A state’s governor wants more federal funding to battle COVID-19. One of its senators is hesitant to go too big in a funding bill and works to pare it back. The governor would presumably be a Democrat and the senator a Republican.
In West Virginia, though, it is Republican Gov. Jim Justice who advocated for a larger coronavirus relief package and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin who was a thorn in his party’s side by opposing a larger spending bill.
Justice, a former Democrat who announced that he switched parties at a rally for then-President Donald Trump in 2017, repeatedly said that President Biden should “go big” on coronavirus aid. While Manchin, a senator since 2010 after six years as governor, lobbied to make his Democratic colleagues target the aid and aim for support from Senate Republicans.
The West Virginia governor repeated his more-is-more COVID-19 bill position in a press conference on Monday: “A bigger stimulus package, at this point in time, is what is needed to finally get up the steepest part of the mountain.”
MANCHIN OPEN TO MAKING FILIBUSTER MORE ‘PAINFUL’
In a related break from other Republicans across the country, Justice, whose state has excelled in managing the virus and vaccine distribution, criticized fellow Republican governors who moved to eliminate mask mandates, calling it “ridiculous.”
“Nobody likes a mask. But for crying out loud, if we could be a little more prudent for 30 more days or 45 more days or whatever it took for us to get on rock-solid ground, that’s the approach West Virginia is going to take,” Justice said on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.
The coronavirus relief funds-politics is fanning the flames of a feud between Manchin and Justice.
In an interview last year, Manchin criticized Justice for using funds from the CARES Act relief bill on road projects. “I don’t know of a pothole that has had the COVID virus. I haven’t found one yet,” Manchin said. “How they’re using it for highways and potholes, and not for people, is beyond me.”
Justice, on Sunday, said that the funds were handled “perfectly” and that he is “not going to get in a food fight with Joe Manchin.”
But a day later, Justice tore into Manchin when he was asked about a provision that Senate Democrats added to the coronavirus aid bill that prevents states from using funds in the stimulus bill to offset reductions in tax revenue due to a change in a law or regulation. Justice is pushing to end the state income tax, and Manchin opposes it. Justice said that Manchin primarily wrote that provision as a way to get back at the governor.
“Joe Manchin is supposed to be your representative, West Virginia. And you know what Joe Manchin is doing? He’s still trying to hit at me,” Justice said. “He doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about this state.”
West Virginia broadcaster and political commentator Hoppy Kercheval told the Washington Examiner that Justice sees the issue as Manchin “sticking his nose into someplace that it doesn’t belong.”
“Justice takes that personally because of how he’s dealt with the pandemic,” Kercheval said.
It is the latest explosion between the two giants of West Virginia politics, who have a thorny history. Manchin, the former governor of the state, considered running against Justice for the spot in 2020. In 2018, Justice fired Manchin’s wife, the state’s secretary of education and the arts.
“This feud between them is less about Democrat-Republican philosophical differences than it is about two alpha males,” Kercheval said. “These are both enormous political figures in the state.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Manchin, later on Monday, responded to Justice: “Instead of political attacks that do nothing to help hard-working West Virginians, I welcome the opportunity to speak with Gov. Justice about the best possible ways to improve the lives of West Virginians with the more than $2 billion in federal funding that I secured for our state in this bill,” Manchin said in a statement.
Manchin plans to continue being the most visible roadblock to the Democrats’ agenda in the Senate, telling Axios in a recent interview that he plans to push his party even more to make looming infrastructure legislation bipartisan.
