compare these to issue attention at the Congressional Research Service and think tanks like @CenterOnBudget, @AEIamerican, @amprog, and @Heritage.

Are narrow, streamlined organizations always better? In a new free and open-access (OA) paper for @policy_politics, Scott Robinson, @bark_tracey and I explore this question in federal agency policymaking.
#publicpolicy #rulemaking #regulation #governance
doi.org/10.1332/030557… In this analysis, we examine how the organizational features of substantive specialization and functional differentiation influence the patterns of policy change in federal bureaucracies. Grouping them in terms of departmental, independent, and corporate structures.

Without taking sides here, this notion that amateurs, with no experience in government, bound by term limits, and underpaid in office are somehow better at governing needs to die for both parties. It's simply untrue and does not accord with the science.

https://twitter.com/ElliottForWV/status/1788403078598672866

A candidate with less experience may turn out to be a better official in office, but it's not going to be because they lacked experience when running.

We just released our latest report on 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘉𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘖𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 in #Morgantown #WestVirginia. Have a look if local economic development here in #Appalachia is interesting. bit.ly/3Qq8tfQ @MorgantownGov, @MgtnPartnership, & @downtownmgtn asked for comparisons for Blacksburg, Charlottesville, VA, & Asheville, NC - a mix of peer and aspirational cities. The analysis will guide #localgov #publicpolicy around incentivizing and attracting businesses to the downtown.

Doing a project for the local community - simple but important demographics for #publicpolicy around incentivizing #econdevelopment and #businessinvestment. Data from the @uscensusbureau ACS for 2022 by block group. First map is population estimates. Full report on the way. The second map is median age.

Happy 𝑃𝑟𝑜ℎ𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝐷𝑎𝑦 for all who celebrate this constitutional moment. You may think me playful and devious, but Prohibition's repeal teaches us a very important lesson in governance. 1/5 Constitutional adjustments are for expanding self governance and establishing the rules of the game we play as partners and colleagues in the democratic endeavor, nay adventure. 2/5

Proud to work on this report on #WestVirginia's IDEA data - reporting for children with developmental disabilities on independent education plans. A🧵about #data, #democracy, and services for #families and #children. #edpolicy #education #datascience #disabilities @WVUPolicyRes

https://twitter.com/ThinkKidsWV/status/1722057052191592877

Our state and #local agencies are often caught in the tradeoff of providing #data that checks federal reporting requirements versus fostering analysis. This is not a feature of our educational systems and administrative apparatus. It is a problem en

I am excited to start a new @NSF-funded project that examines the interdiction of the #drugcrisis in #WestVirginia. #opioids #PublicHealth #appalachia Read more about our project below.

wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2023/1… With Gordon Smith @WVUPublicHealth, Henry Brownstein and Jim Nolan @SOCA_WVU, Ankit Bansal @binghamtonu and @JeanPhi74808687 @UMNews, we integrate data on #LawEnforcement, #PublicHealth outcomes, and #localgovernment expenditures to examine supply/demand side policy mixes.

Really pleased that our Roundtable on 𝘈𝘥𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 is up @Journal_BPA. Thanks to @billresh and the rest of the journal's team!
doi.org/10.30636/jbpa.… In it, @herschelfthomas and I discuss "look-up" data systems versus those built for analysis and integration.

@WVUPolicyRes - a 🧵

If you follow me, you'll know that earlier this year I came home to #WestVirginia and @WestVirginiaU @WVUEberly to start the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs. Our Twitter account is above, and we'd appreciate a follow. Our account will cover research, data, and issues important to the state of #WestVirginia and the broader region of #Appalachia, but will touch on issues important nationally in areas like ours.

@Appalachia100 and @theintercept asked me to discuss social and political transition in #WestVirginia. A 🧵
What drove a West Virginia Democrat to storm the Capitol on January 6? interc.pt/3HJbD7X by @GWOTTrapLordz, twitter.com/PNickCurran, @akela_lacy An important thread in this documentary that is often lost in discussions of these transitions is that they owe in part to a failure on the #Left to message and frame (a failure I personally think describes the last 40 years of #DemocraticParty politics).