Statehouse beat: What Morrisey's actions say about his priorities
Gazette-Mail columnist Phil Kabler.
Government is all about priorities.
With finite resources, resources that grow more finite with Republicans’ insistence on slashing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, state, local and federal governments are unable to be all things to all people, so priorities must be set.
For instance, Gov. Patrick Morrisey concluded the state did not have enough resources to give school clothing vouchers to many of West Virginia’s neediest children, but did have sufficient resources to stage a July 4 extravaganza at the Capitol, featuring a $350,000 Ferris wheel, a $150,000 Alabama concert and a $775,000 light show.
If he wanted, Morrisey could have made it a priority to see that all of the estimated 80,000 needy children statewide have new school clothes, but chose not to.
Without explanation, the Morrisey administration opened the voucher enrollment period three weeks late, and closed the enrollment window after just seven days, claiming to have exhausted all funding set aside for the clothing program.
Morrisey initially claimed that enrollment was closed over concerns that the cost for it and other Temporary Assistance to Needy Families programs was outpacing what the state receives in federal TANF funds.
When legislators concluded that wasn’t true, Morrisey changed his tune, claiming the program was shut down because of the likelihood it is rife with fraud, since the $200 payment per child is added to the parent’s EBT card, meaning that instead of being used to buy clothing, recipients could, in Morrisey’s words, be buying beer and cigarettes — items that in reality cannot be purchased with state EBT cards.
Criminalizing the poor has been a time-honored Republican trope, dating back to Ronald Reagan’s nonsense about "welfare queens."
Notably, as someone who is hosting a fundraiser in Napa Valley, California, with tickets going from $10,000 to $25,000, Morrisey opined about the poor buying beer and cigarettes, not champagne and cigars.
Worse, Morrisey is asserting without evidence that a sizable number of West Virginia parents are so depraved and cold-hearted that they would steal from their children for their own personal gratification.
What little evidence the Morrisey administration has put forward for abuse was the use of EBT cards to make cash withdrawals from ATMs near bars and liquor stores. It’s perfectly legal to make TANF cash assistance withdrawals from ATMs. The cited withdrawals accounted for less than 1% of all transactions.
Even Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, who never struck me as being a fount of empathy, countered that in low-income neighborhoods, the closest ATMs may well be located near such establishments. Indeed, banks rarely put branches in low-income neighborhoods.
While Morrisey was quick to launch an investigation into the school clothing voucher program while lacking specific instances of fraud and abuse, he has shown no interest in investigating the significant evidence of misuse and abuse of the state’s Hope Scholarship voucher program which provides public funds for children to attend private schools or homeschooling. In May, the Hope Scholarship Board was forced to issue a voluminous list of unallowable expenses, a list that includes witchcraft herbs, live animals, ammunition and chicken coops costing in excess of $400.
Could it be that because recipients of the $4,900 Hope vouchers are primarily middle-class or higher, Morrisey has no interest in investigating potential abuse of that program?
Speaking of priorities
Likewise, Morrisey and the Legislature could invest in upgrading water systems in southern West Virginia so that thousands could have potable water to drink and bathe in, they just chose not to make it a priority.
No wonder that, as the Gazette-Mail’s Mike Tony reported, local residents were highly skeptical of Morrisey’s 10-stop “water listening tourâ€Â — a skepticism no doubt heightened by the fact that the times and locations of the governor’s appearances were not made public in advance.
Editor's note: This report was supported by the Pulitzer Center and is part of a Gazette-Mail series on drinking water quality in West Virginia.
On the tour, Morrisey claimed that, during his tenure, the state had made $174 million in grants and loans that can be leveraged for a total of $550 million for water and sewer projects. However, as Tony reported, the state Water Development Authority lists just 23 grants totaling $15.2 million, far short of the estimated $1.73 billion needed to bring the state’s 414 water systems up to par.
Obviously, a number that big requires federal intervention. President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure and Jobs Act allocated $487 million for water infrastructure in the state, but Donald Trump paused that funding shortly after taking office in 2025, and overall funding for the act is set to expire Sept. 30, with no assurances Congress will extend it.
While state government has been chintzy when it comes to funding water projects, it had no problem coming up with a $50.9 million unsecured loan to Omnis Energy to convert a coal-fired power plant in Pleasants County into a hydrogen production facility – a project that relied on unproven technology that many experts dismissed as being untenable.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Omnis Energy declared bankruptcy last month, so that $50.9 million that could have at least made a dent in the southern West Virginia water crisis is likely gone with the wind.
Priorities.
The data center problem
It appears members of the Republican supermajority are beginning to realize that West Virginia voters are fighting mad over legislation passed in 2025 giving data center operators free rein to locate facilities wherever they wish. They're also allowed to keep details of the operations secret, and half of the resulting tax revenue is directed to a fund to give more tax breaks to the wealthy.
Thus, Morrisey held a news conference this week to unveil seven “guiding principles†for state recruitment of the massive data centers. Naturally, it amounted to a series of platitudes which have no weight of law and do nothing to change the legislation. Nor did it do anything about legislative rules adopted this session for enforcing the law, in which the Republican supermajority rejected all amendments designed to make the legislation more palatable.
While Morrisey and data center attorney and House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, stuck to the script for the charade, Senate President Randy Smith, R-Preston, seemed to say the quiet part out loud in his remarks, stating, “Everyone knows these data centers have been a huge problem.â€
Yes, members of the Republican supermajority are recognizing that the data center law is an albatross around their necks, and voters are outraged that they have no say in where these massive, noisy, pollution-spewing, energy and water hogging complexes are located — facilities that may well leave them with a reduced quality of life, higher electric bills and water shortages.
As I’ve said before, this will be the top issue in November legislative races.
Revenue down
Speaking of taxes, it’s official: State revenue collections failed to grow sufficiently in fiscal year 2025-26 to trigger a personal income tax cut next year under the 2023 law designed to phase out the tax.
In fact, the state missed the trigger by nearly $440 million.
Using a somewhat complicated formula, the benchmark is fiscal 2018-19 general revenue, excluding volatile severance tax collections, adjusted for inflation.
That works out to $5.598 billion for fiscal 2025-26, but actual 2025-26 revenue collections, minus severance taxes, came in at only $5.159 billion.
Indeed, revenue collections have only hit the benchmark once, resulting in a modest 4% cut, out of a maximum of 10%, in 2025.
Falling $440 million short of the benchmark was probably not what then-Gov. Jim Justice envisioned when he signed the tax cut bill into law during a gala ceremony featuring a balloon drop, declaring that was delivering on the “rocket ship ride†he had promised when he first took office. Some rocket ship. Some ride.
Of course, judging by the multiple liens filed against them, the Justice family has found a much more effective way to lower their tax liability: Just don’t pay up.
Standing up against corruption
Finally, kudos to the State Bar Board of Governors and the West Virginia Lawyer Disciplinary Board for standing up against corruption in the Trump administration.
The boards adopted a joint resolution opposing a proposed Department of Justice policy change that would give the U.S. Attorney General authority to unilaterally suspend state bar investigations and disciplinary proceedings against current and former DOJ attorneys.
In other words, Attorney General Todd Blanche would have carte blanche to block any state bar investigations of alleged wrongdoing or unethical behavior by DOJ attorneys. As the Brennan Center For Justice called it, it is the department’s “latest effort to dismantle checks on its abuses of power.â€
The joint resolution states, “The attorney disciplinary system of West Virginia is designed to ensure that all attorneys admitted to practice — regardless of their employer or government affiliation — are subject to the same ethical standards and disciplinary processes.â€
It concludes, “The undersigned underscore the importance of preserving the authority of the Supreme Court of West Virginia and its disciplinary bodies to carry out their responsibilities without interference, in a manner that assures equal application of ethical standards to all attorneys.â€
According to West Virginia Lawyer magazine, the resolution was adopted unanimously, with some members abstaining.
Given the fealty that many legislators and state officials continue to show for Trump, despite his cratering approval ratings, standing up to the DOJ is a rare and welcomed display of fortitude, which one hopes will be an example for others to stand up against corruption in the Trump administration.
Phil Kabler is a semi-retired statehouse reporter. He can be reached at 304-348-1220, or philk@hdmediallc.com. Follow @PhilKabler on X.
