CHARLESTON W.Va. (WVDN) – Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Democrat Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, both vying to be West Virginia’s next governor, sat down on Tuesday night for the first and only debate ahead of Election Day.
The candidates agreed on issues like cutting taxes and fixing the state’s struggling public schools. But there were clear differences on policy and ideas as the two challenged how each other’s resumes made them qualified to lead a state embroiled in substance use disorder and a foster care crisis.
The MetroNews-sponsored event was held at Fairmont State University in Fairmont, West Virginia, and moderated by Hoppy Kercheval. The event wasn’t open to the public.
Morrisey, who has led polls and fundraising in the race, focused his answers around how he’d audit and analyze state agencies, public education and cut regulations to make improvements. He said he’d push for additional tax cuts.
“One of the things that I plan to do when I become governor is to do an audit and review of literally every agency and every program,” he said. “I’m not a tax and spend liberal. My values are about looking after the Constitution. I believe in limited government, when you have savings, you return as much of it to the people as possible.
Williams, who is in his third term as mayor, touted his time improving Huntington — a city that was once the nation’s epicenter of the drug crisis.
“I believe in making sure that you enable local governments to be able to run things. All decisions don’t have to come out of Charleston,” he said.
There have been financial improvements in Huntington, too, Williams said, and he’d support a tax cut if state finances can still adequately fund child welfare, the state’s public insurance provider, water systems and more.
“I’m the only one who has cut taxes, and we’ve cut cutting significantly in my city, but we did it and had a plan and a strategy in place to assure that the way that we would do it would actually create other economic opportunities,” he said.
Morrisey anticipates that, if elected, he’ll push further tax cuts.
“I believe in West Virginia we can find the resources we need,” he said. “I think if we bring our energy resources together, and when President [Donald] Trump wins, and we stop all this nonsense from Biden-Harris on our energy resources, we’re going to be able to grow that sector of the economy, providing additional resources which will fuel the ability to diversify our economy and lower our income tax.”
Candidates know public education is struggling, differ on how to fix it
The next governor, who will replace Gov. Jim Justice, will grapple with the state’s struggling public education system, and debate on the topic took up a large portion of the first half of the hour-long event.
Public schools, which serve the majority of the state’s children, are struggling with post-pandemic learning loss, teacher shortages and widespread student discipline issues while also serving thousands of children in foster care.
School budgets are in trouble, too, due to West Virginia’s rapid population decline, waning of COVID-19 relief funds and students leaving the schools to use the state’s education’s savings account program.
Morrisey, a strong advocate for school choice, said a continued expansion of the Hope Scholarship — the state’s broad education savings account program — would boost the low academic test scores. The Hope Scholarship provides $4,400 per student in taxpayer money to families to use for private school, homeschooling and more.
“I want it to be the broadest in the country, so it can start to show the metrics are improving. Then the public schools are going to be in a robust competition to follow, and we’re going to help make sure we fix the public schools as well,” he said.
Williams pushed back on Morrisey’s answer, noting that more than $300,000 in Hope Scholarship funds have been used at out-of-state schools.
“We will end up finding that only the wealthy are going to be going to Hope Scholarship schools. Everything points to that,” he said.
West Virginia has the worst teacher pay in the country. While both candidates agreed that educators deserve a raise, Morrisey said the state education department and teachers salaries were areas that needed to be audited.
“There is a need for a thorough and efficient education, and if you can get rid of some of the bureaucratic waste, then I think we can do that more effectively,” Morrisey said.
Williams was firm that teachers needed a raise, and said to Morrisey, “There are teachers who are watching this right now who are squealing out loud because they remember during the strike … they remember you were threatening to have them fired or put in prison. Saying you’re an advocate for teachers, it doesn’t wash very well with the teachers.”
PEIA funding debacle will be a challenge for next governor
Teachers along with state and employees could see another major price hike to their health insurance costs due to rising prescription drug costs, according to the Public Employees Insurance Agency. The agency’s board has proposed increasing premiums by 14% for state employees and by 16% for local government employees by next year.
Both state and county employees would see an increase of 40% in their out-of-pocket maximum as well as increase in co-pays.
Morrisey and Williams agreed that PEIA needs a permanent fix, but neither candidate could quite articulate how to do it.
Williams said he feared that Morrisey would move toward privatization of PEIA.
“I’m looking for a permanent fix,” Williams said. “The permanent fix is to fund it properly. When they start to look at privatizing, about 20% goes into administration. Right now, about 6 to 8% goes into administration,” he said.
Morrisey said the issue hasn’t been addressed correctly over the years. He said he worried about seniors on fixed incomes who wouldn’t be helped by state pay raises to offset the proposed premium increases.
“Medical costs are going through the roof, and one of the things we need to do is we need to be even more aggressive in terms of the rebates from the drug companies. We can do that separately,” Morrisey said. “We need more competition overall within our health care system in West Virginia, one of the problems that we’re seeing in our state right now is we’re fueling the effects of Obamacare.”
Candidates differ on abortion, agree on protecting IVF
Abortion is one of the key issues that could drive voters this election. State lawmakers in 2022, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe. v. Wade, passed an abortion ban with few exceptions.
As part of his campaign, Williams proposed a ballot measure that would guarantee the right to an abortion.
“I trust women to make their own decisions. My opponent doesn’t trust women to be able to make these decisions, and frankly, for the state legislature to be making these decisions,” he said. “Doctors are fearful of actually being able to make decisions to save a woman’s life and place their licenses in jeopardy.”
Morrisey, a staunch anti-abortion advocate, pointed to a 2018 Constitutional referendum that said, “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.”
“I think people knew the stakes of what was coming down the pike. I’d also note this when it comes to the question of abortion, our legislature has gone through this,” he said. “We’ve rejected some of the approaches that other states have had, which would allow abortion literally up to birth. That’s a very radical policy.”
Nine states and the District of Columbia have no gestational limits on abortions, however abortions after 21 weeks — which is considered late-term — are rare and only represent 1% of all abortions. Abortions “moments before birth” are not legal in the U.S.
Access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) services has also become an election issue after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen embryos created during the IVF process could be considered children. The issue is heavily embedded in state’s abortion laws.
West Virginia’s abortion ban does not include IVF in its restrictions, and both candidates felt it should continue to be legally available to families who choose it.
“I don’t see that the state has any interest in interfering in the reproductive choices that women and their partner are going to make,” Williams said.
Morrisey said his position was with Trump, who has vowed to protect IVF.
Candidates weigh in on Amendment 1
West Virginia voters will also consider Amendment 1, which would decide whether the state Constitution should prohibit physicians and other health care providers from helping a patient die. Medically assisted suicide is already illegal in the state; Amendment 1 would enshrine a “protection against medically assisted suicide” into the state’s constitution.
Morrisey said he supported the amendment.
“I think that we should protect our most vulnerable from physician-assisted suicide,” he said. “I recognize that it’s not on the books right now, but what that means is the Constitution is a further protection, so we’re going further.”
Williams said it was, like women’s reproductive rights, a freedom issue.
“Freedom is on the ballot here, and when someone is facing health decisions with their physician, it’s their business,” he said. “It’s not 134 members of the Legislature and the governor having any need to intervene.”
Early voting continues through Nov. 2. A complete list of early voting locations and times is available on the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office website.
Election day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Polls open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m.
Watch the full debate below:
This article originally appeared on West Virginia Watch.
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