Senate Candidate Comparison

The midterm elections for West Virginia will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 6. Two candidates for U.S. Senate of West Virginia are Joe Manchin and Jim Morrisey.

According to the Joe Manchin website at manchin.senate. gov, Manchin is a Democrat. Manchin serves on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Manchin is addressing the issues of education, energy, intelligence, appropriation, healthcare, infrastructure and jobs, opioids, seniors, and veterans.

In a tweet (@Sen_JoeManchin), from Oct. 18, 2018 he states, “We’ve worked to make sure that coal is part of our all-of-the-above energy portfolio, legislation to the end of the opioid epidemic, repair our broken healthcare system, provide for our veterans and fully fund our military.”

Manchin has launched the Prescription Drug Abuse Caucus, which involves members and stakeholders working together to develop legislation, and enabling programs that can end the opioid epidemic and prevent future drug abuse. They hope to do this by getting Congress to invest in these programs. Manchin supports coal, and hopes to develop a plan to use other resources like natural gas, biomass, wind, nuclear, and solar power. According to Staff Report at www.thedaonlince.com, Manchin made the statement in 2013, “It’s simply unacceptable that one of the key elements of his climate change proposal places regulations on coal that are completely impossible to meet with existing technology.”

Patrick Morrisey is the Republican Attorney General of West Virginia and a conservative. He has served as Deputy Staff Director and Chief Health Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. In that position, he worked on Medicare, Medicaid, and bioterrorism legislation.

Morrisey started West Virginia’s first-ever substance abuse fighting unit, according to his website.

The issues addressed by Morrisey’s campaign are fighting substance abuse, jobs and economy, second ammendment rights, right to life, energy, national security, illegal immigration, Constitutional conservative values, veterans, fighting for seniors, healthcare, and term limits.

Morrisey’s Twitter bio @ MorriseyWV states, “Agent of change. Drain the swamp, take on federal overreach and advance freedom in WV.” According to The Hill, Morrisey made a statement in 2016 saying, “We have always believed that what the EPA is trying to do here is radical and unprecedented, and they’re trying to transform the agency from serving as an environmental regulator and becoming a central planning authority. It’s the job of the attorney general of West Virginia to fight that federal overreach.”

More information about the candidates can be found on their websites.