Q&A with Senate President Mitch Carmichael
By Jennifer Jett Prezkop
Mitch Carmichael has been a member of the West Virginia Legislature since 2001, when he was sworn in as a member of the House of Delegates. In 2016, he was appointed to the dual role of Senate president and lieutenant governor, which he still holds today. As such, he has a unique perspective on state government’s daily operations, the 60-day legislative session and the types of bills that will help move the Mountain State forward. In this Q&A, Carmichael discusses some of the highs and lows of the 2019 legislative session and what West Virginians can expect next.
WVE: Tell us a little bit about your background with the West Virginia Legislature.
MC: I was elected to the House of Delegates in 2000 and began serving in 2001. I spent 12 years there, where I was in the extreme minority. I’ve always worked more toward a private sector mentality—lower regulations, lower taxes, more freedom and more flexibility for the economy. As the people of West Virginia began to get frustrated with the condition of our economy and the manner in which it was being managed by the majority party that had held control for 83 years, I came to the Senate. I spent two years in the minority there, which was in 2012. In 2014, the Republican party became the majority party, and I became the majority leader. I worked in that role for two years and then became Senate president in 2016.
WVE: How has that experience helped you in your current role?
MC: It’s been so beneficial to have been in all those roles and to be able to understand what it is like to serve in the Legislature from a minority perspective. When one looks at the success we have had over the past several years, we have taken the state from an era of budget cuts, revenue decline and job losses to now, after a few short years in the majority, one of the fastest-growing states in America. We have much more to do and accomplish, but we are on the right path. It feels like we are winning.
WVE: Tell us about your responsibilities as the Senate president.
MC: They are all encompassing. The role is to assign committee chairs and ensure the legislation that will work best for the people of West Virginia will be championed and moved through the system. It’s also a role of staffing and managing the operations of the Senate with a $4.5 million budget, as I am responsible for the personnel, technology and delivery of the product to ensure it becomes legislation. As the Senate president, I am also the lieutenant governor, so I have to stay on top of all state government.
WVE: What has been the most memorable piece of legislation that has passed or change that has occurred over the past 10 years?
MC: I think the shift away from a special interest mentality in which certain special interest groups controlled the agenda in this Legislature for many years and drove our economy right down the tubes. Now we are able to consider things that have proven to be successful in other states. I think as we begin to see that change in our state, this has implications for all other areas of policy.
Another significant change in our state Capitol has been instilling the mindset to pursue what is best for the people of West Virginia, not our own self interests. Moving the state forward requires some tough decisions, and we believe good policy ultimately makes good politics.
WVE: What are the challenges you face in this role?
MC: The real challenge is being able to get the public, as well as those special interest groups that are affected by legislation, to understand that we are always trying to do what is right for the people of West Virginia and that this state can be great. We have been held back for way too long by low expectations and people making excuses about why we are in these conditions. The challenge is to inspire people to have a better vision for our state and to be able to see the end game, which is prosperity for our people.
WVE: How do you determine which bills are addressed during the session?
MC: There are policy initiatives we are pursuing and bills that comport with those policy initiatives. For instance, we’re very keen on knocking down the arbitrary regulatory burdens that confront West Virginia, so we’re very aggressive on this front. It’s the same way with tax reform—things that help our tax policy become more competitive vis-à-vis the surrounding states and items that help our civil justice system become fairer and more equitable. West Virginia ranked as the number one judicial hell hole every year since its inception, and one of the things we’re very proud of is that we’re off that list now because of the changes we’ve made over the last several years. In fact, we’ve received awards for being the most improved legal body in America. With regard to education reform, when we can see problems that indicate West Virginia is not performing as well as it could be or as well as other states are, we want to fix those problems. When one looks at National Assessment of Educational Progress testing data, we’re ranked near last. We can’t turn a blind eye to this fact, so we’ve worked aggressively to change this paradigm.
WVE: What are your overall thoughts on how the 2019 session went?
MC: At the end of the day, we did a lot of great work in our 2019 legislative session. One of the things I’m proud of is Senate Bill 1, which provides community and technical college education for our citizens to get the training that enables them to have world-class careers. I’m also very proud that our budget was completed in a 60-day time frame and that we reduced taxes on Social Security recipients in our state.
We reduced the taxes on our coal industry to make our coal more competitive and keep our coal miners, manufacturers and other entities working, and we have done a couple of bills that make it more advantageous to expand broadband in our state. We also worked toward resolving our road issues, and we reformed our foster care system.
We continue to work on reform for our education system. What exact format that becomes, we will have to wait and see. What I will say is we are very committed to providing options for our students, parents and teachers. We are absolutely positive that our children, parents and teachers are as gifted, talented and blessed as any other Americans. We should not be at the bottom in rankings—we can do so much better. And we are not coming up with some wild-haired, crazy idea to move our state forward. We are utilizing best practices that have been implemented in other states and bringing forward those ideas and concepts to West Virginia to provide more incentives for our students to do better.
WVE: What were some of the low points of the 2019 session?
MC: The first thing that comes to mind is the aspect of not obtaining the final passing of the comprehensive education reform bill. I guess I don’t characterize it necessarily as a low point as much as I do an opportunity to continue working on it. One always wishes he or she could have achieved it earlier and quicker and all those kinds of things, but I think we are moving in the right direction.
One low point for me was certainly the failure to pass a bill that implements an intermediate court of appeals. West Virginia is one of a handful of states that does not have an intermediate court of appeals, and that’s one of the areas of our civil justice reform initiatives that must be achieved at some point. As one looks back over the past year, a lot of monumental things happened as it relates to the impeachment process with the Supreme Court. Those are low points, but I think we handled them in the most expeditious, efficient, professional manner possible. Hopefully we made the people of West Virginia proud in the manner we did it.
WVE: Are there any bills that didn’t make it through in 2019 that will be a priority in 2020?
MC: The mechanisms to deliver the services of state government. One of the things we are not doing a good job on is our roads and transportation network. The people of West Virginia are justifiably frustrated with the condition of our roads, and we must do a better job of managing that delivery of services as it relates to roads and transportation. The governor’s office is responsible for making it happen while we are responsible for funding it and ensuring the rules and regulations about how those services are delivered are competitive and that the workers can do their jobs. It’s an extreme focus for us that we take care of the roads.
WVE: How was the Legislature able to pass a budget this year after several years of facing a deficit?
MC: It was a variety of things. I want to give credit to President Donald Trump for the deregulation of the fossil fuel industry and removing these onerous burdens. Beyond that, we have put in place policies that are changing this state, and we are beginning to be viewed on a national and international level as a good place to do business and hire people and create jobs. That, more than anything, is how we were able to change from a deficit position to a surplus.
It’s an amazing story when you think about how two and a half years ago this state was confronted with the largest deficit in state history and is now running among the largest surpluses, and we have done it all without increasing anyone’s taxes. Our tourism numbers are leading the nation in terms of percentage growth. Our wage rates are up as much as any in the nation. All of these job categories are on an incline, and that more than anything else signifies a state that’s ascending.
WVE: What types of legislation do we need to pass to be able to diversify our economy?
MC: We have passed legislation that creates innovation zones or opportunity zones that incentivize entrepreneurial activity within those enterprise zones. We can also expand our infrastructure projects to make sure we have available business parks and developed land readily available. Senate Bill 1 is the centerpiece for ensuring a diverse economy. A big aspect of the bill was ensuring that programs funded through it were ones we had an economic need for, seeing the types of businesses we can attract and growing and trying to steer our workforce in that direction.
WVE: How can West Virginians play a bigger role in the legislative process?
MC: I think West Virginians need to make their views known to their representatives. What has transpired in the past is that our state has been heavily influenced by special interest groups. The best thing that can happen for West Virginia is for our citizens to say, “I’m going to keep myself informed on these things and develop my own opinion.” West Virginia can be the greatest state in America. We have all of these unique and special advantages, and yet we are held back by the old-style status quo mentality. We know we can be better.
WVE: What opportunities do you see for West Virginia, and how can we embrace them? MC: We have so much opportunity here, and we are surrounded by prosperity in Pittsburgh, Columbus and Charlotte. All we have to do is get our policies, regulatory schemes and tax structure on par with the surrounding states, and we will climb the economic ladder to success. The focus is going to need to be on high-tech jobs and continued growth in our manufacturing industry, construction industry and health care fields.
Q&A with House Speaker Roger Hanshaw
By Jennifer Jett Prezkop
Roger Hanshaw was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 2014 to represent Calhoun County and parts of Clay and Gilmer counties. He was first elected speaker of the House in August 2018 when the sitting speaker resigned, and he was then re-elected in December 2018. Hanshaw, a lawyer and one of 250 credentialed parliamentarians in the U.S., grew up in rural Clay County, and today he possesses a diverse legal background and a wealth of knowledge on parliamentary procedure that gives him a unique perspective as the House leader. In this Q&A, Hanshaw discusses his new role, the legislative process and what West Virginians can do to be better informed about and more involved in the Legislature’s activities.
WVE: Tell us about your responsibilities as the House speaker.
RH: The speaker’s responsibilities are divided among the administrative responsibilities of the House during the session. The speaker also plays a leading role in policy development and helping the majority caucus determine its agenda for the session. Then there’s a significant component to it that actually occurs outside of the session all together, and that is to be the CEO of the House—in other words, to do all the various things that need to be done on behalf of the Legislature when the House is not in session.
WVE: What has the transition from delegate to House speaker been like for you?
RH: I was vice chairman of the judiciary committee before I was elected speaker, and that committee clears probably a full half of the bills that come before the body. The one thing I have noticed that has changed the most for me is that in my prior capacity I had a very detailed understanding of nearly every bill that came before the floor because I was responsible for presenting a lot of those bills. Now my responsibilities are more about making sure other members can do that and less about knowing the specific details of every single bill that comes to the House floor.
WVE: Tell us about the challenges you face in your new role as House speaker.
RH: We have a 60-day session in our state. I’ve heard people say—and it’s absolutely true—that 60 days is an eternity if you are trying to keep something from happening, but it goes by incredibly fast if you are trying to get something to happen. One of the biggest challenges is how to prioritize that time. During every legislative session, we have more than 1,000 bills introduced, and on a very high-volume year there will be around 300 passed by both houses. An overwhelming majority of the bills introduced in the Legislature are never acted upon because we run out of time.
WVE: What are your overall thoughts on how the 2019 session went?
RH: Every member of the Legislature has goals going into the session that he or she wants to get done that don’t get across the finish line, and we had several of those this year. We really wanted to take a run at starting the process to repeal the business equipment inventory tax here in West Virginia. For a variety of reasons, we just weren’t able to get that done.
There’s also always a number of things that happen during every session that catch the attention of the public and cause people to focus in on just two or three things. Because you pay attention to that handful of issues so closely, you miss a lot of the other important stuff that is going on. Despite the distractions, this year’s Legislature passed more bills than any other Legislature in West Virginia’s history. We put in place a path to take most West Virginians completely out of the realm of taxation for Social Security benefits. We made the biggest, most sweeping reform of the foster care system that’s been made in a generation. We took a step to relieve the state from its burden for the 4,000-plus abandoned oil and gas wells around the state. These are all things people forget about because they happened in the early parts of the session.
WVE: What do you consider to be the high points and low points of the 2019 regular session?
RH: The high points are always the legislation we pass because that’s the work we are there to do. We passed the third in a series of broadband expansion bills. We have already set in motion the process to continue the foster care work we did, and this upcoming year we will be talking about adoption.
When you talk about this past session, you have to talk about public education. Contrary to what people might think, I am very happy about how that turned out. We have more interest right now about what is going on in the public school system in our state than we have seen in my lifetime. I’m perfectly happy to declare victory in that all day long because it’s set the stage for what we are doing now as we go into the special session.
WVE: Were there any bills of particular interest to you?
RH: I had one bill pass the House, and I was disappointed when it did not pass the Senate. I was personally a sponsor of a bill to overhaul West Virginia’s intellectual property act. There’s a statute on the books in West Virginia called the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, and it’s adopted by nearly every state in the union. Our proposal this year was to strengthen West Virginia’s law in trade secret protection in a way that makes West Virginia the most hospitable and friendliest environment in America to do business by trade secret. The purpose of that was to attract research-intensive businesses to our state. We wanted to set our state apart through policy. What I said as I testified in front of the Senate judiciary committee on this very bill was that we cannot change our geography overnight, we cannot change our workforce overnight, we cannot change our demographics overnight, but we can change state policy overnight. State policy matters a lot. That’s one of the things I am trying to focus on as we prepare for the 2020 session.
WVE: Senate Bill 451 drew a lot of attention in the regular session. What are your thoughts on that bill and how it turned out?
RH: I liked the bill. I voted for it, and I would vote for it again. I thought it did a lot of good things for every student in the state. With that being said, I think the biggest outcome of the bill was getting people talking about the need for public education reform in our state. I say from time to time when I give speeches on public education that I consider the public school system in Clay County to have changed my life. Because of that, I want as many kids as possible to have that same kind of opportunity and the same kind of experience I had.
Unfortunately, we had a lot of people—in some cases people with vested self-interests—spewing a lot of misinformation. It becomes very difficult for the public to properly engage on a bill like that when they aren’t provided with complete or accurate information. Ours is a democracy, not a republic. The voters choose the 134 members to make these decisions. Nevertheless, we like to get the public involved in the decision-making process. That only works, though, if the public is willing to get educated on what we are actually trying to do. I heard so many comments from West Virginians about what we should and should not do with Senate Bill 451 that were simply not based on fact. They were acting on opinion and anecdote versus data. That makes it really hard to pass a big bill like Senate Bill 451 because so many people are unwilling to spend the time and put in the work to be educated about the process and about the bills so they are in a position to comment from an informed place.
I’m glad we are in special session with this issue. I’m excited about it. I think we are going to have a lot of good things come from it. I’m taking a keen interest in all of the public meetings that are happening around the state because out of that I hope comes a twofold benefit: number one, the Legislature hears from as many people as want to comment about what we ought be doing, and number two, the public itself gets a little bit of an education on why it is we do what we do. I feel like that did not happen at all on this particular bill and doesn’t happen nearly enough on any bill.
WVE: What steps do you take when preparing for the regular session?
RH: The very first thing we do is look at what did not pass during the last session. The next thing we do is consider the things we learned during the last session that we didn’t expect or weren’t prepared for. I have asked all of our committee chairs to identify what they learned during the 2019 session that merits consideration in 2020 because it actually takes a long time to get ready. People think the Legislature just comes in during those 60 days and that’s when we do our work, but somebody has to write the bills that will be introduced.
I tell people all the time West Virginia is a state in transition. We are a state that, over the course of the next few years, is poised to reinvent itself if we are willing to do it. Some of the things I personally want to spend the summer and fall months working on are proposals for consideration in the 2020 session that would actually allow us to be more progressive in terms of how we structure our economy going forward. We cannot continue to just simply be a state based on extractive industries. God bless those industries. I love them, and I represent people who work in them. They have kept our state afloat since 1863, but we know the 21st century economy depends on more. That is one of the reasons why I’ve spent so much time working on broadband and internet-related things since I became a member. The 21st century economy demands that we have better connectivity and be positioned to capitalize on that kind of investment more quickly.
WVE: How do you determine which bills reach the floor for a vote?
RH: We start with what has to be done. For example, there’s a series of bills that have to be passed every year to make sure the state of West Virginia conforms with applicable federal law, like the tax code. Those bills have to be passed no matter what else happens, otherwise our state tax code is out of sync with the federal tax code and accountants and people doing taxes don’t know how to proceed. Under the Constitution, our biggest and most important obligation is to pass the budget, so it is a big priority for me that we do that and do it on time. From there we start down the list of what other bills will have the highest, most important and biggest impact on, for example, the state’s economy.
My advice is to always, always, always start by reading the bill. Before people begin taking to their computers—I sometimes call them keyboard warriors—they need to actually take the time to read. Every bill, every resolution, every amendment, every conference report, every committee report considered by this Legislature is available online before it’s ever voted on. We spend an incredible amount of money making sure all those resources are available to the public in every corner of the state. You can’t just rely on someone’s synopsis of the bill and you can’t just rely on someone’s opinion of the bill. You actually have to do a little bit of work. If you aren’t willing to do a little bit of work, maybe you should consider if you are in a position to comment on what we are doing.
WVE: What’s the next item on your to-do list?
RH: I am now squarely focused on the upcoming special session on education and the 2020 session. My objective is to make it an easier choice for people to stay in West Virginia. That means people have to be able to get a job, educate their children and have something to do in their community. So much of that depends on people just deciding we are going to choose to make West Virginia the best. Public education is one of the finest examples. We are going to spend an awful lot of time, effort and money over the course of the special session looking at how we can change public education in West Virginia. We will make some good changes, but the most important change has to come from parents deciding they want to take a more active role in their child’s education. There’s nothing we can do to make that happen—the parents have to decide to do that.
