CHARLESTON — On Friday, Robert Karnes filed to run for a second term in the state senate, serving West Virginia’s 11th senatorial district. In an exclusive interview with Mountaineer Journal, Karnes expressed that since the GOP was able to take control of the legislature in 2014, West Virginia has greatly benefited from the transition in political leadership.
“We’ve done a lot of good things in West Virginia, ever since Republicans took over in 2014. We always have this constant threat of the other side pushing back and trying to ‘undo’ what we’ve done,” Karnes stated. “As you can see over in Virginia, for example, they want to go further than simply ‘push it back.’ The Democratic Party is very actively seeking to take away our freedoms and promote their radical agenda. So, it’s really necessary for us to stand in the way of that. We must make West Virginia a place where we all want to live.”
As a state senator, Karnes has been an adamant supporter of gun rights. He stressed the importance of defending the second amendment, stating gun rights are “constantly under threat.”
“At the state level, we’ve been fighting to preserve our second amendment rights, as recognized in the U.S. Constitution, and also our 3-22 rights in the West Virginia Constitution. They are constantly under threat, when you have the other side of the political spectrum wanting to take away the ‘right to defend yourself’ from law-abiding West Virginians. So, it’s important that we stay on the ball there. Virtually every year, there are new gun control regulations introduced. Unfortunately, the votes are a little too close for comfort. Losing even one republican seat to a liberal democrat can do a lot of damage to our second amendment rights in West Virginia.”
Karnes also passionately expressed the importance of protecting the life of the unborn, citing his experience co-authoring Amendment 1. West Virginia Amendment 1 (2018) was a legislative referred constitutional amendment that clarified “nothing in the Constitution of West Virginia secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.” The ballot referendum was approved by the voters in 2018.
“I was the co-author of Amendment 1, which stopped taxpayer funding of abortions in West Virginia. That was a huge stride forward. We were a state that was run for decades by a party that claimed to be pro-life, but yet they couldn’t do those most basic steps. We have delivered on a lot of pro-life things that we’ve promised. We also passed parental consent laws. We moved heartbeat bills forward. One thing we must keep in mind: the other side has always inherently understood, we have to constantly push (and states can do this) our laws to be more and more respectful of life. Hopefully, with the U.S. Supreme Court reshaped by President Trump, laws that may not have stood up to a test at the U.S. Supreme Court level now can. So, we just have to constantly be pushing around the edges: sometimes big pushes, sometimes small pushes. But we can keep that fight going, and there’s a lot to do there.”
Karnes also expressed that reforming West Virginia’s tax code is one of the main issues that needs to be addressed legislatively.
“Some of the things we’ve been working on is reforming our tax code to make it more user-friendly. We’ve done a lot to try and bring jobs to West Virginia, but we haven’t really touched the tax code yet. Our tax code is among the worst in the nation. We could do a lot better. I think people understand inherently that the tax code can bring or drive business away; our tax code currently drives business away. So, you can bring in jobs by improving the tax code, which will bring in business. That’s one big piece that we still have left to do and have been working on since 2014, but haven’t quite gotten there yet.”
Furthermore, he expressed that the legislature needs to focus on deregulation, healthcare reform, attracting jobs, and improving education.
“On other fronts, we still have to clean up some of the regulatory policies, particularly in healthcare, that causes our healthcare system to not necessarily be the best in the country, even not as good as it could be. Healthcare, jobs, and education are still big issues. There’s still a lot of things we need to do.”
In conclusion, Karnes stated that he looks “forward to the campaign” and participating in discussions “about things we can be doing for West Virginia.”
“I’m looking forward to the campaign. It’s going to be a long campaign between now and November. I think there’s going to be a lot of discussions back and forth about things we can be doing for West Virginia. I look forward to engaging in that debate. I think West Virginians clearly demonstrated in 2014, they are done with the old ways. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to clear out some of the old people. Sometimes, the people have already been cleared out, but they’re trying to come back. We want to make sure we keep them as far to the sideline, and as far from policy as we can, because the policies they spent 84 years bringing to West Virginia clearly never worked.”
If elected, this will make Karnes’ second term serving in the West Virginia State Senate, serving the 11th senatorial district.