Published: January 28, 2006 11:44 pm      

Kiss decides not to seek another term

Gubernatorial bid in 2012?

CHARLESTON — Two years ago, Bob Kiss leaned back in a chair at his Capitol office and disclosed his intention to make the 2004 legislative race his last hurrah, ending his career as a delegate after nine terms, provided he won that one.

That he did, and all that has changed in the ensuing two years is that Cameron and Carter, twin sons of the House speaker and wife Melinda, and a key factor in his decision then and now, are 4 years old.

For the first time in 18 years, the name Bob Kiss won’t appear on an official West Virginia election ballot in 2006.

In six years, however, you might see him near the top of one, as a Democratic candidate for governor, but only time will tell if the Beckley resident is ready to go for the top political prize.

“One of the things in my thought process is the possibility of maybe looking at a gubernatorial campaign in 2012,” he disclosed.

“And you don’t do that, I don’t think, from the Legislature.”

For now, Kiss is leaving the political arena, to the dismay of his fervent supporters in and out of the House, especially in southern West Virginia where he is an icon, not unlike Sen. Robert C. Byrd, with whom he has shared a penchant for delivering the bacon in a region long neglected by the erstwhile wielders of power.

Not only are his children a factor, but Kiss said he had to consider the demands of his livelihood as a lawyer and the need to provide for the family’s contemporary needs and future ones, such as two college diplomas in years that will arrive all too soon.

“And also there’s the desire to spend more time doing other things, not just time with family, but things I like to do,” the 48-year-old speaker said in an interview last week as the Saturday filing deadline neared.

“It got to the point I was spending God knows how many days a year doing this. It’s supposed to be a part-time job. I enjoy it. I think I’ve had an impact. I hope 10 to 20 years from now people look back and will recognize that. But for all those reasons, I made the announcement I did two years ago. And I’m really thankful for everything in the last several months and all of the people that urged me to change my mind and reconsider.”

Indeed, the pressure was mounting, and at times it seemed the speaker’s future provoked more gossip and speculation than some of the legislation floating from committee to the House floor.

Beckleyans regard him a favorite son, and many in the city were urging, almost demanding, that he change his mind, but Kiss would have none of it.

“I don’t think it’s the best thing to do at this point,” he said. “So for all of those reasons, I will not file.”

Arriving in Beckley as a youthful tax lawyer, the Dayton, Ohio, native won his first election to the House in 1988, and has been the people’s choice of the 27th District of Summers and Raleigh counties, chairing the Rules and Finance committees, and co-anchoring the Joint Committee on Government and Finance.

Kiss was elected as the 54th speaker by majority delegates Jan. 8, 1997. He has won the speaker’s gavel in every succeeding session, tying the 10-year mark set by former Speaker Chuck Chambers.

In his adopted hometown of Beckley, he married a judge’s daughter, Melinda Ashworth.

Kiss understands the impact his decision will have on southern West Virginia.

“That’s what really made it tough, because, to some extent, you feel like you’re letting them down,” he said.

“But on the other hand, I can’t keep doing this forever. And I never intended to do it forever.”

There were other reasons that emerged, including a barrage of negative press waged by Charleston newspapers, which ran stories last week attacking his residency, since he works for a law firm in Charleston and maintains a temporary residence there.

“You’ve seen the press the last couple of weeks, particularly the Charleston press, where they think that this is all just a big game and they can beat up on anybody and everybody when they want to,” the speaker said.

“That also plays in it.”

Of all the giant strides taken in the past decade, Kiss feels his top accomplishment was playing a pivotal role in reversing the state’s financial fortunes.

Upon arrival, he found a state staring into the black hole of massive debts soaring into the hundreds of millions, short-term debts in arrears and no plan to get the long-term bills off the state’s shoulders.

“We’ve been making progress and never missed a payment,” he said.

Within the past year, the troopers’ retirement fund, for instance, has reached the stage that it’s 80 percent funded. He alluded to the turnaround in workers’ compensation, where his wife has been chief financial officer. With the exception of last year’s boost in severance taxes, the about-face came without any broad-based tax increases — a fact Kiss enjoys reminding to any audience.

A pet peeve, indeed one of his “frustrations,” has been the tendency in recent years by what he scorns as “snake oil salesmen,” politicians eager to tell a voting public what it wants to hear about taxation to win support in quest of office.

Without the tax base, programs simply cannot survive and bills that pile up over decades cannot be erased, and lowering taxes, while popular with many, just doesn’t cut it, he said.

“I can’t do that,” he said. “If someone else can do it, more power to them. I don’t think it’s too strong to call some of those individuals snake oil salesmen.”

While the state has seen a dramatic upturn in its ability to pay its bills — the once paltry $20 million donation to the teachers’ pension has soared to $350 million and before long will jump to $600 million — the state has been laying a network of water and sewer lines and achieving other infrastructure goals.

That, Kiss says, would rank No. 2 on his short list of major accomplishments.

“Where did the money come from?” he asked, then answered. “It came from two places. It came from growth in the economy. Because, as we were seeing growth, we didn’t do any major dramatic taxes over the past decade because we couldn’t. So we were using that growth to responsibly live within our means, and it came from gaming.”

Therein lies another point of discomfiture Kiss has with some in politics.

Just as they recoil in horror from taxes, the mention of gambling likewise strikes raw nerves, but the same folks want to spend money on programs or pay off debts, he said.

And invariably, such critics want to paint the Democrats as the party of gambling.

“For those that opine the vision of this Democratic leadership, starting with (former Gov.) Gaston Caperton, and now carried over, the economic vision for this state is gambling, that also galls me,” the outgoing speaker said.

“We are using it as a means to an end. Where has that money gone? Paying off our debts, the sins of the past. A large chunk of it is going into water and sewer, school construction, infrastructure, PROMISE. So it’s things that I think are building this state’s economy for a diversification and the other things that we want. None of us want to base our economy on gaming.”

Any debate should embrace the entire picture, and Kiss says it’s “sad” the debate never arose last summer when 1 percent was whittled off the 6 percent sales tax on groceries, but, instead, what developed was “a battle of personalities.”

Kiss spoke proudly of the “pay as you go” approach in the area of infrastructure, pointing out West Virginia lacked a school construction program in the 1980s but now has one that blankets the state.

Ranked third on the list of met initiatives were the prescription drug act and creation of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The latter, he said, has stricken nearly all children from the ranks of the uninsured.

Health care coverage likely will dominate this session, he feels, and Kiss said he doesn’t view his chamber’s expansion of Gov. Joe Manchin’s proposals as necessarily the “universal health care” that has triggered tremors in the more conservative Senate.

“I know we’ve got a short window here,” he said. “What causes the cost shift? Underpayments in Medicaid and PEIA, which is going to get even worse with what the feds are now going to do when they stop running on their credit card, hopefully.

“And the other thing is the uninsured. So what we’re trying to do is say we’ve got a window here, guys. I’m not saying do everyone one of them, but we need to do something over the next several years.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com