CHARLESTON — Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has spent the last decade as West Virginia’s top legal officer, but he is hoping voters will look at his vast experience winning for the state in courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and view him as most qualified to lead the state.
Morrisey announced his Republican campaign for governor of West Virginia in April in a statewide tour, beginning in Jefferson County where he calls home. Since then, Morrisey has risen to the top of most polls and enjoys support from the conservative advocacy group Club for Growth, which has pledged to spend up to $10 million on Morrisey’s behalf.
Morrisey was first elected to the office of attorney general in 2012 after defeating long-time Democratic Attorney General Darrell McGraw, then re-elected in 2016 and 2020. Morrisey was also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 2018, but was defeated by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
A native of New Jersey, Morrisey came to West Virginia shortly around 2006 after a career in Washington, D.C., as a staffer in the House of Representatives then later as a lobbyist.
While attorney general, Morrisey has secured a number of victories for West Virginia and its core industries at the nation’s highest court. These include a stay issued by the Supreme Court of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan in 2016. Another decision by the Supreme Court in 2022 came down in favor of the state over an attempt by the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Morrisey, like many people who have come to West Virginia from other places, fell in love with the state and its natural beauty. A decade of public service in the Mountain State has led Morrisey to make the case that he is the best choice to lead the state as its next governor.
“This campaign is an opportunity to really help West Virginia move to the next level,” Morrisey said. “I’ve always been very fond of saying that we need to make West Virginia that shining state in the mountains because it’s amazing on all levels. It’s a beautiful state. We all live here. We love it very much.”
Morrisey laid out an aggressive agenda with a focus on improving the state’s low labor force participation rate, bringing the state’s taxes and regulations into line with neighboring states to remain competitive, ensuring that tax dollars can follow individual students and providing more access to vocational and technical training, and continuing the work he started as Attorney General to fight federal overreach. All of this is aimed at retaining and creating new jobs.
“As the state’s next governor, we’re going to have strategies to be able to keep those current jobs and continue the vigilance that you’ve seen that I’ve had in job protection … bringing the whole part of state government from a legal, a policy, an economic, and a political perspective on job retention here in West Virginia,” Morrisey said. “There are a lot of things that I’m eager to do as the state’s next governor, but certainly there are a lot of items on the list that would allow our state to succeed.”
When it comes to making a dent in West Virginia’s high adult and child poverty rates, Morrisey said education and tax reform are key. Focusing on improving reading, writing, and math proficiency for children in early elementary school grades is a priority for Morrisey, which he believes will give those children a better chance when they graduate and enter the workforce.
“If everyone has the ability to succeed from an educational perspective, there’s no stopping how far that they can go,” Morrisey said. “We have to drive those educational attainment rates much higher just even from a reading perspective, and drive the numbers up compared to a lot of the states that we touch and nationally.”
Morrisey would also like to continue the tax reform efforts that began earlier this year under Gov. Jim Justice and the West Virginia Legislature, including a phase out of the personal income tax. Morrisey said the state needs a tax system that lets people keep more of the money they earn, while also being a draw to new people wanting to move to a low-tax state.
“… We have to compete better and attract more people to West Virginia, because those economic opportunities — if they come through – are going to be able to lift that standard of living up,” Morrisey said. “For too long, people put walls up and said, ‘no, we don’t want people to come to West Virginia.’ We need to be competing to get the best and brightest minds to stay in West Virginia and also to come here to our state.
“I’d like to get rid of the income tax in the state,” Morrisey continued. “I know that that’s going to require some very difficult challenges in terms of being able to make the math work. But we have to do something bold to make sure that we’re going to be able to attract people here.”
Part of Morrisey’s plan to recruit and retain state employees, such as teachers, school service workers, social workers, State Police troopers and correctional officers where there are large vacancies, will involve researching how much neighboring states pay similar state employees.
“I want to have a better sense in terms of comparison shopping because I’ve heard too many stories about law enforcement personnel moving to Kentucky or moving to Ohio, or people not being able to compete because of where they’re located,” Morrisey said. “We have to adjust locally given where there’s competition. I’m going to look to do that. I’m going to make sure, though, that we present all the information for all the states for the whole public to see so that folks understand why we have to make the changes that we’re making.”
Besides working on educational proficiency issues, Morrisey wants to expand the state’s small, but growing system of public charter schools and the Hope Scholarship educational voucher program. Morrisey has defended both programs in state court.
“We need to make sure that (school choice is) getting all the direct support that it needs. And I’m a believer that we should expand that,” Morrisey said. “That’s going to enhance the level of competition that we’re seeing here in the mountain state, so I’m a believer in the Hope Scholarship and a believer in charter schools, but there are going to be a lot of other things that we should do.”
Morrisey has been able to secure more than $1 billion in settlements with prescription opioid manufacturers, distributors and pharmacy chains. He also pushed for the creation of the West Virginia First Foundation to help distribute some of those funds in the near future to help law enforcement fight drug trafficking, fund substance use treatment options and help those in recovery return to productive lives.
If elected as governor, Morrisey hopes to be involved with the West Virginia First Foundation and continue to ensure that the settlement dollars it distributes help the state recover after years ravaged by legal and illegal opioids, and rebuild the lives of those recovering from substance use disorder.
“We need to build on some of the successes that we’ve had and the structures that are being put in place right now with the West Virginia First Foundation,” Morrisey said. “West Virginia has an opportunity to truly soar because there will, for the first time ever, not only be a plan to attack the drug epidemic, but there’ll be resources attached to it as well. That’s significant, but it’s not going to be the cure all for all that ails our state. We still need to be holistic in our approach to attack this from a supply, a demand, and an educational perspective.”
Morrisey, echoing the comments of other Republican candidates for governor of West Virginia, believes the nation’s energy future will still require the mining of coal and the production of natural gas to handle the base load energy needs of the country, especially as more electric vehicles hit the road and other parts of the U.S. transition to wind and solar power.
“I would argue that we have to be thinking about this and do it in the right manner to keep our coal and natural gas resources in place while we’re identifying these new opportunities, whether it’s for batteries or whether it’s for a better use in terms of water and wind, and we’re not going down a pathway that’s actually going to be unintentionally hurting the existing base load that we rely on,” Morrisey said.
Morrisey said he is skeptical about President Joe Biden’s 2021 goal of cutting greenhouse emissions in the U.S. between 50% and 52% of 2005 levels by 2030, a carbon-neutral electric grid by 2035, and zero emissions by 2050.
“I don’t think that’s feasible, realistic by any means,’ Morrisey said. “But if you’re going to move in that direction, you still need to have affordable base load power. And that means there’s always a role for coal and for natural gas. And to try to do it without, I think, is a fool’s errand.”
West Virginia has seen a population loss over more than 50 years, driven by educated West Virginians leaving the state for better paying jobs, an older population that is dying and a drop in new births. The state has seen a small uptick in in-migration from other states and a series of new business and manufacturing projects, such as the Appalachian Hydrogen Hub, could bring more people to the state for work.
Morrisey said the next governor and legislative leadership need to move with urgency on tax reform, educational attainment, better access to affordable healthcare and upgrading infrastructure such as roads, bridges and high-speed broadband.
“I would argue if you focus on the core movers that affect the state … and then if you look at the culture and the physical characteristics of the state, that’s how we’re going to really attract people,” Morrisey said. “If you build it, they will come. And we have a unique opportunity if we are really focused on lowering that income tax, dropping it out, focusing on education, on regulations, on the things that have made a lot of other states grow and succeed.”
While some leaving the state in recent years cite some of the socially conservative and culture war-centric bills passed by the Legislature since the Republicans first took the legislative majority as reasons they left, Morrisey sees West Virginia as being a positive draw for new people looking for work, a place to raise a family, and seeking outdoor recreation and natural beauty. But Morrisey said he wants a state where people of all political stripes feel comfortable.
“People shouldn’t be afraid to speak their mind politically,” Morrisey said. “West Virginians are independent people. I’m a proud supporter of Donald Trump, and I think that it’s important that people know that. If you want to come to a state that respects more conservative thinking, I think that’s great. Now, we would welcome anyone to come to West Virginia. I think that’s terrific, but I think people shouldn’t be afraid to speak up for West Virginia values. I’m certainly not.”