Morgantown deputy mayor and West Virginia University professor Mark Brazaitis has announced he will run as a write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Joe Manchin.

Brazaitis outlined a five-point platform that he believes will get West Virginia growing again. He said his plan can turn the Mountain State “from last to best in 1,000 days.”

“I will be the first write-in candidate to win a seat in the U.S. Senate from West Virginia because, as a real Democrat, I will be running against two (and maybe three) Republicans. West Virginia needs a real Democrat in the Senate,” he said.

Currently, Manchin is running against Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey for a six-year term in Washington.

Brazaitis said if elected, he would push for Congress to pass a $700 billion “Appalachian Revival Act,” which would provide federal funding to rebuild West Virginia. “Thanks to coal and natural gas, the mother’s milk of our country’s economy, Appalachia has sacrificed itself for the growth and success of the rest of the United States, especially states on the east and west coasts,” he said, noting residents in those areas should help the state forge a new future.

He also would introduce the “Empower Our Empowerers Act,” which calls for the federal government to provide a $50,000 check to “Any man, woman, or child who, over the last 80 years, has gone to a doctor for treatment of an illness related to their service in the fossil-fuel industry.” He said this funding would come, in part, from the fossil-fuel industry.

Brazaitis also would work for teachers nationwide to get a 10 percent pay raise; push for universities to get back to their core mission of educating students by suspending all public-private parterships at public colleges and universities; and to always be clear on his stances, such as a $15 minimum wage, full funding of Planned Parenthood, the right to bear arms with a ban on assault-style weapons, a continued conversion of our energy grid to renewable sources and other items.