Recent Writings

People want to know what I've been saying, so here it is. 

This was in response to a column by Hoppy Kercheval, who writes for both the Charleston Gazette-Mail  and the Morgantown Dominion-Post. The Charleston paper published this as a letter two weeks after I sent it. I sent it to Hoppy and  he gave me ten minutes on his radio program.

"Hoppy's not entirely wrong about the Democratic Party. He says 'The party needs strong top-of-the-ticket candidates to energize voters...'  Whether or not the three of us who stepped up to run as Democrats for Congress are 'strong' is a matter of opinion, but three of us did step up. That would be me and Angela J. Dwyer in the northern Second District and Lacy Eugene Watson in the southern First District.

"All of us are interested in slowing or stopping climate change, creating gender and racial equity, helping West Virginia by fixing the roads via the Infrastructure Bill, helping the poor in our state by reinstituting the Extended Childcare Tax Credit, and capping the price of insulin so that people afflicted with diabetes don't have to choose between food and medication. We are all pro-choice, pro-LGBT, pro-union and worker.

"Since the primary, it's left to Mr. Watson and me to be the Democrats in the race. If by 'strong' Hoppy means 'raised a lot of money' we are not. But we don't have the benefit of the corporate and dark fund money that our opponents have. I personally am grateful to the sixty-five or so donors to my campaign, friends and family across the country and people who have heard my message in West Virginia. 

"Our opponents refused to certify the results of the last election, encouraging the false claims of fraud by the former President. 

"The Democrats in the race, with or without support from the National Democratic Party, are in it for the people of West Virginia. We could be strong with support from the good people of our state."

On Monday, July 25th, our Governor added  to the Legislature's "one-day" special session, a call to "clarify" the state's abortion law, in light of the Supreme Court majority overturning Roe vs. Wade. I drove to Charleston on Wednesday, leaving home at 5:30 A.M., to sign up to speak at the one public hearing on the bill scheduled for 9 A.M., with sign-ups at 8. We were close to 100 of us who signed up to speak, about two-thirds against the bill they had passed, which banned all abortions, with no exceptions. The special session adjourned Friday, having taken no action on the original tax cut proposal, and with the two houses of the Legislature not agreeing on locking up doctors who perform abortions or what, if any, exceptions could be made to the abortion ban for rape or incest. Each speaker was allotted 45 seconds (really!) to speak, so I paraphrased the first and third paragraphs. Martha Shamberger from my committee sent this out as a press release on Wednesday; no one published it.

Press release

From: Barry Lee Wendell, Democratic candidate for Congress in West Virginia-2.

Re: HB-302

"This bill takes a private decision about terminating a pregnancy away from the two people involved and their medical team and gives it to the state. This is unnecessary and intrusive.

"The Governor introduced this bill Monday afternoon and scheduled a hearing for the public at 9 A.M. Wednesday. For anyone with a day job or child-care issues, or anyone living in my constituency in the northern half of West Virginia, it was nearly impossible to attend this hearing. This is disrespectful to the people of our state.

"The Governor and the Legislature have repeatedly talked about increasing the population of West Virginia by encouraging young people to stay and people from outside the area to move here. Open minds and hearts and a willingness to accept diversity of thought and religion would do infinitely more to get young people to stay here than tax breaks for the rich and giveaways to large out-of-state corporations. 

"Rabbi Victor Urecki  of Charleston, said on Twitter yesterday, and I agree with him, '… any difficult decision of what to do is made by the woman and the guidance of her family and clergy if she chooses.That is the Jewish position and one accepted by many.That may not be the Christian view for some.' " This law violates the separation of church and state guaranteed by the United States Constitution. 

I will be available before the hearing on the front steps of the Capitol after signing in around 8 A.M. and after the hearing. "

After the hearing, there was a loud demonstration in the rotunda of the state capitol by pro-choice activists. I felt ill suddenly and left the building.

A friend in Fairmont is a member of Physicians For a National Health Program. She arranged for me to speak to the West Virginia chapter of the group on Zoom on Sunday, July 31. Here are my remarks to them:

 PNHP 7/31/22

"I am Barry Lee Wendell, the Democratic candidate for United States Congress in West Virginia’s Second District, which covers all twenty-seven counties in the northern half of the state.  I’m a native of Baltimore, Maryland. I spent the first half of my life in Baltimore, New Orleans and Miami and the second half in Los Angeles, Crescent City, California and for the last ten years, Morgantown, where I served two two-year terms on the city council. 

"I looked at your website, and I am interested in your three parts of 'Medicare For All,' Chronic Care, Prevention and Job Freedom. I have stories relating to each of these. 

"I worked as an SSI claims representative in Miami from 1978 to 1984, when I was promoted to Los Angeles as a supervisor. I was in the southernmost office in Dade County. Many of our clients were poor farmworkers, Black from Georgia or Spanish-speaking from Mexico. We also had refugees from Cuba and Haiti, and people from Puerto Rico who were only eligible for SSI if they lived in the fifty states. One day, a well-dressed professional-looking woman came to my desk. She wanted to file a claim on behalf of her son, who was turning eighteen. He had cystic fibrosis. His parents had enough income that as a child, he was not eligible for SSI or Medicaid. The medical bills for her son were exorbitant, and they could get no help. They had taken out second and third mortgages on their house. At eighteen, their son was an adult. I filled out the papers for her to have her son sign. She said he was unable to come into the office, and was not planning to enroll in college. She looked surprised that I would ask that, but as a college student, he would not have been eligible. The case was quickly approved by the medical people in another office, and her son received a small SSI check and, more importantly, Medicaid to pay his enormous hospital bills. He died three months later. That there was no help for these parents and others like them, I still find baffling. Poor families could get Medicaid from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program or would have to go to the emergency room where the state would have to pick up the tab.

"I’ve heard politicians say that undocumented people in our country should not be able to receive medical treatment. But if there is a pandemic, COVID-19 for instance, and people are turned away because of their immigration status, then they are likely to further spread disease through the general population. If there is a contagious disease in our community, then everyone must be treated, whatever legal status they have, regardless of their ability to pay for care. It’s not rocket science. Everyone must be protected and treated, or else everyone in the community is vulnerable. Yes to prevention.

"Many of us have been in jobs where we stayed for the benefits. I worked for more than eighteen years in Los Angeles Unified School District as a substitute. If I worked one hundred days in a school year, I was eligible for good health insurance through the district. 

"Though this benefit is no longer available, I was able to keep my health insurance in retirement if I had one hundred days in fifteen consecutive years and was at least fifty-five years old. In February 2003, seventeen years after I started with the District, when I was fifty-three, I suffered a heart attack while visiting my mother in Baltimore. It was her seventy-fifth birthday, and she was dealing with pancreatic cancer. I was supposed to miss three days of work, but I missed two weeks. Three weeks after my return to Los Angeles, my sister called and asked me to come back. Mom was in hospice and it looked like she was near the end. I saw her the last two days before she died. I missed another two weeks of work, and as of late March, I didn’t have one hundred days in. I was working three days a week and going to cardiac rehab two days, instead of the three days they wanted me to do at rehab.

"I came home from school one day to find a letter from the Substitute Unit saying they were firing me for 'not working enough.' They knew about my heart attack and my mother’s death. I threatened to go to the newspapers with this story, and they backed down. I retired on my fifty-fifth birthday, kept my health insurance even to today, although I have Medicare now. 

"I should have been able to leave that job after my heart attack, instead of risking my health, indeed, my life, by going to work when I could barely walk up a flight of steps.

"My experiences in life teach me that we should have a national free health insurance plan, to protect all of us from epidemics, to get the chronic care people need, and to not leave it to employers who are always trying to cut costs, to provide health care for our people. I will publicly support national healthcare, and I pledge to work for it if I’m elected to Congress this year. Thank you for having me on your call today. "

If you've read all of this, and have questions, while you can post here, it might be more efficient to send a question to me at barrywendellforcongress2022@gmail.com. if you are so moved, you can mail a check  made out to "Barry Wendell for Congress" to Barry Wendell for Congress, P.O. Box 831, Morgantown, WV 26507. If you go to ActBlue.com, you can put my name in the box at the top of the page and make a donation there. Thanks for reading.

The Clean Power Plan

Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day in West Virginia, sunny and 65 F. in Morgantown. Of course, a "typical" November 28 has a high of 48, and it's typically overcast and damp. Climate change has possibly been good for us, maybe not good for the trees and agricultural products.

The President wants to repeal The Clean Power Plan, which would require West Virginia to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2025. The EPA head, Scott Pruitt, now denies that the climate is changing. He is from Oklahoma and a puppet of the extractive industries there. So to make sure everyone in the public had a chance to speak about this proposed repeal, EPA planned one hearing in the whole country that the public could attend, over two days, in Charleston, West Virginia, the state where I live. We elected a Democratic governor, who met with  the US President and became a Republican. All the Republicans and many of the Democrats and leaders of unions here are in the pockets of the coal industry.

I'm on the Council of the one city in West Virginia that agreed to follow the Paris Climate Accords, so I decided to go and testify in Charleston, 165 miles from home.. One could sign up for Tuesday or Wednesday, and thinking "Let's get this over with on Tuesday," forgetting that I had a 5:30 City Council meeting that day, I signed up. They sent back an e-mail saying I would go on between 2 and 2:30 P.M. Tuesday.

I had it all worked out, down to the CDs I would take in the car (Beck's "Midnite Vultures," the first Christina Aguilera album, "Ragged Glory" by Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and Nelly's Country Grammar)". I had to leave about 9:30, have lunch at the Subway in Elkview, just north of Charleston, which was closed because of a washed-out bridge for over a year, thanks to climate-related flooding last year. I would arrive about one, park, find which of three possible rooms I would be in, and be ready to go by 1:30. I brought extra copies of what I planned to say. We were given five minutes; my speech would be three. I put on a suit, and found I couldn't button my collar: too fat, or just my old-guy neck in the way.

All of that happened. I checked in early, and the EPA staffer asked if I would be willing to speak early. I thanked her, and said that would be helpful. They called up two people at a time from the people waiting to speak. Our audience was Cosimo Servidio, the EPA Administrator in our district, and two other staffers. They didn't react to what anyone said.

I wasn't called right away, and they took a fifteen-minute break at 2:30. I asked a staffer if I could be called soon, because I was scheduled before 2:30, and I had to get back. She spoke to someone, and I was first at 2:45.

Most of the people I heard were in favor of keeping the Clean Power Plan, including religious groups talking about caring for the planet, scientists speaking about the health effects of carbon emissions, and civil rights groups who explained that power plants are more likely to be built in minority communities, with negative health outcomes for those communities.

The people I heard speak in favor of abolishing the plan included a coal miner ("I'm a coal miner, my father was a coal miner, and I'm proud to say my son is a coal miner. And I'm not paid like all these people who oppose repealing the plan."), and the head of the Illinois Coal Association, saying the Clean Power Plan would be an economic disaster for all of Illinois, except those liberals in Chicago. I heard later that Bob Murray, of Murray Coal Company, spoke first and brought a cadre of coal miners with him. Murray was a major donor to the current President's campaign.

Here's what I said:

"Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak here today about the Clean Power Plan. I am Barry Lee Wendell. I live in Morgantown, where I have been on the city council  since July 1 of this year. I do not speak for everyone on the Council; this is my own testimony.

"Climate change harms our communities. Scientists have predicted that with rising ocean temperatures, storms will be more severe.This year, we saw  hurricanes that hit Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico with unprecedented force.  In West Virginia, there were floods in Wetzel County, and in my own Monongalia County; last year there was severe flooding in Greenbrier, Kanawha and Clay Counties. Every nation in the world has signed on to the Paris Climate Accords, only this administration in our country wants to pull out of it. Many politicians in West Virginia are climate skeptics, and while most claim to be sincere in their beliefs, the amount of money the coal industry pours into their campaign coffers makes that assertion dubious, at best. The current City Council in Morgantown, at the behest of our Green Team, has signed our city to the Paris Climate Accords, not to thumb our noses at the national Administration, our Senators and Congressional representatives (that is just an added bonus), but to help save the planet.

"From Morgantown one can see the plumes of steam from the two coal-fired power plants at the north end of our county, and from my home, I can often smell the emissions from these plants.

"One coal mogul in West Virginia was jailed for safety violations in his mines that led to the death of coal miners; another has been fined. Some coal companies refuse to release medical information from their own doctors in order to deny black lung benefits to miners. Safety regulations have been gutted thanks to our feckless state legislators, and I read in The Charleston Gazette-Mail that Congressman Mooney introduced a bill to overturn the rule that coal companies have to release records of safety violations to stockholders. As companies declare bankruptcy due to falling prices and corporate malfeasance, miners and retired miners are left with no pension and no health insurance. This is an industry that badly needs reform, and yet, it is being coddled by the United States President because coal mine owners are big campaign contributors and have his ear. The President’s rhetoric will not bring back coal jobs.

"The Environmental Protection Agency was founded under Richard Nixon as a bipartisan effort to clean the water and air in the United States. Scott Pruitt, the current head of the agency, wants to return us to the days of toxic smog and flaming rivers to benefit the oil, gas, and coal industries that support him and the President.

 "I want everyone in West Virginia to have access to  clean air and clean water. To accomplish this, and also to grow our state’s economy, we need to look to the future. We can appreciate the past and honor it, but we cannot live there.  The Clean  Power Plan is forward-looking, will create new jobs, and can be implemented  in West Virginia. I absolutely support it.

"Barry Lee Wendell
Morgantown, WV "



I only added to this that I was not paid to be there.

The woman called up with me was from the NAACP. She said many of the same things I said, and also that most coal-fired plants are located in minority communities. She gave specifics about rates of asthma in children, and other negative health effects of coal-fired plants.

Three women who came down from Morgantown on a bus with the Sierra Club greeted me, and I thanked them for coming. I brought my Council cards, and several people asked for them. I was nervous at first when I spoke, talking to an EPA big-wig, but I got into it, remembered my acting training, slowed down, spoke clearly and looked up. It went well.

I was out by three and had eighteen minutes left on my parking meter. I  bought gas at the convenience store/gas station across the street from West Virginia's Capitol, and bought a bag of trail mix (5 servings of nuts and dried fruit). I made it to City Council 12 minutes late. We had two meetings back-to back, and Christine Wallace, wife of Councilor Ryan Wallace, brought us some yummy vegetarian food for between the meetings. The second meeting lasted until 10:30. I came home and screamed at Joe about the meeting for fifteen minutes, then fell deeply asleep.

Wednesday I only went out of the house to walk for an hour in the afternoon. I needed to decompress. I couldn't make myself do anything. I thought this whole hearing was a scam. The EPA under Pruitt is totally owned by the oil, gas and coal industries and what we say may not have any impact. But at least we said it.

By Thursday morning, Hoppy Kercheval, a Republican commentator on radio and in newspapers, was crowing about how West Virginia finally got a chance to defend its coal industry. He didn't say that most of the speakers at the two-day hearing opposed repealing the Plan. That's how they do. Confronted by evidence, they ignore it.

West Virginia's Sate Capitol building, Charleston, 3 P.M. 11/28, 66 F.