MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A week after his latest campaign finance report showed a strong count of small-dollar donations, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stephen Smith appeared on MetroNews “Talkline” to provide more insight into his platform.
Smith’s third-quarter report showed his campaign collected $149,816 in contributions, with an overwhelming amount from small-dollar donors.
“By having a campaign that’s really owned by and listening to everyday people, they say, yeah, I want to be part of that and I’m going to pitch in, whether it’s my ideas or my time or $5 a month,” he said.
When the conversation shifted to education, Smith said teachers’ salaries should be competitive with neighboring states, meaning a 10% raise.
“It’s not just about paying working people and our teachers what they’re worth, although that’s important,” he said. “It’s also about making sure we stop losing talent. By some measure, some 900 teacher vacancies going into this school year. You wouldn’t run any kind of business or organization where a large percent of your workforce doesn’t even exist because you aren’t paying a decent wage.”
To pay the raises, Smith pitched raising the severance tax on natural gas to 10%.
“What we’ve seen every time a state increases its severance tax is there has not been a side-by-side decrease in the gas business, and we don’t think there would be a major decrease,” he said. “There’s so much money being made and there’s so few places for people to get the gas that we’ll think they’ll stay.”
Smith said the additional revenue would also go toward infrastructure, which would allow West Virginia to lead in wind and solar energy in the future.
“We set ourselves up for a future that our kids can have a decent job not just now, but 10 and 20 and 30 years from now,” he added.
Smith said his campaign will put out a platform on other items as the election season continues, but it will take more than a governor for change to happen; he noted his West Virginia Can’t Wait movement is looking to recruit up to 20 candidates for the primary.
“One governor is not the solution,” he said.
Individuals already recruited to West Virginia Can’t Wait include U.S. Senate candidate Paula Jean Swearengin and 2nd Congressional District candidate Cathy Kunkel.