West Virginia Legislature This Week features array of lawmakers, officials as session draws to a close

The biggest accomplishment of this year’s session so far is the tax reform package Gov. Jim Justice signed into law Tuesday, according to Capito.

“We’re talking about the largest tax cut in the history of West Virginia,” he said. “I’m incredibly proud that we were able to get that over the line, and get that over the line with plenty of time to spare.”

The bill includes a 22.25% reduction in the state’s personal income tax rate and “triggers” that would enact further reductions in years when the state meets specified revenue collection benchmarks.

During an appearance on the webcast last week, Justice indicated he might call a special session of the Legislature later this year to consider further tax cuts.

Capito seconded that approach, saying he would like to see the state fully eliminate the income tax sooner rather than later.

“We’ll have to see what those numbers look like. I know that there are others that would prefer to wait on the triggers that are set forth in the bill that we put in,” he said. “I think if we get to a meaningful number, vis-à-vis our surplus as we go through the year, I think the quicker that we can act, the better.”

Capito, the son of U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and the grandson of former Gov. Arch Moore, has declared his intention to run for governor in 2024.

Capito said he considers himself to be a “West Virginia conservative.”

“We stand for smaller government. We stand for a conservative, flat budgets that we’ve seen has yielded results over the over the past years. And, you know, of course, we value energy,” he said. “We’ve always been the energy experts in this country, you know, going back centuries in this in this state, and what I see is that we can be the future of energy.”

Garcia, first elected to the House of Delegates in 2020, discussed House Bill 3018, which would increase the legal marriage age to 18.

“This is an important issue because in the state of West Virginia, even somebody under the age of 12, with a parental consent and with an order from a judge, can marry somebody,” he said. “This is an issue that’s come up with respect to sex trafficking.”

Manchin, a former lawmaker and former Harrison County Schools superintendent, spoke about Senate Bill 10, which will allow students with concealed carry permits to have firearms on college and university campuses.

“It’s my understanding that we have some flexibility in this legislation that will allow us to put some restriction on that,” he said. “So we’ll be looking at that once we get a chance to sit down and look at the bill and exactly what it allows us to do. But we want to make all of our students safe.”

Ramsey, president and CEO of Vandalia Health, and Goldberg, president and CEO of Mon Health and executive vice president of Vandalia Health, commented on the health system’s recent partnership agreement with Davis Health System.

“They’ve joined our health network and then our what we call provider hospital organization. So we’re working with them on relationships with various managed care companies in the state and bringing opportunities for them to provide quality oversight to their patients that might be insured by the various insurance companies in our state,” Ramsey said. “And then we will be bringing telemedicine to them.”

The Vandalia executives also talked about Senate Bill 268, which makes changes to the West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency.

“I think that this is a good opportunity, from a PEIA perspective, to bring stability to the program,” Goldberg said. “I applaud the Legislature and the governor for some of the leadership they’re taking and moving forward.”

West Virginia Legislature This Week is a webcast produced by WV News in collaboration with The State Journal and West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Sponsors of West Virginia Legislature This Week include Mon Health Systems, SEVA-WV and the West Virginia High Technology Consortium.

Past episodes of West Virginia Legislature This Week can be found at wvnews.com.