Chris Clagett

Chris Clagett served in the U.S. Navy from 1986 to 2019. He graduated from High Point High School. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland in 1985, an M.D. from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in 1992, and a graduate degree from Boston University in 1998. His career experience includes working as a physician.[1]

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I am a Christian and husband to one wife, Nancy, for 36 years, and father of three children, now grown. I am a former Naval medical officer, retiring after 34 years of active service. My specialty in medicine was preventive medicine and public health.

I am an ardent admirer of the Founders and the Constitutional order they established. I consider it one of the duties of elected representatives to preserve that order of limited government and individual liberty. I have a strong interest in economics, adhering to the principles taught by the Austrian School and rejecting the voodoo crackpottery of modern spend-ourselves-rich theory. I also have an enduring interest in early reading instruction, having taught my two oldest children to read in kindergarten after immersing myself in research on how a child acquires the reading skill in an alphabetic writing system.

Since moving to West Virginia in 2021, I have become aware that our state and county governments have largely abandoned the Founders’ vision. Although West Virginia has steadily lost population for the last half-century, our state government has only grown larger, consuming an ever-larger share of productive citizens’ means. Taxes on how many dogs, goats, or sheep you have, taxes on your vehicles and equipment, taxes on rainwater runoff they claim to ‘manage,’ and more demonstrate statists’ bottomless ingenuity when it comes to picking your pocket.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Our educational system performs very poorly for its exorbitant cost of $2B per year. For that price, we should be doing much better. The answer is competition and choice; the Hope scholarship is a good start, and should be expanded and supplemented by other pro-choice ideas. For children who remain in public schools, we need to get rid of the cultural Marxism corroding the education, indoctrinating children in Marxism recast along racial, ethnic, sexual, and even religious lines of oppressor and oppressed.Balanced growth. We are turning the eastern panhandle into bedroom communities for people who work elsewhere but prefer to live here because of our lower costs. High density housing developments are springing up like mushrooms after a rain, approved by the county with no consideration for impact on school crowding, road capacity, emergency services, etc. The development we need is employers, followed by neighborhoods for people who both live and work here, not people who live here and work elsewhere.End the Rain Tax. Rainwater runoff for most of the people paying this rainwater runoff "management" tax have their runoff go straight into creeks, which drain into the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. My property drains to Back Creek, which empties into the Potomac. Not a drop is "managed" by anyone but God, and He's doing a fine job without charging me a penny. My situation is the rule, not the exception.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Medical Freedom. The last several years witnessed one of the most egregious, tyrannical assaults on freedom in the history of the Republic, all in the name of the alleged common good. People should have the right to refuse any medical procedure, including immunization, for themselves AND their children. Submitting to a medical procedure should NEVER be made the price of school attendance, keeping a job, or participating in civil society.