Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Huntington Mayor Steve Williams spoke back-to-back at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Meeting and Business Summit at The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (Amelia Ferrell Knisely | West Virginia Watch)
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — Patrick Morrisey and Steve Williams, the Republican and Democrat seeking to be West Virginia’s next governor, on Wednesday laid out their plans for how they would tackle some of the state’s pressing issues: population decline, economic development and the substance abuse crisis.
The candidates, who haven’t publicly debated, spoke back-to-back at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Meeting and Business Summit at The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
Morrisey, the state’s attorney general, said he’d take a data-driven approach to improving the state, vowing to compare West Virginia’s business policies, regulations and taxes with those in neighboring states to see where changes could be made.
“If you want West Virginia to rise, we first have to start competing better regionally with the states that we touch,” said Morrisey, who won a competitive Republican primary to secure the nomination. “I plan to challenge many of the basic assumptions that have been in place for a long time so that West Virginia can grow, and you can measure its growth and so that our kids can be proud to stay home.”
Morrisey also reminded the audience, which included the state’s business leaders and elected officials, that the attorney general’s office had fought what he called “federal overreach” on attempts to curtail carbon emissions and regulate wetlands under the Clean Water Act.
Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, who previously worked in finance, focused on his years improving the city’s economics and livability, saying that Huntington had “transformed” from being the epicenter of the opioid epidemic to being the epicenter of the solution to the problem.
“We’ve lowered the crime rate, particularly violent crime,” said Williams, who is serving his third term as mayor. “It has been the only large metro market in West Virginia to increase employment levels above pre-COVID levels.
“In fact, we’ve cut taxes, including eliminating the B&O tax on manufacturing and on retail businesses, and we also cut in half service business B&O taxes. All of this was done to encourage businesses to choose locations in our downtown area … and in our industrial areas.”
Morrisey also acknowledged the state’s ongoing substance abuse crisis . A n estimated 208,000 people in West Virginia used illicit drugs in the last month, according to a survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration shared with lawmakers earlier this week.
He pointed to the state’s record $1 billion in opioid settlement money that is supposed to help communities and individuals around the state.
“West Virginia is number one per person for settlements in the nation,” Morrisey said, adding that fentanyl use had become a new challenge for the state. “But all of that doesn’t mean anything unless we build upon the success from the past and we look into the future … for the first time ever in our state’s history, we now have a plan of attack against the dreadful drug menace, and we have resources to deal with that.”
Neither candidate laid out plans to improve the state’s public education system, which faces a teacher shortage , funding crises and pervasive student discipline issues as it serves thousands of children in foster care and who are homeless.
Morrisey focused on expanding school choice, saying enrolling more students in the state’s controversial and broad education savings account program — the Hope Scholarship — would help improve education outcomes that lag behind the rest of the country.
“I want to be your education governor, and not just for the sake of having the title,” he said. “As your next governor, I want to make sure that school choice in our state is known as the best and the broadest school choice policy in America.”
Williams’ comments on education were limited to, “We should expect platinum standards in innovation, economic development, health outcomes, infrastructure, development, education, attainment and prosperity.”
With a close U.S. presidential race, Morrisey said it is crucial to have former President Donald J. Trump elected. “Otherwise, the kind of policies they’re going to spit out, that’s a full time job defending against all that nonsense, and we have to make sure that West Virginia is out in front on all of these new governmental changes that we’re going to push forward.”
While Williams didn’t mention Vice President Kamala Harris, he did make it a point to say that West Virginia should “become a haven for women’s health and reproductive freedom.”
“When we say mountaineers are always free, we need to make sure that that means mountaineer women too,” he said.
Williams, who is running in a red state, said he could care less about party affiliation and would work across the aisle to move the state forward.
“The two letters I do have after my name are all that matters, W V. I’m a West Virginian … We need all hands on deck, not just hands of the proper political party, gender, race or any other designation.”
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