Head to Head: Morrisey and Williams take questions in first gubernatorial debate
FAIRMONT — The two major party candidates for governor of West Virginia faced off Tuesday night in their first, and likely their last, debate before the close of early voting this week and election day next week.
Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Democratic Huntington Mayor Steve Williams went head-to-head Tuesday evening in a debate moderated by WV MetroNews “Talkline” host Hoppy Kercheval at Fairmont State University.
Morrisey, a three-term attorney general since 2013 and an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate in 2018, won the GOP nomination for governor in May in a six-person primary. Williams, also wrapping up his third term at the helm of West Virginia’s second largest city, was unopposed in the Democratic primary.
Kercheval asked Morrisey about calls from Williams for the Legislature to adopt joint resolutions to put before voters amendments to place language in the state constitution providing citizens the freedom to make reproductive health care decisions and to legalize recreational cannabis.
West Virginians already voted in 2018 to add language to the Constitution stating that “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.” Kercheval asked Williams why voters in the state need to address the issue of abortion and reproductive rights again.
“Freedom is on the ballot,” Williams said “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. I think what we’re starting to see…this slippery slope that is occurring as a result of this. Because there are women that are losing their healthcare options that are available to them when doctors are fearful of actually being able to make decisions to save a woman’s life and place their license in jeopardy.”
Following a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in the summer of 2022 that overturned previous decisions that gave women the right to abortion access, the Republican-led Legislature passed a near-total ban on all abortions. Exceptions include instances of rape or incest up to eight weeks of gestation if reported to law enforcement (14 weeks of gestation for minors), cases of a non-medically viable fetus, ectopic pregnancies, or medical emergencies.
Morrisey supports West Virginia’s current abortion law and sees no need to add any further restrictions, such as limiting access to in vitro fertilization treatments. Some Republican states have put restrictions on IVR treatments due to the destruction of non-implanted fetuses.
“I think in West Virginia there’s strong support for IVF,” Morrisey said. “West Virginia is an amazing place, and we want to have as many babies as possible. I don’t think there are many members of the Legislature who would want to get rid of IVF.”
Several county school boards have voted to consolidate schools due to declining student enrollment causing reductions in state school aid. The West Virginia Constitution requires the state to provide for a thorough and efficient system of free schools, but schools face numerous challenges. These include shortages of qualified teachers, low pay for educators compared to other states, open enrollment between counties, and competition from statewide virtual charter schools and the Hope Scholarship voucher program for private and homeschooling.
Kercheval asked both Morrisey and Williams about these challenges to traditional public education and whether the state should consider collapsing the 55 county school districts into a more regional system to pool resources.
“What I prefer is regionalization, but also maintaining the counties,” Williams said. “Give some freedom to the local school boards to be able to make some decisions. So many decisions now are being made out of Charleston. Frankly. I think that’s the quintessential example of arrogance that everything has to be decided in Charleston. Give the local governments, give the county boards the ability to be able to make some decisions, but also create regional compacts where there can be a consolidation of administrative duties.”
Morrisey said reviewing how county schools operate would be part of his statewide review of rules and regulations to help county schools find efficiencies. Williams said he prefers regionalization for handling administrative duties of school systems, but said the state Department of Education and Board of Education have too much control over local county school board decision-making.
“I think we can certainly find ways to reduce some of the bloated bureaucracies that exist and share services and do things much better,” Morrisey said. One of the things that West Virginia needs to do is it needs to be thinking about how it’s repurposing government into the future, because we’re spending more per person on state government than virtually any state in the nation.”
Both candidates refused to say that the public school system is failing students. While math and English Language Arts attainment is improving from lows during the COVID-19 pandemic, math and ELA scores remain lower than most other states. But Morrisey and Williams differed on the issue of school choice.
“If school choice is saying we’re sending our public dollars over into private schools, then how are we able to control where those public dollars are going? I have concerns with that school choice of individuals…to be able to say, well, I want to go to school at another place,” Williams said.
“The reason why I am so optimistic with respect to providing young families with the ability to make the decision to choose a school that works well for their kids is because that’s going to be what is the driver to help drive quality within not only the private schools, but the public schools as well,” Morrisey said.
Related to the issue of low pay for teachers and school service personnel is the Public Employees Insurance Agency, which is considering raising premiums and out-of-pocket expenses to address costs and strains on the healthcare provider for state workers. Kercheval asked Morrisey and Williams if they would be willing to look at a sixth round of pay raises for public employees in the next fiscal year budget to help absorb the increased insurance costs.
“I’m not looking to create a pay raise. I’m looking for a permanent fix because the pay raises that have been provided have just been pay raises just to be able to cover it,” Wiliams said. “The permanent fix is funding (PEIA) properly, and it hasn’t been funded properly.”
“This was foreseeable because the issue has not been addressed the right way over a number of years,” Morrisey said. “We’re wrestling with the high cost of prescription drugs, and 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. We need more competition overall within our healthcare system in West Virginia.”
Gov. Jim Justice and the Legislature have reduced personal income tax rates by more than 27% since 2023, with a combined 6% personal income tax cut going into effect in January 2025, returning an additional $138 million to taxpayers when fully implemented. Justice originally proposed a 5% personal income tax cut earlier this summer, but both Morrisey and Williams released statements raising concerns about what effect a 5% cut would have on the next fiscal year budget.
The personal income tax brought in more than $2.2 billion for the general revenue fund in fiscal year 2024 ending in July, making up nearly 40% of the $5.7 billion in tax collections that fiscal year. Kercheval asked both candidates if they support the concept of eliminating the state’s personal income tax and how they would go about doing that while finding a replacement for the revenue the personal income tax brings in.
“Yes, if I have an opportunity to be able to go in and eliminate the income tax, I’ll find a way to do that, but I don’t see a plan in place…We need to have a plan and a strategy in place,” Williams said.
“On day one of a Morrissey administration, we’re actually going to lay down every single tax that West Virginia currently has….and we’re going to compare it with every single state that we touch,” Morrisey said. “Then the first order is to actually try to take steps to start to defeat the other states economically, to have superior tax policy. “
With the state still struggling to address the need of reducing the number of children in foster care, Kercheval asked Morrisey and Williams how they would go about reducing the number.
“We definitely need to raise the reimbursement per child for foster care,” Williams said. “Some are staying in hotels, some are staying on college campuses, some are staying in cabins and in state parks. This has to be addressed…it’s criminal, what is happening to them.”
“I know the Legislature’s been slowly trying to address some of those changes, but I think that this is an area that’s really going to benefit from a lot of the auditing,” Morrisey said. “The people who work in CPS and foster care, these people are some of the most dedicated state workers you’re ever going to find…We have to have the right people and make sure that the kids are being looked out for.”
Both Morrisey and Williams were asked questions about handling the continuing substance use disorder crisis, their stance on Amendment 1 on the ballot to prohibit physician-assisted suicide, their stance on required immunizations for school children, and tax credits for in-home caregiving for seniors. But Kercheval asked both candidates a question about who has the most experience to be the state’s chief executive.
“The one thing I would say is moving from the attorney general position to the governor position, all of these issues are going to have a different set of eyes,” Morrisey said. “I’m going to take all of the information, the experience, the knowledge that you learn from the (Attorney General’s) office and apply it to the chief executive position.”
“I’m the only one who has actually run an operation as the chief executive,” Williams said. “Yes, it’s a city, but the difference between the city and the state is nothing but zeroes. The fundamentals are still the same. And you bring people together…I took a city that was sitting in a position of the most obese, most unhealthy, and the most drug addicted city in the nation. And now we’re identified as the top 100 cities in which to live, top 50 cities in which to retire, the 17th best run city in the nation, and also in the top 100 safest cities in the nation.”