FreedomWorks’ Member of the Month for December 2018: Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.)

FreedomWorks is proud to honor Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) as the member of the month for December 2018. He serves in the House of Representatives for West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, which spans lengthwise through the middle of the state, from Harpers Ferry in the state’s easternmost tip to beyond Charleston in the western part of the state.

Rep. Mooney has represented the 2nd Congressional District since 2015 and will be going into his third term in January 2019, having won his reelection by just over 11 percentage points. Prior to his election to Congress, Rep. Mooney served in the Maryland State Senate, representing the 3rd District for 12 years from 1999 to 2011.

Rep. Mooney then moved to the small town of Charles Town — not Charleston — West Virginia, and later chose to run for then-Rep. Shelley Moore Capito’s seat in the 2nd Congressional District, who was running for U.S. Senate. Both were successful in their campaigns. Notably, Rep. Mooney’s victory made him the first Latino to be elected to Congress in West Virginia.

During his time in Congress, Rep. Mooney has been a principled fighter for liberty — as so many of his colleagues in the House Freedom Caucus are — boasting a lifetime score of 91 percent with FreedomWorks. He serves on the House Financial Services Committee, which produced the Financial CHOICE Act, H.R. 10, that would have created more accountability in the United States’ financial system, end the “too big to fail” mentality, and promote economic growth by repealing counterproductive regulations.

Rep. Mooney continually takes a stand against the federal government’s excessive spending, voting against leadership’s “must-pass” spending bills including multiple bloated omnibus spending bills during his time in office. He also introduced legislation, the End Government Shutdowns Act, H.R. 3776, that would strip leadership of its often-used tool of coercing members into voting for such spending bills with the threat of a government shutdown should the bills not pass that day.

His bill would ensure that appropriations would not lapse in these instances, but would continue at the levels provided in the previous fiscal year. This would go a long way in ensuring that leadership and big-government, big-spending proponents cannot use the process against conservatives in facing members with a politically tough, binary choice between debt-exploding spending levels and a government shutdown.

Additionally, Rep. Mooney promotes sound money policy, which FreedomWorks supports. He has a bill that would return the United States to the gold standard, by defining the dollar as a fixed weight of gold. As he notes in the bill, H.R. 5404, “The American economy needs a stable dollar, fixed exchange rates, and money supply controlled by the market, not the government.”

As he has demonstrated in his votes and in his initiatives while in Congress, Rep. Mooney can be counted on as a champion for the limited government principles central to constitutional conservatism. FreedomWorks is proud to feature Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) as December’s member of the month, to recognize and honor those who defend our liberties in Washington every day.