Gov. Patrick Morrisey addresses media during a news briefing Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, alongside House Speaker Roger Hanshaw (center) and Senate President Randy Smith (right) at the Capitol in Charleston, W.Va. (Caity Coyne | West Virginia Watch)
The 2025 regular session of the West Virginia Legislature is going to look different than other recent sessions in one major way: Gov. Patrick Morrisey plans to be present and engaged with legislative leadership throughout the entire 60 days.
Morrisey, House Speaker Roger Hanshaw and Senate President Randy Smith addressed the media on Wednesday, saying communication and collaboration were going to be key to their approach for the session, which starts on Feb. 12.
“I thought it was important to let the public know that as your new governor, we’re busy working away with some of the terrific leaders of the House and the Senate to try to put together a legislative agenda that’s really going to make West Virginia proud,” Morrisey said. “… It’s my hope that we’re going to have sustained, regular communications throughout the rest of the session and leading deep into the remainder of the year.”
The strategy for governance will differ greatly from that of former Gov. Jim Justice, who took a mostly hands-off approach with the Legislature and rarely appeared at the Capitol during the 60-day sessions.
Smith, who was elected in early January as Senate president, said the change was “refreshing.” In previous sessions, he said, he often found out about information or directives coming from the executive branch from the press instead of from official sources.
“This is how government is supposed to work,” Smith said. “… [I]t’s a breath of fresh air. The communication that we have now with the governor and with the speaker — we’re all friends, and we communicate often and I don’t think it’ll be the problem we’ve had in the past where we’re blindsided with stuff we didn’t know was coming.”
No specific policy announcements or legislative agendas were shared Wednesday. Morrisey said he’d like to see some announcement soon on “20 to 25” pieces of legislation that could be passed early in session by the Republican majorities in both chambers.
As of right now, the largest known issue looming over this legislative session will be the expected $400 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2026. At a news briefing on Tuesday, Morrisey outlined some specific budget line items — Medicaid, the Public Employee Insurance Agency, higher education and more — where a permanent, stable funding source is needed to continue operations.
The expected deficit is largely the result of previous tax cuts, where permanent funding sources were never designated to replace the decreased revenue streams.
For several years, the state has been receiving one-time federal monies, largely from COVID-19 era funding programs. Now, those funds have expired and the strategy for the state budget must change.
During the previous “environment of surplus” — which was often heavily touted by Justice — Hanshaw said the Legislature attempted to focus on putting as much one-time money as possible into one-time expenditures, like infrastructure investments, facility maintenance projects and more.
Now, though, things are different. Under directives given by Morrisey, it’s likely that cuts will have to be made somewhere in the state budget to fill deficits and keep programs afloat. Where those cuts will come, however, remains unknown at this time.
“It’s a prioritization equation for us as we think about what the calculus of moving the overall economic trajectory of West Virginia looks like,” Hanshaw said. “We want to continue to invest in our fixed assets and our infrastructure — which has a return on investment — to the full extent we can, knowing that sometimes we won’t be able to do it to the extent that we would like.”
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