By Mike Tony
Charleston Gazette-Mail
Two months after Congress passed a sprawling budget reconciliation law that has set up deep cuts to health care and food assistance for thousands of West Virginians, the law came up at a state legislative committee meeting.
At the Joint Government and Finance Committee’s Sept. 7 meeting in Charleston, House of Delegates Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, asked state Department of Revenue Deputy Secretary Mark Muchow whether his team had completed an analysis of anticipated implications for West Virginia from the law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Muchow answered in the affirmative.
“If that’s an analysis you’d be willing to share, we’d benefit from that,” Hanshaw told Muchow.
The next day, the Gazette-Mail filed a request with Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s office under the West Virginia Freedom of Information Act for that analysis of the West Virginia impacts of the law, which has been projected to increase power bills and add trillions to the national debt in addition to leading to health care and food assistance cuts.
After requesting an extension of time beyond the five-business-day window the law gives government agencies to respond to the request, Morrisey’s office on Dec. 19 denied the request. Governor’s Office Deputy General Counsel Katie Franklin argued in a letter the analysis falls under a state exemption for internal correspondence.
Morrisey has been a vocal supporter of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the fellow Republican who signed it into law, President Donald Trump.
Franklin’s explanation doesn’t pass muster with Patrick McGinley, a government ethics expert and law professor emeritus at the West Virginia University College of Law.
“[The response] doesn’t explain why they have chosen to conceal this particular document that they say they may use, that the governor’s going to use in coming up with legislative strategy,” McGinley said in a phone interview. “What’s the explanation for that? Because they don’t have to [deny the request].”
Franklin said in the denial letter the analysis acknowledged by Muchow at the committee meeting was “prepared to aid the Governor in making upcoming decisions on state expenditures, the budget, and potential legislation.” Disclosure of the analysis, Franklin claimed, would discourage the kind of candid discussion a state exemption for “deliberative process” is meant to protect.
The stakes are high for that analysis going into the 2026 regular legislative session, which begins on Jan. 14. The Legislature will set the state’s budget for the coming year and is likely to consider effects from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
See the rest of the story at the Charleston Gazette-Mail