By Autumn Shelton, West Virginia Press Association
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – West Virginia’s Attorney General J.B. McCuskey, Secretary of State Kris Warner and Auditor Mark Hunt spoke about their legislative priorities for the upcoming legislative session during the West Virginia Press Association’s annual Legislative Lookahead, held on Feb. 7.
For McCuskey, who was the first speaker during the Board of Public Works panel, his office will focus on defending the things that West Virginia does best.
He explained that for the past 16 years, the state’s legislature has been working to “reduce an enormous amount of the barriers that prevented our economy from growing.”
“We’ve spent a ton of time working on our business climate, our tax climate,” McCuskey said. “For the last eight years, we’ve had a governor who was incredible at economic development, and we have, for the first time in my life, we’re cutting ribbons at a pace that prevents politicians from going to all of the events.”
McCuskey continued that West Virginia is now well-positioned for growth and that individuals from across the nation are beginning to look at the Mountain State as a possible place to relocate and raise their family.
“We’re super excited in the attorney general’s office, especially just in the last couple of days, to be able to defend the things that West Virginia does best, and to be able to defend the things that we’ve done to build this country,” McCuskey said. “And, we’ve been able to defend the ways in which West Virginia has played the most integral key part in the expansion of the American economy for the last 150 years.”
(For more information on a recently announced lawsuit led by West Virginia against the state of New York, read Rick Steelhammer’s reporting, “McCuskey leads multi-state lawsuit against NY Climate Superfund Act,” in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
McCuskey said that he has put together a team of individuals who will continue to defend the state, which is “the premier energy producing state in the country,” and position it as a hub of energy development.
“We have the best energy producing workforce. We have the best energy producing companies and they have a history of doing what’s right,” McCuskey stated. “And, we believe there is a delta between the amount of electricity that this world is going to need in the next 10 years in what we’re producing in order to power the AI and computing and data revolution. We simply cannot use windmills and solar panels to power this – the need is too great.”
In response to questions from reporters, McCuskey also said that his office will continue to support drug recovery efforts throughout the state, as with the recent settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, and will work to make sure that energy producers are not being “unfairly regulated by an unregulatory body,” such as PJM Interconnection.
(To learn more about the Purdue Pharma, Sackler family settlement, read Charles Young’s reporting, Officials: Sackler settlement a symbolic victory for West Virginia,” at WV News.
The next speaker, Secretary of State Kris Warner, spoke about his three most important roles: that of chief elections officer, business registrar and an active member of the Board of Public Works. He also presented his office’s legislative agenda.
“I will continue our office’s work with the legislature to make it as easy as possible to start a new business in West Virginia,” Warner said, adding that he is excited to increase resources at the One-Stop Business Center.”
“It used to take up to two weeks to start a new business in West Virginia, but we can now do that in less than an hour,” Warner continued. “I want to bring more public and private partners into the fold to create and promote the services, funding and programs that can help entrepreneurs, especially our small businesses and start-ups be successful in their first year and beyond.”
As for elections, Warner stated that election integrity is “at the heart of our voter confidence.”
“The names of deceased people, convicted felons and out-of-state citizens will continue to be removed from the voter rolls,” Warner said, adding that during the legislative session he will support photo identification for voters and will work to make sure that “every eligible citizen will have the right and the opportunity to vote.”
“Those who attempt to cheat in any election will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Warner said.
Legislative priorities for the Secretary of State’s office include:
- Keeping voter rolls clean and as up-to-date as possible;
- Strengthening Voter ID requirements by removing non-photo documents, such as utility bills and bank statements, as acceptable forms of identification;
- Increasing transparency in “dark money” campaign finance activities by decreasing the reporting threshold from $5,000 to $1,000, expanding last minute reports due to 24-hours post publication from the 15th day to the 30th day prior to an election and reducing time report filing threshold from $10,000 to $2,500 – including digital communications;
- Enhancing penalties for failure to file campaign finance reports on time;
- Streamlining the election complaint process;
- Clarifying voter registration eligibility for individuals with a diminished mental capacity;
- Prohibiting ranked-choice voting in all elections;
- Clarifying who is allowed in polling places during the voting period; and
- Allowing the WVSOS to purchase critical election infrastructure without the red tape.
State Auditor Mark Hunt was the final Board of Public Works panel speaker. He said one of his office’s legislative initiatives will be bringing additional money into the state.
“Our security fees haven’t increased for over 10 years,” Hunt began. “We’re not consistent with the contiguous states, and if we do a modest increase in securities, we can bring in several million more dollars for the people of West Virginia. And, of course, those increases won’t be West Virginia dollars. Those will be dollars from security houses that offer securities and bonds in West Virginia.”
Additionally, Hunt explained that as Commissioner of Delinquent and Nonentered Lands, he has a plan to make sale of tax-lien property more efficient.
“We sell all of the delinquent lands of West Virginia, who become delinquent for taxes, and we have a plan to make that process better, not only for people who want to redeem the land, but to make it better for the state auditor to be able to derive more money, more special revenue, for the auditor’s office.”
Hunt also explained that additional monies may come from increased procurement card (P-card) transactions.
“We watch every transaction . . . in real time on the P-card for fraud. So, the P-card is very safe,” Hunt said. “Right now there’s about $550 million of transactions a year that goes through the P-card, and we keep 2% of it.”
Hunt said that his office estimates that P-card transactions can be increased to $750 million a year.
“That would be several million dollars more for general revenue as well as to fund the auditor’s office,” Hunt said, adding that the auditor’s office is doing well and bringing money back into the state of West Virginia.
For additional reporting on the Board of Public Works panel at the West Virginia Press Association’s Legislative Lookahead, read Steven Allen Adams’ reporting “Legislative Lookahead features lawmakers,” in The Inter-Mountain.
