Constitution Party of WV holds Winter Summit

PARKERSBURG — The Constitution Party of West Virginia celebrated its new status as a recognized political party with ballot access in the state at its Winter Summit Saturday in Parkersburg, but their focus was more on the future than the recent accomplishment.
“You are refitting and retraining and rearming,” said S. Marshall Wilson, a former Republican state delegate from Berkeley County whose showing in the 2024 gubernatorial race secured the party’s recognition. “We’re going to have candidates up and down the ballot” in 2026.
Wilson said the party’s guiding principle is the belief that government exists for no other purpose than to secure the rights of the people. He said they plan to work to replace government officials “who commit egregious violations” against that principle.
“Party is not relevant to us,” Wilson said, adding that they wouldn’t rule out helping Democratic, Republican or Libertarian candidates who share their view of the role of government.
Joining Wilson at the Rock Church on 37th Street for the event were the party’s national chairman, Justin Magill, regional Chairman Bob Goodrich and state Chairwoman Amy Stull.
“The achievement of ballot access for a state party is pretty huge,” Magill said. “There’s a lot of folks desperately looking for something. And we have an opportunity to present ourselves as that something.”
Magill said he wants to see people not only running at the state level, like Wilson, but for school boards and city and county government.
“That’s really the key for the change, and that’s really the level where the resistance should be,” he said.
Boards of education can push back against state and national authorities telling schools what they can and can’t do, Magill said.
Goodrich said he’d been a lifelong Republican who always voted for conservative candidates but the GOP “has traded principle for power.” He said he turned to the Constitution Party in 2010 after a conversation with God and emphasized the importance of voting for people who will do what’s right instead of just those who can win.
About 40 people attended the event, including North Hills resident Glenn Newman, a member of the MOVCAC group.
“At 80, I never thought I would see the day when the back of the two party system was broken. And it has been,” Newman said.
Also in attendance was Tricia Jackson, a former Jefferson County commissioner who ran for state auditor as a Republican in 2024. Before losing in the primary, Jackson was removed from her commissioner’s post by a three-judge panel over her and another commissioner’s absences from multiple meetings in late 2023 in a dispute over the appointment process for a vacant commission seat.
Jackson said members of the Republican party had a hand in her removal from office.
“I’m a principled person. I believe in the Constitution. And I believe in representing the people,” she said. “I could no longer be associated with the Republican Party.”
Stull kicked off the second half of the summit by reading “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She said the country stands on the brink of a new revolution, not with weapons but with truth and ideals and asked people to consider running for office.
Stull said the party needs moral candidates who will uphold the principles and original intent of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.