Patrick Morrisey: Friend of the Ruling Class, Enemy of the People
Despite his claims, Morrisey is no friend of the working class.
From the Party for Socialism and Liberation - West Virginia:
Meet West Virginia’s governor-elect Patrick Morrisey: friend of the ruling class, enemy of the people. Where does he really stand on the issues?
The Opioid Crisis & Big Pharma
Morrisey ran his gubernatorial campaign on the claim that he is “always winning for West Virginia,” pointing to his work as Attorney General taking on the largest pharmaceutical distributors that flooded millions of prescription opioids into the state, leading to the deaths of 1,000+ West Virginians every year.
However, what Morrisey fails to mention is that before his career as Attorney General, he was a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry, representing the very companies responsible for the opioid crisis in West Virginia. Additionally, his wife, Denise Henry Morrisey, lobbied for Cardinal Health, the state's leading opioid supplier, from 1999 to 2016.
Even after Morrisey began pursuing settlements with opioid distributors—including Cardinal Health—in 2013, his wife was raking in money from the same companies that he claimed to be fighting—$1.4 million from Cardinal Health alone!
Between the years 2007 and 2012, during which both Morrisey and his wife were lobbying for Big Pharma, more than 780 million prescription opioids flooded into the state.
Morrisey played a significant role in advancing the opioid crisis in West Virginia and should be held accountable, not painted as a hero!
Transgender & Women’s Rights
A fundamental strategy of the far-right, billionaire agenda is to attack oppressed groups, like the LGBTQ+ community, in an attempt to divide the working class and divert attention from the fact that billionaires—not trans youth—are responsible for the crises facing working people.
In 2024, when an appeals court ruled against West Virginia's anti-trans "Save Women's Sports" bill, Morrisey filed a briefing asking for the case to be taken up by the US Supreme Court, stressing the importance of protecting young women and the integrity of women's sports.
Meanwhile, Morrisey has been an aggressive supporter of West Virginia's near total abortion ban, which has had a significant and disproportionate impact on poor and working class women of color. In 2023 alone, 2,240 women were forced to travel out of state to receive abortion care, an option not available to low income communities.
Morrisey's real goal is not to protect young women, but to help destroy the historic progress won by both the LGBTQ+ and women's rights movements in the interests of the ruling class!
Workers Rights
Morrisey once again demonstrated his allegiance to the ruling class by fighting to uphold West Virginia's "right-to-work" law when challenged by a Kanawha County Circuit Judge in 2020. West Virginia's "right-to-work" law, first passed in 2016, prohibits labor unions from requiring new employees to join the onsite union and pay dues as a condition of employment.
In other words, new workers can enjoy all of the benefits of union membership—better pay, better benefits, safer job sites and better unemployment protection, all fought for and won over several years—but do not have to pay dues or belong to the union.
"Right-to-work" laws are a tactic used by the ruling class to gut labor unions and eliminate collective bargaining power. West Virginia has a long history of union organizing, and Morrisey's work to undermine this tradition has been detrimental to West Virginia's working class!
Climate & the Environment
A core component of Morrisey's far-right, billionaire agenda is the issue of “defeating federal overreach and the deep state"—i.e. limiting the ability of regulatory agencies to place restrictions on corporations that could impact profits for CEOs and shareholders.
In 2022, Morrisey led the Supreme Court case, West Virginia v. EPA, that resulted in a restriction to the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act.
Under the guise of protecting West Virginia's jobs, Morrisey and the rest of the ruling class has given the fossil fuel industry the green light to pollute our air, water, and land in order to maximize profits for the corporations whose interests he serves!
Despite his claims, Morrisey is no friend of the working class. During his career as Attorney General, he has repeatedly demonstrated his loyalty to the ruling class and their far-right, billionaire agenda.
When Morrisey is inaugurated as Governor on January 13th, we can expect him to continue his attack on women, LGBTQ+ youth, labor unions, and the planet. Only an organized working class movement is capable of defeating these attacks and winning true liberation for the people & planet.
On January 20th, tens of thousands will come together in cities and towns across the country, including West Virginia, in a nationwide mobilization opposing the far-right, billionaire agenda. The fight starts now. Join the movement!
