CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A special budget legislative session that lasted over three weeks long has led to a disagreement between the the two candidates running to be West Virginia’s next governor.
Democratic nominee and Greenbrier owner Jim Justice criticized the legislature on Wednesday, accusing his opponent in November, Sen. President Bill Cole, and Republican leadership for wasting nearly $600,000 on the special session.
“I am too impatient to watch the politicians bicker for months and months and see nothing get done,” said Justice in a release. “The budget mess in Charleston proves that we need to impose a tighter timeline on the legislature because they wasted too much money and created uncertainty for our families. On the farm, I’ve put in many 18-hour days, and I think lawmakers should do the same.”
Justice called for a series of reforms, including limiting pay to five days for any special budget session, and banning any fundraising while the legislature is in session. Cole fired back at Justice on MetroNews “Talkline” on Wednesday, accusing him of indirectly trying to sabotage the session.
“His senior adviser to his campaign (Larry Puccio) went and ran (to) the House Democratic caucus and told them to obstruct the process to make Republicans look bad,” Cole told Hoppy Kercheval.
Cole also said that Justice’s comments showed that he doesn’t know how the legislature pay scale works.
“It shows that they don’t really know what goes on. We get paid $20,000 a year whether we’re in special session for 300 days or two days,” he said. “The salary doesn’t change; now, granted, we get per diems, but that pays for your motel bill and your food presumably.”
Justice’s release included a list of things that could have been funded with the money “wasted” on the special session. Cole argued that the legislature has in actuality done quite a lot to cut costs.
“We’ve saved $500,000 a year by reducing the amount of interims, we have cut staff, cut salaries since the Republicans have been leading the legislature. We brought the printing in-house to save $300,000 a year,” he explained. “To act like we’ve gone and blown a bunch of taxpayers’ money is a misstatement, disingenuous at very least.”
The special session concluded Tuesday evening with a budget heading to the desk of Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin.