Issues

In this campaign, many candidates will make promises. One candidate, however, has an unmatched conservative record of delivering victories on the most important challenges facing West Virginians. Only one candidate is a proven conservative who has faced down the far-left and the political elites and won, time after time after time.

From precedent-setting wins against the deep state on federal overreach (West Virginia v. EPA) to protecting our West Virginia jobs (See Waters of the US case) to upholding West Virginia school choice and charter school laws, to winning the highest per capita drug settlements in the nation (in the face of aggressive smear campaigns by the opposition) to running one of the most efficient and successful offices in state government (generating and protecting over two billion dollars in value for West Virginia taxpayers) to taking on the woke-left and socialist policies, including their ESG and radical climate agenda, to defending the sanctity of life and the integrity of women’s sports, to advancing our Second Amendment rights, to blocking the forced jab, NO other candidate can come close to matching Morrisey’s record of accomplishment.  In the upcoming primary, West Virginians need to elect someone with a proven record— not just someone who will make promises. The stakes are too high for us to put someone in the Governor’s Office who is very inexperienced or who would get crushed by the forces on the other side. We need someone principled, experienced, and effective — that is Patrick Morrisey.

Patrick Morrisey is the only candidate for Governor with a long record of taking on and winning fights against federal overreach that kills West Virginia jobs. Morrisey spearheaded the country’s single biggest separation of powers victory against federal agency overreach in years when he led a massive coalition of states against the EPA and stopped their unlawful carbon emissions rule. Now, West Virginia v. EPA is cited as a central case in efforts to help dismantle the size and scope of the administrative state. Equally important, Morrisey’s wins saved thousands of West Virginia jobs.

Separately, Morrisey led a 25-state coalition case to block the Biden, “so-called” waters of the US rule. If you are a farmer, a contractor, a realtor, a property owner, or just someone who cares about economic activity, this rule is an abomination. Morrisey and a massive state coalition helped ensure that a backyard ditch or an ephemeral stream would not be classified as a federally navigable waterway, such as the Ohio, the Mississippi, or the Potomac. 

The Attorney General is known as one of the most aggressive and successful advocates in the nation against overreaching government. These efforts are crucial for preserving freedom and West Virginia jobs. 

As Governor, Morrisey will supercharge these efforts because now he will have the full weight and authority of state government behind him. Imagine how much federal and state overreach can be pushed back when dozens of state agencies are all moving in the same direction, instead of just the Attorney General’s office. 

As Governor, Morrisey will conduct a comprehensive regulatory review and get rid of wasteful, unneeded, and duplicative regulations. West Virginia will serve as a model for the nation in terms of protecting our citizens’ freedoms.

Patrick Morrisey believes that a tax on income is an incentive to work less. West Virginia must join the ranks of the states that don’t have an income tax. If we want to successfully compete against all of the states that we touch, we need to have THE lowest personal income tax in the region. We also need to engage in comprehensive tax reform and compare all of West Virginia’s taxes to the states which we touch. We will better compete in the modern economy when we are free and not penalized for engaging in commerce. 

West Virginia deserves internet that doesn’t move at the speed of slow. As Attorney General, Morrisey took on companies that had bad consumer practices and has fought to get them to live up to the law and their promises. Morrisey brought in a $160 million settlement against Frontier and aggressively promotes additional speed expansions which help West Virginia individuals and businesses. As Governor, Morrisey will prioritize broadband build outs that allow West Virginia to better attract citizens to our state. In today’s era, broadband is a central part of a state’s physical infrastructure.

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey will stop federal overreach and woke ideas at the West Virginia line. As Governor, he will build upon his many successes blocking the federal government from destroying our culture and values and will establish an Executive Task Force, comprised of the Governor, the Attorney General, and other key state officials, who will be charged with identifying initiatives that require rebutting from West Virginia state government. West Virginia will remain that shining state in the mountains, and we will protect our jobs, our kids, our values, our freedoms, and our Constitution from external threats and the political elites.

As Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey successfully defended our state’s school choice and charter school laws. As Governor, Morrisey will build upon these programs and push for money to follow the child. West Virginia should have the most expansive school choice law in the nation. He will conduct a review of teacher salaries and educational bureaucracies in all of the states that we touch to determine how West Virginia can compete more effectively for the best teachers in the region — West Virginia teachers deserve a raise, and our state must commit to their long-term success so our best educators don’t move to our neighboring states

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is a national leader defending our Second Amendment rights and has maintained an A+ rating from a number of the prominent gun groups, including the National Rifle Association, and the West Virginia Citizens Defense League. He is also endorsed by the prominent Gun Owners of America. Morrisey is currently leading the national coalition of 25 states against the Biden Administration’s so-called pistol brace rule, which would transform millions of Americans into felons. He previously led the way for constitutional carry and has increased the number of states where West Virginia has gun reciprocity to 38. He has made protecting gun rights a major priority — no one else can come near his pro-gun record. 

As Attorney General, Morrisey is considered one of the most reliable and effective advocates for gun rights in the country. As Governor, he will do even more and ensure West Virginia is a safe haven from the crazy woke activists advocating for a constitutionally suspect, pro-gun control agenda.

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is the first pro-life Attorney General in state history and is currently defending the state’s laws regulating abortion. Morrisey has helped lead the way to make West Virginia a pro-life state and will continue being a staunch advocate for the unborn as Governor. Morrisey has been endorsed by West Virginians for Life repeatedly and has the best record in the field protecting babies. As Governor, he will work to help low-income moms who bring their children to term so that West Virginia’s culture of protecting life continues to extend beyond birth.

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has been one of the nation’s most outspoken advocates against biological males playing sports with women. He is defending the state’s women’s sports law and pushing back aggressively against the Biden Administration’s efforts to turn Title IX on its head and force college institutions to allow males to play in women’s sports, or face loss of federal monies. Morrisey believes the left’s agenda is grossly unfair and displaces women who want to compete and rely on sports to develop leadership skills. Morrisey’s office has developed a national model for how to attack the left’s attack on women’s sports and has generated thousands of pages of evidence showing the biological differences between men and women. As Governor, Morrisey won’t have to take a poll to know the difference between the sexes. He knows about the danger of hormone blockers and these drugs administered to young kids, some of whom started receiving transition treatments as young as age 7 or 8. This is wrong and must end.

As Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey took on the big companies who helped fuel the drug epidemic in our state, and he held them accountable with all of the tools at his disposal. Morrisey is widely regarded as securing some of the highest per-capita settlements in the nation against drug companies for their role in the drug epidemic. Even more importantly, though, Morrisey worked with the counties, the cities, the Legislature and the Governor to develop a new structure that will allow West Virginia, for the first time ever, to attack the drug plague holistically, from a supply, demand, and educational perspective. West Virginia now has a plan AND resources to fight the drug problem. 

Beyond litigation against the drug companies, Morrisey has also successfully attacked the root causes of the drug epidemic. In 2017, Morrisey sued the DEA, and forced them to rewrite the nation’s drug quota laws. This was a significant victory and has greatly reduced the oversupplying of legal drugs in our country. Morrisey was also out in front developing educational programs and fostering partnerships with schools of nursing and pharmacy to look out for the children of our state, so that they better understand the perils of these dangerous drug products (Kids Kick Opioids and Opioid Awareness Games of the Week are now very popular in WV).

As Governor, Morrisey plans to build upon the assets of the West Virginia First Foundation and rely upon it as a magnet to attract additional resources from the private sector and others to ensure we don’t lose another generation to senseless death. 

Right now, West Virginia is facing a fentanyl menace and a massive oversupply of these dangerous drugs.  Our state must take additional steps to beef up our law enforcement presence in border counties, and also pressure the federal government to do its job, including labeling fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction and increasing the amount of federal prosecutions and enforcement activity.

Fixing the workforce participation rate problem needs to be a top priority for our next Governor. For far too long, West Virginia has maintained the lowest workforce participation rate in the country. Some statistics suggest West Virginia may have over 65,000 jobs available, yet many of those jobs go unfilled for long stretches of time. As Governor, Morrisey will unleash an aggressive strategy to ensure that more people know about these open positions, and regulatory, financial, licensing, or other barriers are eliminated to make it easier to fill these slots. 

One way of improving workforce participation will be to increase dramatically the vo-tech educational opportunities in our state and apprenticeships and internships available for students after high school. Morrisey will build closer partnerships with employers across West Virginia to develop a feeder system for employment after high school, which will also help send a message to our youth: there is no reason to leave West Virginia to find a job. West Virginia needs more plumbers, contractors, electricians, truckers, and individuals in a wide variety of fields who would benefit from vo-tech education.

If you are going to have a state agency exist, then it needs to be run the right way and managed effectively with proper resources. When a state function has 70 percent of its jobs open, state government must step in and make some hard choices. Is this a problem that can be resolved under antiquated state laws or can the state government better resolve the problem by changing the laws or recruiting the private sector for assistance? We must improve oversight of executive agencies and ensure that the state’s focus on workforce participation also includes attracting people to fill critical state government roles in the areas of law enforcement, corrections, foster care, and other essential areas. This means taking a close look at PEIA and once again ensuring that our state’s ability to pay its own workers is competitive with other states that we touch.

Before becoming Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey was a long-time accomplished health care attorney who developed innovative and dynamic policies to address health care access, affordability, cost, and innovation challenges. As Attorney General, Morrisey has been a leading advocate against fraudulent, wasteful, and abusive practices that harm our citizens. As Governor, Morrisey will establish a new Task Force to evaluate and recommend changes to the health care systems in our state and ensure that West Virginians have affordable health care policies and access to the healthcare items and services they deserve.

Morrisey plans to bring a number of these changes about by eliminating West Virginia’s certificate of need laws, and other policies which makes it difficult for new healthcare providers to locate in our state. Promoting freedom must also mean ending the protectionist policies which restrict competition and innovation. Our nation is in a period of great technological advancement; we can’t afford to be held back as a state by antiquated policies that block competition. Morrisey has been a champion of expanding telemedicine access as Attorney General; he will work to eliminate even more regulatory barriers to telemedicine services as Governor.

West Virginia’s economy is powered by our small businesses. However, “Bidenomics”-caused inflation and increased regulatory pressures have tremendously hurt small businesses in West Virginia. It’s simple — the far-left’s radical agenda favors woke corporations at the expense of Mom and Pop shops and the middle class. We need a leader who will promote economic development and discard overbearing regulations to allow a level-playing field that makes it easier for small business to enter the marketplace.