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It boggles the mind what's happened to West Virginia since 2014.
There is no doubt since Republicans became West Virginia's legislative majority in 2014, the state's policy landscape has changed in ways the average West Virginian in 2013 would scarcely believe. The past nine years have been replete with conservative reforms that were -- and remain -- needed to help the state climb out of its deserved historical reputation as a high poverty, big government, and low opportunity state.
In just two years, 2015-2016, West Virginia passed sweeping legal reforms which allowed the state to abandon its long-time "judicial hellhole" moniker, and legislators gave workers the freedom to choose whether to join unions with a policy known as "right-to-work" in a state long known for its historical ties to labor unions. At the time, these reforms were deeply contested and hotly debated, but each reform was necessary for the state to get on a more competitive playing field compared to booming states like Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
In more recent years, West Virginia passed a trailblazing school choice policy known as the "Hope Scholarship" in 2021 that was the envy of the education reform world.
Up until that year, West Virginia had no form of private school choice -- it was like going from "fire in a cave" to "nuclear fusion" in just a few years. Since 2021, several other states have followed West Virginia's lead in passing private education choice programs.
Earlier this year, Gov. Jim Justice and the legislature passed the largest income tax cut in the state's history that will lead to hundreds of millions of dollars remaining in the pockets of those who earned the money to spend, save, and invest as they see fit and will not end up in the halls of Charleston's myriad bureaucracies.
Any one of these reforms over the last nine years would have been cause for major celebration, but taken together, it is a clear sign that West Virginia's new dominant party recognized the need to try something different.
Whatever the governing philosophy of West Virginia was from 1863-2014, it simply was not working -- conservative policies have led, and won, the day.
Now, what?
While representing a seismic shift in policy, West Virginia's reforms were, to most conservative, free-market types, obvious, necessary, and represented philosophical "low-hanging fruit." That's not to say the reforms were easy or pre-ordained -- far from it, in fact. Each of those reforms required an iron will, strong leadership, and a very clear vision for what is required for a better, more prosperous future for West Virginians of every stripe.
However, cutting taxes, expanding access to education choice, common sense legal reforms, and allowing workers to choose to join a union has long been a part of mainstream conservative, free market orthodoxy -- an orthodoxy to which I happily subscribe. West Virginia had obvious problems, and it had them for a very, very long time, so the solutions were in plain sight.
So, with many of West Virginia's most obvious reforms behind it, the question naturally arises: what is the state's conservative vision moving forward?
If I may be so bold as to suggest one, and only one, option for West Virginia conservatism: expanding opportunity.
Through the previous decades, West Virginia has accumulated quite a bit of policy "pebbles" that have made it difficult for ordinary people to access opportunity. The pebbles have manifested in many ways, from the proliferation of boards and commissions and occupational licenses, all of which make it difficult, often unnecessarily so, for folks to ply their trade, to an esoteric, Soviet-esque policy known as "certificate of need" which allows entrenched healthcare conglomerates to keep competition at bay. (If you've noticed hospital consolidation around the state, you can thank certificate-of-need for a substantial part of that.)
One pebble will not stop the flow of a stream, but over time, in West Virginia's case, over 150 years, the constant accumulation of pebbles will dam a stream ... and a state. The successful conservative, free-market project in West Virginia must continue with the hard work of identifying and removing pebbles -- often with little fanfare and strong entrenched opposition -- in the way of better, more prosperous futures, with an end goal of making West Virginia a true "Opportunity State."
These kinds of reforms do not lend themselves to headlines, parades, or ribbon-cutting ceremonies, but they are the necessary marrow of a strong conservative project and prosperous, healthy body politic.
It's time to craft this opportunity vision.
Garrett Ballengee is the President and CEO of the Cardinal Institute for WV Policy.