West Virginia Senate Minority Leader Roman Prezioso says he won’t run for re-election in 2020.
The Exponent Telegram reports the 70-year-old Marion County Democrat made the announcement Monday.
Prezioso was elected to the House of Delegates in 1988, won his seat in the state Senate in 1996 and has been re-elected every four years since.
Prezioso says today’s political climate is “difficult to maneuver in,” and while lawmakers should be able to compromise on issues, “it seems like compromise is a sign of weakness.”
After attempting to rally members of the Senate around his tax reform plan Tuesday, Gov. Jim Justice decided to also formally address members of the House of Delegates Wednesday.
Senators have already approved the measure to significantly alter the state’s tax code, but with only Republican support. Justice largely focused on his disappointment with Senate Democrats in his speech to the House.
“[Tuesday] you saw something that was terribly, terribly disappointing and unbelievable to me. Unbelievable,” he said.
The Senate voted 19-11 Tuesday on the Justice-backed tax reform plan, with all Democrats in attendance voting against it.
The tax reform measure would raise the consumer sales tax from 6 to 6.95 percent. It would restructure the personal income tax, cutting the tax rate for all income brackets and setting triggers for its eventual repeal. It raises the corporate net income tax by half a percent, and it restructures the coal severance tax so companies pay based on the price per ton.
Senate Minority Leader Roman Prezioso said his caucus has been involved in negotiations over the bill, but they voted against it Tuesday because it was “piecemeal at best.”
Credit Perry Bennett / West Virginia Legislative Photography
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West Virginia Legislative Photography
Senate Minority Leader Roman Prezioso.
Prezioso said House members have made it clear they’re not interested in the proposed changes to the personal income tax.
Justice called the move a “black eye” and said he was hurt by the vote that he wasn’t aware the Senate Democrats were going to take.
“This is a big boy’s game. There’s a lot at stake. The future of this state is at stake,” Prezioso said of the governor’s comments. “Don’t be hurt. Roll up your sleeves and get to work.”
Justice also attempted to change the minds of a number of Delegates who say they can’t support the measure, Delegates on both sides of the aisle.
To the House Democrats, Justice asked them to not “follow the leader just to be following the leader.” To House Republicans, Justice explained he and members of the majority party in the Senate had attempted to negotiate with House leaders.
“We’ve tried,” he said. “We’ve tried to compromise.”
But that compromise hasn’t been reached.
House Republicans want a tax reform plan that focuses on the sales tax, getting rid of exemptions to lower the overall tax rate and still break even in terms of revenue.
House Finance Chair Eric Nelson said they also don’t want to increase taxes on businesses, like the corporate net income tax increase included in the bill, and they worry about deficits down the road.
Tweak the bill, Justice told members of the House, but put it to a vote.
The House Finance Committee has the Senate-approved Tax Reform Act of 2017 and will likely attempt to amend their own plan into it. Senators are going home though, waiting for the House to make its next move.
Legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle are reacting to Gov. Jim Justice’s announcement Tuesday that the state’s bond rating had been downgraded by the third national rating agency in a year.
Moody’s dropped the state’s rating from AA1 to AA2.
Senate Minority Leader Roman Prezioso is a former Finance Chair and explained Wednesday, the bond rating is like a credit score. When the rating is high, the state gets a low interest rate on long-term loans it takes out for expensive projects, like building highways or expanding public water lines.
“But as our bond rating lowers, the interest rate goes up, so it puts a lot of infrastructure projects in jeopardy,” he said.
Credit Will Price / West Virginia Legislative Photography
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West Virginia Legislative Photography
Senate Minority Leader Roman Prezioso listens to a floor speech on Wednesday.
It affects the current budget to a degree, Prezioso said, but it has a larger impact on future ones.
Even after the announcement, though, and the warning by Moody’s to find a long-term solution to the state’s continually imbalanced budget, Republican legislative leaders are sticking to the guns on cutting government and avoiding tax increases.
In a written statement Wednesday, Speaker Armstead said the downgrade reinforces the need for fundamental changes to how government operates and that the tax-and-spend policies of the past won’t solve the problem.
“There are things that we can do in this legislative session that can reverse that trend, that will put us on a path of growth and prosperity and those are the things that we are intent on pursuing,” Senate President Mitch Carmichael said Wednesday.
Things like reducing the size of government and creating a business climate that incentivizes growth.
“The bond agencies don’t care how much government you have, it’s your ability to pay for it,” Prezioso said, adding he only sees one solution.
“The situation that we’re in now, it almost mandates that to stabilize this economy, we need a revenue source and that’s about the only way you can do it,” he said.
But that’s something lawmakers in recent years have been unwilling to do, and not just under Republican control. Democratic Sen. Corey Palumbo said in a floor speech Wednesday the tax-and-spend policies Speaker Armstead referred to haven’t been implemented in his 15 years in the Legislature.
Credit Will Price / West Virginia Legislative Photography
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West Virginia Legislative Photography
Sen. Corey Palumbo gives a floor speech Wednesday.
“That’s not been the way of the Legislature,” he told his fellow Senators. “We’ve increased the tobacco tax twice in the last 20 years that I can recall and that’s been the only tax increase that we’ve passed in this Legislature.”
State budget officials have predicted a nearly $500 million budget gap in the 2018 fiscal year, but Republican Sen. Craig Blair said that gap in is the governor’s version of the budget, a budget that’s built on increased spending supported by tax increases.
“He’s brought before us the largest budget that we’ve ever had. He’s also brought before us the largest tax increase that we’ve ever had,” he said during a floor speech Wednesday, “and I can tell you right now, my vote is not going to be part of that.”
That’s why Senate leaders, like Finance Chair Mike Hall, say they’re handling the budget differently this year.
Hall’s committee is meeting with individual agency heads to find potential cuts and efficiencies and instead of building a budget based on the money the governor predicts the state will have in 2018, they’re building it off of the revenues the state actually brought in in 2017.
“We know roughly how much money we took in last year and how much we have to spend,” Carmichael said. “We want to build a budget document around that.”
Only after they have that spending document complete, Carmichael said, will his chamber look to any potential tax increases. Carmichael expects the Senate’s budget document will be completed around the halfway mark of the session.
