Splits in the state Senate’s Republican supermajority have made the members appear less than superfriends.
A little less than a year ago, members of the Republican caucus were at odds for about a week over how maps of their own districts should take shape for the next 10 years. More recently, senators struggled for consensus on West Virginia abortion policy, with frustrations spilling over during a special session that has not yet reached a conclusion.
And now Senator Patricia Rucker, who has been removed as the Education Committee chairwoman, has announced a challenge to Senate President Craig Blair, seeking to replace her fellow Republican in leadership.
This sounds like a complicated stew of interpersonal relationships, but it also intersects with how the Senate considers and deals with policy. Why can’t a supermajority pass whatever it wants? Factions. What gets worse if the factions break down? Frustration.
There are 23 Republicans in the Senate and just 11 Democrats right now, so it looks like the majority could do whatever it wants. Sometimes, though, there’s clearly a strain.
Rucker, making a surprise announcement for Senate president on statewide radio, said a change is needed.
“There’s different ways in which you can get things done,” said Rucker, R-Jefferson. “And the way that I prefer doing it is by working as a team, talking to all the members, respecting all the members and all the opinions, and I really just feel that I may be stronger in those type of skills.”
Rucker went no farther in describing how many senators support her challenge, only hinted at criticism of Blair and said senators are friends.
“I have received support, and I definitely feel that there are members that agree and would like to see a different way of doing things,” she said. “But we in the Senate, we don’t air out our differences; we prefer to stay on a positive note. I believe we will continue to do that, and we all like each other.”
Mmmm hmmm.
When Blair was asked about her bid, he first chuckled. Blair has been Senate president since 2020.
“I don’t care. We’re in the business of fixing the state of West Virginia and if she’s able to garner the votes and take me out, so be it,” Blair, R-Berkeley, said at the start of a radio interview.
Blair often talks of his willingness to listen and the value of a good idea, no matter where it comes from. In describing the decision to remove Rucker as education chairwoman, Blair said he checked in with other members of the caucus.
“I checked in with 15 members and reviewed this with them and got the blessing on moving forward to do this,” he said. “My job as the Senate president is not to dictate my will to the members; my job is to facilitate the will. Frankly, I’m the 18th vote whenever there’s 17 of them wanting something done. That’s well known.”
The trouble is, the path to 17 votes isn’t always clear, said Greg Thomas, a longtime West Virginia political adviser who often works with Republican senators.
He described three general groups among the Republicans. Of those three, the trick is getting enough votes to pass a bill.
“I think what’s happening here is you’ve got the majority of the Republicans in the Senate are center right, but you do have a far right faction and you have a more moderate faction that has five or six people in it,” Thomas said in a telephone interview.
“But what happens is, the far right won’t negotiate with the center right, which forces the center right to negotiate with the more moderate wing. If you’re President Blair, you somehow have to get enough votes to get it across the line.”
So, Thomas said, “The far right would be in a better position to negotiate with the center right to bring stuff along but their unwillingness to negotiate at all inevitably causes legislation to be watered down. It’s very shortsighted.”
That seemed to happen in the week of debate over abortion policy, where many discussions among Republican senators took place behind closed doors. Sometimes senators would appear for floor sessions only to recess for hours at a time.
In the end, members of the majority caucus had clear disagreements about whether medical providers should be subject to criminal penalties and the extent of any exceptions for victims of rape or incest.
“If I decide to vote for this legislation it is with the hope that the other side (delegates) will be able to improve upon it,” Rucker said that night before she eventually joined those who voted against it.
Senator Robert Karnes, R-Randolph, another no vote, said delegates might come back with something more restrictive “but if they do, it won’t pass this body.”
“This is not a pro-life bill; this is a pro-abortion bill,” Karnes said that night, blaming some of his party colleagues who had pushed to loosen its policies. “This was done by this party.”
House Speaker Roger Hanshaw has now called for a resumption of the special session on Monday, Sept. 12. A conference committee of five members from each chamber is supposed to work out differences. Prayers to all involved.
This week, Karnes said he’s still frustrated by how the Senate operates.
“I do think we need to change. I think we need a more effectual leadership group and a more inclusive leadership group, and I think that Senator Rucker can bring that,” Karnes said, adding that he hasn’t decided who to support until he knows if there are additional candidates for Senate president.”
Karnes contended the caucus, even behind the scenes, doesn’t allow for enough give-and-take. While the Senate’s leadership has been advocating property tax cuts, Karnes made a daily speech during the regular legislative session to urge making a priority of personal income tax cuts first. His view hasn’t prevailed.
“I don’t think the leadership team is what is normally considered to be a leadership team where major committee heads, etc., are even allowed to participate in a real meaningful way in leadership discussions. But I also know from direct experiences that the caucuses themselves are not really broad discussions because it’s not as invited as it should be,” he said in a telephone conversation.
“Everyone has a reasonable right to be heard. Every single member of the Senate, whether Republican or Democrat, was elected by more than 100,000 people, and those 100,000 people deserve to have their voice heard.”
Asked on radio about Karnes last week, Blair didn’t hold back.
“Robert Karnes is behind a lot of this, and the fact of the matter is half of my caucus thinks I’m far right and the other half thinks I’m a moderate. It doesn’t make any difference. I’m there to facilitate the will there,” Blair said.
“But Robert Karnes, the people of his district are under represented. We need to find a better person than him. He creates chaos in the caucus.”
On the difference of opinions on tax cut priorities, Blair concluded “Robert has been trying to undermine us every step of the way. So I have no use for him, frankly.”
Observing from the other side of the aisle, Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin said the GOP divide became clear as far back as the 2021 regular session when the chamber operated under covid guidelines that included face coverings.
“It really began with covid and masks and protocols in the session, where you had this split between Senator Karnes and some of his faction and Senator Blair and some of his leadership team,” said Baldwin, D-Greenbrier. “That was the first sign of the cracks in the caucus.”
Karnes, in this interview this week, said he’d concluded the thin cloth masks aren’t helpful. Experts have been advising that medical-grade masks are most helpful in preventing the spread of disease. Karnes, though, wore some sort of mesh face covering, which drew a lot of attention, and wound up sacrificing all of his committee positions for the stretch run of the session.
These conflicts matter beyond just the interpersonal relationships, Baldwin said. “Leadership certainly sets priorities which leads to policymaking, bills and the legislative process,” he said. “I also think it matters how those people in those positions utilize them.”
Baldwin also has criticism of how the Republican majority meets behind closed doors to set agendas in caucus. Ideally, he said, bills would run through the legislative process to be worked by senators regardless of their party or geographic representation.
“That’s not what happens currently,” Baldwin said. “They take a vote within caucus and the majority vote within caucus is what the whole caucus abides by, even if it was a 12-11 split. You could have 12 in favor, 11 opposed and 11 within our caucus opposed to it.”
But to his eye, the entire Republican caucus has generally united behind bills that actually have split support.
“If people think these decisions are being made in debate on the floor them they are mistaken. That’s the way the process is supposed to happen. That’s not the way it happens,” he said. “The caucus vote is what matters. The vote on the floor is ceremonial.”
Baldwin chalks up the current conflict to political, philosophical and personality conflicts. And those can be a drain, he said.
“Caucus drama can sap all of your time and your energy and preclude you from doing the work that you’ve been elected to do,” he said. “That’s why it’s incumbent to have a good system and good leadership. You can very easily go down the rabbit hole and not come back out.”