As part of Mountain State Spotlight’s Citizens Agenda approach to covering elections this year, we traveled to all 55 counties and asked West Virginians what challenges they’d like to see public officials and candidates address. We learned that the top issues include substance use disorders, the economy, failing infrastructure and financial struggles.
Democratic candidate Glenn Elliott, who was a two-term mayor of Wheeling and is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate, sent his responses by filling out a survey. Republican candidate Gov. Jim Justice, who has served for two terms, did not respond to the survey but agreed to an impromptu interview following an event.
These answers have been lightly edited for clarity.
Nearly four people a day die from drug overdoses. What will you do in the Senate to get West Virginians out of this crisis?
Elliott: We need to have a comprehensive approach to addressing our addiction crisis. Too often our approach is to focus on the supply side of the drug equation by using law enforcement to target those who peddle drugs into our communities. Obviously, we need a tough approach to the drug trade, but the lessons from the Prohibition era remain true to this day: As long as there is a strong demand for a particular commodity in a community, there will always be those willing to take the risks to deliver it. And thus we need to step up our efforts at reducing the demand for drugs in the first place. This involves investing in early childhood education and child care programs. It involves ensuring that our communities have the type of opportunities that are attractive to our youth. It involves having a comprehensive menu of rehabilitation options for those who have been addicted to drugs. And it involves utilizing a drug court system to ensure that nonviolent drug offenders have an opportunity to restart their lives with a clean record.
Justice: Well, the first thing we’ve got to do is shore up the border, don’t we? I mean, really and truly, all the people just flooding across. The other day, and I don’t want to belabor this because we don’t have all the time in the world, but I was going through Arby’s drive-through, and all of a sudden, this car in front of me, I could see, had this cross on the back window. It had 1993-2023, 30 years old, Amber, and they lost a child, I’m sure.
Well, I just sat there and said a big prayer for Amber and the family. Then I pulled up to the window and started to pay. I had ordered for Babydog, myself and a trooper. It was like 34 bucks, and the car just zoomed right off. They had paid for my food. It just jerks your heart out. So I sent a trooper trying to find them and they finally found out who it was. And lo and behold, Amber played basketball for me and she was lost from a fentanyl overdose.
It’s happened over and over and over in this state. And the first thing we’ve got to do is we’ve got to stop this flow of drugs. It’s coming in here from every direction known to man. But then right behind all that, what we’ve got to do is continue on the things like Jobs and Hope and all the different things that we’ve done where you’ve got treatment first and then you’ve got real-life training that basically brings people back and everything.
Context: The vast majority of fentanyl flowing across the border into the United States is smuggled by U.S. citizens traveling through legal ports of entry, according to the Cato Institute.
The governor’s Jobs and Hope initiative helps connect people in recovery, expunge criminal records and find employment opportunities. Criminal histories are known barriers to employment and employment can support continued recovery.
West Virginia continues a major economic transition as the coal industry declines. Meanwhile, the federal government is pouring money into renewable energy sources like wind and solar that are creating high-paying jobs. As a member of Congress, how will you ensure West Virginians participate in and benefit from the transition to a new energy economy?
Elliott: West Virginia has paid a considerable price for mining coal to power the rest of the nation for much of the past century – particularly in terms of the lives lost and damaged by mining-related injuries and illnesses. As we look ahead, we cannot deny the global energy transition that has already begun and that will continue. At the same time, it is absolutely imperative that West Virginia have a seat at the table during any and all discussions regarding our nation’s overarching energy policy. If elected to the United States Senate, I would seek appointment to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. And I would do all in my power to ensure that West Virginia is made whole for its past sacrifices for energy production with incentives and initiatives aimed at diversifying our energy portfolio and retraining our existing workforce for energy jobs of the future.
Justice: I will assure you this: I won’t turn my back on coal, and I won’t turn my back on gas or oil, because anybody who believes today we can do without our fossil fuels is living in a cave. I’ve embraced all the energy sources, all the alternatives. Just look at Form Energy or Nucor, or look at green bus or whatever. I’ve embraced them all because I think we need an all-encompassing energy strategy. Maybe there will be someday that we won’t need fossil fuels. But it’s not today.
I would hope that I’m on the Energy Committee, and then really and truly, I would hope that folks would really listen, because I’ve got a lot of experience in energy. Look, energy drives every single thing we have. Energy drives all the inflation problems. Energy for any country in the world, the more energy you have, the healthier the people, and the longer they live. OK, for any country in the world. Now absolutely we’ve got to have an energy policy. We don’t have a national energy policy, and it could drive the economics, to be able to to pull down this terrible deficit we have. It could do so many things. We don’t have an energy policy. How stupid could that be?
Context: West Virginia has received federal support for clean energy projects, but those efforts are hampered by state-level policies, the lack of people with relevant skills, and the state is not geographically ideal for solar or wind power projects.
Thousands of West Virginians lack access to clean drinking water, safe roads and bridges, internet access and affordable housing. What will you do in Congress to address these broad-ranging infrastructure challenges?
Elliott: My campaign tour of all 55 West Virginia counties only served to confirm for me how many areas of our state are still in need of significant infrastructure improvements. And I would support further Congressional efforts like the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in the years ahead. But I would also explore further opportunities modeled on the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) that directed federal resources directly to cities and counties to make their own infrastructure investments. While I was mayor of the City of Wheeling, we found that the direct allocation of ARPA money gave us the flexibility to address some lingering infrastructure issues much more efficiently than through traditional forms of federal grants.
Gov. Justice ended the impromptu interview, saying he had to go to a meeting, before this question could be asked.