1 — It certainly appears that Marcellus shale regulation will remain a major topic of interest for the next several years. What are the key features that you see need to be included in West Virginia law in order to best serve the interests of all the parties involved?



We need to pass some sort of regulatory bill. There was one before the Legislature, but it didn’t make it. I certainly favor passage of that bill or some bill that was similar to it. I’m not sure as far as the details of the bill and exactly what needs to be passed, but it needs to be regulated.

As governor, the main thing I want to represent is that the governor should be completely neutral in regards to the interest of all the people of the state. The energy business is very important for West Virginia, and I want very much to encourage it. We need to have a competitive severance tax for gas. Maybe a little lower. It depends on what nearby states do. We need a severance tax, no question about that, but it needs to be competitive so as to give a strong incentive for companies to want to extract the gas from the Marcellus shale.

It would also be good to reduce the corporate net income tax to give them a break as well. To balance those kinds of economic breaks that should be given to gas companies, we need to be sure that we enforce environmental rights that protect the rights of everyone. I want to protect the rights of large corporations, the larger the better in terms of investment for West Virginia, but I also want to protect the rights of every last person.

The number one function of government is to protect basic rights, particularly property rights. The rights of everyone. That’s one aspect of what I have in mind as far as the Marcellus shale goes.

There’s something else that makes it a very complicated business, and this needs to be thought about very carefully. I think I’m in an excellent position to do that. My specialty, as a professor, is ethics. I teach courses, have done a lot of research and have written extensively on articles on ethics. I especially understand the needs to balance competing values and principles.

One illustration of that is the idea of pooling, as far as underground deposits of gas go. You have to protect property rights for everyone, but suppose someone owns just a very small piece of the underground mineral rights but hasn’t agreed to sell those rights to a company that wants to sell those rights to a large gas company.

Protecting property rights is absolutely essential to government. In this case, it would be the individual right of one or two small holders. The overall common good has got to be considered too. A balance has to be reached.

The essential idea is to find the right kind of balance between the interests of all the people concerned. The governor has to be someone who pledges ahead of time, who’s track record corroborates and personal conduct supports the idea that he or she, as the case may be, is going to insist on equal, balanced, fair treatment for all the people concerned. It’s a very difficult task. I spent a good part of my professional career dealing with issues of value conflicts and balance.

As governor, I think I would be in a good position to move forward in terms of regulations while respecting the fact that West Virginia needs the revenue from a very successful gas extraction business.

The governor has to be tuned in to future consequences of present action, not just “What can I do now to get elected or re-elected?” The governor has to think of future generations and all of us. It’s a hard... I anticipate it would be a very hard balancing act, but I think I would be well-prepared to move in the right direction.



2  — As the debt of OPEB continues to rise, what steps need to be taken to stem the tide and begin reversing the trend?



The number one focus for me as governor would be to increase new jobs, good jobs, raise salaries. The essence of my approach is that West Virginia needs a kind of new sort of culture where people in the government, people in the private sphere, voters and legislators are all focusing on the need to make the state a lot more business-friendly. Just a much better place to do business.

That includes lowering various taxes — corporate net income taxes and others I outline. Taxes need to go down to give breaks to businesses. They need to be really, really competitive with other states. The previous Manchin administration did some good things, but as I see it, they were baby steps in the right direction.

There was no articulation of a vision for the future where West Virginia would beat other states, not just be a little bit better than last year. That’s a little better, but people are going to notice that within the state or outside the state. West Virginia needs to... Because it has a dreadfully low ranking, it’s not thought of favorably by people who are thinking about business investment. The image of a West Virginia as a business-friendly state, well, that needs to be turned around.

West Virginia, seems to me, can become, in regards to these matters, the best state. Not just a little better, a lot better. It has wonderful natural advantages in terms of resources. I moved here about 40 years ago from living in other states. It’s a wonderful state. Really, West Virginia is not too hot and not too cold overall.

A major change is needed, but the nice thing is that even though the state has this bad reputation and has in place the wrong sets of policies in many instances, it’s been so poor for so long, it has made due with less and hasn’t got itself that far into the hole. It isn’t like Ohio, California or some other states who thought they were rich and spent like drunken sailors, and now they are paying for it. Not so here. People have spent money pretty darn well.

The state is not really in bad shape compared to other states, so if there is a turnaround in terms of the culture here, we go from having very low rankings to being the best, or close to the best state in the country. We are small enough. It’s a cohesive state in terms of the way West Virginians think of themselves as a kind of family. That’s very endearing and touching to someone like me who comes from Massachusetts.

This is a wonderful state in terms of the potential that it has to become the best state in the country in terms of being business-friendly and bringing money into the state. The more that happens, the more there will be competition for people in the state for employees, and that will naturally drive up wages. There will be good jobs in the state, and that will benefit the state a great deal.

I don’t want to come across as simply a pro-business candidate for governor. I am a pro-everyone candidate for governor. I want businesses to flourish here but not just for the sake of the businesses but everyone in the state. Everyone needs to be considered by the governor.

I guess it’s presumptuous to say, but I think that’s what really makes my candidacy unique. I’m not seeking the support of any particular group in the sense that I say, “I’m going to be on your side. I’m going to fight for you and not those guys. I’m not going to be anybody’s guy.”

I want business to flourish, but I want everyone else to flourish too.



3 — Transportation remains a significant issue, especially in our region. What specifically will you do as governor to try to resolve the funding crisis as it relates to financing new construction and providing for adequate maintenance of our existing roads and bridges?



We’re in terrible shape. Something like 39 percent of the bridges need repair, serious repair or replacement. It’s just that state is too poor a state to maintain its highways. It’s simple as that. We need much more money in this state. That’s the solution as far as infrastructure in general.

Jobs carry over directly to the transportation situation as well. We just need to be a much richer state. It doesn’t make any sense that we are not if you think about it. West Virginia is a wonderful state in terms of all the natural advantages. The wild and wonderful side of the state is great. Yet, in the last 100 years and more, it’s been a very poor state.

It doesn’t make so much that it’s just so darn poor. There are a lot of things about the state that need to be fixed. There’s been a sort of anti-capitalistic mentality that has been in this state for a long time, I believe it needs to be addressed. As an educator, I feel I am an ideal person to address it. I wrote a book, “Make West Virginia Number One” that I feel is a very solid effort. I spent decades thinking about West Virginia and how to fix it. I thought about it in very broad terms with a pro-market approach that reaches out to everyone.

A small increase in licensing and gasoline taxes are okay, but I wouldn’t want to impose much of an additional burden on West Virginia’s hard-working people right now that drive their trucks to work every morning. Significant increases in gasoline or diesel taxes would have to wait until West Virginia becomes a more prosperous state, which it really should become. I have a slogan in my literature and in my book: “Low taxes, least red tape, highest ethics for West Virginia.”

I would work night and day to make that slogan a reality, and down the road, we have better highways and bridges.



4 — One of former Gov. Joe Manchin’s major platform issues was education reform. While much was discussed, no wide-ranging changes to the way we educate our children have been made in the recent past. What are your plans when it comes to education reform?



I support charter schools and a voucher option. It’s something to at least have in the background. I don’t mean to suggest that all of West Virginia’s schools are doing badly. Some of them are excellent schools. They don’t need to be changed.

Overall, salaries are much too low. I believe in having more money available for teachers in public schools. We can’t afford that right now, especially with reductions in business taxes on inventory, for example, which I would support, is not going to help schools in the short run. It’s going to hurt. It will help in the longer run because we get the reputation for being business-friendly, and that will bring more business in.

We need to get together and persuade people to be together in terms of comprehensive reforms.

In terms of systematic, large-scale improvements, we need to introduce the idea of competition. We don’t always need the actual competition, just potential competition. That works in business. It makes business flourish. It’s essential to a business.

I don’t need to have someone competing down the street with my business for me to be on my toes. I just need to know that if I don’t do a good job of providing the service I provide, someone’s going to move in.

It’s the same with education. If the potential is there, if we pass legislation that enables a voucher system, we are on the right track. It may never be implemented, but it would be in the background as potential competition. The same with charter schools.

My children went through the schools in Morgantown. They had some wonderful teachers, people who dedicated themselves to be excellent. That dedication only carries so far though, because you need to have a system in place with all of the right incentives in the background.

As an educator, I have a feeling for what goes on in education. I’m thinking I could marshal enough support, even though I am a Republican with a great number of Democrats in the state government. I don’t think of myself as being narrowly a Republican. My agenda goes to the heart of Republican values but not in dogmatic sense. I believe I am the person who could go out there and convince enough people that major, large-scale, underlying, systematic changes in the way we think about education in West Virginia... What I really want us to see is West Virginia as an example for other states.



5 — We are constantly told, and are witnessing every day, the far-reaching impacts of drug abuse. What will you do as governor to address the epidemic, and do you have any specific plans for interdiction efforts?



I have some ideas; I don’t know how far they would go. We’re a state with very few opportunities. Why do people turn to drugs? If they have opportunities for good jobs, good careers, they won’t feel so depressed and downtrodden, driven to drugs.

As a professor, I’ve observed students over the years who don’t have motivation and self-discipline. I believe very firmly in the need to promote a culture of self-discipline. I don’t know how much a governor can do. A governor provides a kind of bully pulpit. The governor shouldn’t be too preachy. You can’t have a professor as governor sort of thing. I think I am a persuasive person who can speak to different issues and represent, at least, the idea of increased self-discipline, especially on the part of young people.

Rather than punishing drug users or drug dealers even more harshly, we need more money put into treatment, education and prevention programs. We need to spend a lot more on social services. That kind of goes against the message of Republican values of self-sufficiency.

“Just toss the folks on their own; that’s self-sufficient.”

That’s not my approach at all.

A great deal can be done if the right people are in place, they are supported and the money is there, if the state government is tuned in to it.



Please highlight the key points of your gubernatorial platform.



I want to emphasize that I would be the governor for everyone in the state. I want to make the state an example for the rest of the country. I want our state to have a new alternative slogan. I like wild and wonderful on road signs and such. It’s a good weekend slogan. It points to the natural advantages of West Virginia.

We need a slogan for Monday through Friday. The workday slogan for West Virginia that we can put on signs too.

“Low taxes, least red tape, highest ethics.” 

Let us be known for that just as much as being wild and wonderful.

With red tape, I’m referring to compliance costs for businesses. They are a huge part of business expenses. My family had small businesses, and I’ve worked with people in business. I’ve written about it. I understand it costs a lot to run a small business in terms of compliance costs.

As governor, I would create a blue-ribbon commission given the charge to simplify West Virginia. That would be a No. 1 priority.

We can do our darnedest to make government as close as possible to being painless in West Virginia. That goes to the second part of my slogan.

Regarding ethics, we should be known as a state where the court system is completely fair, where we pick Supreme Court justices in a nonpartial way. That’s not true now; we pick them in a very partial way.

We need to have additional levels of appeal in the state so that it is much easier to appeal judgments made in lower courts. We’ve been too poor to pay for these additional levels until now. We need to have a better court system so people don’t think of West Virginia as tort hell. That’s dreadful and has to be turned around. We can’t live with that.

It can be turned around if everyone gets behind it.