photo by: Photo courtesy of WV Legislative Photography

Senate Majority Whip Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, said SB 262 would provide student-athletes the opportunity to transfer schools once and still be eligible to play West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission high school sports.

WHEELING – In the next step in his public service and legal career, Senate Judiciary Committee Vice Chairman Ryan Weld announced Monday he will seek the Republican nomination to be West Virginia’s next Attorney General in 2024.

Weld, R-Brooke, made his announcement Monday at Independence Hall in Wheeling. Weld told The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register he would be honored to fight for the interests of all West Virginians as the state’s top attorney.

“… I can’t think of a greater honor as a lawyer and as a West Virginian than to be able to represent the State of West Virginia as its attorney,” Weld said. “To be able to fight for West Virginia and our courts, to be able to defend West Virginia and our court system is just something that really calls to me.”

Weld has served two four-year terms in the state Senate representing the 1st District which includes Hancock, Brooke, and Ohio counties and part of Marshall County. He also serves as Senate Majority Whip, vice chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and chairman of the Senate Military Committee. Weld also served one term in the House of Delegates.

Weld said he has spent the last year considering a run for a statewide office, traveling around the state and talking with people about the move.

“I just feel that I’ve been able to accomplish a lot that I set out to do in the Senate and really have helped my district move forward on a number of things,” Weld said. “I just feel a very strong pull to help the entire state, not just my Senate district. And this is just something that I feel is the next step to be able to do that. I feel very strongly about it, and that’s why I’ve decided to do this.”

A native of Weirton and Wellsburg, Weld is a 1998 graduate of Brooke High School and a 2003 graduate of Fairmont State University. He earned his law degree from Duquesne University in 2015. His legal career includes serving as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Brooke County. Weld works as an attorney for the Spilman Thomas and Battle law firm in Wheeling and serves as city attorney for Wellsburg.

Weld also holds the rank of captain in the United States Air Force Reserves. He received his commission in 2005 and has served on active duty multiple times, including as an intelligence officer with the Zabul Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan. Weld has served in assignments in Germany and Washington, D.C.

If Weld can secure the Republican nomination and win the general election in 2024, he would succeed three-term Attorney General Patrick Morrisey who announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor of West Virginia last week.

Morrisey has been able to secure several legal victories before the U.S. Supreme Court, including a successful challenge to the Clean Power Plan and a victory in West Virginia v. EPA. Weld said he wants to continue those efforts.

“The industries that employ a lot of West Virginians are going to continue to come under attack from Washington, and those are obviously our coal industry and our natural gas industry,” Weld said. “To be able to continue that is extremely important, because federal overreach in those areas can have an extreme detriment to this state. That is a front that we will have to continue to be extremely vigilant on.”

The Attorney General’s Office has also taken a key role in the fight against opioids. The office has won more than $950 million in settlements with major drug manufacturers and suppliers, including a $400 million settlement with distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson over the overflow of prescription painkillers to the state.

Weld said as a former Brooke County assistant prosecuting attorney, he saw first-hand the effects of the opioid crisis on families. As the vice chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Weld helped craft legislation to combat the flow of opioids into the state. He believes those experiences will be an asset in continuing the work of the Attorney General’s Office in regard to opioids.

“I think that West Virginia is undoubtedly one of the states that has been harmed the most by the opioid crisis, and Attorney General Morrisey has done a tremendous job in that area,” Weld said. “Those cases aren’t going to all be done and wrapped up just because he leaves office at the end of 2024. The next Attorney General is going to have to step in and continue that work.”

Weld also wants to see the Attorney General’s Office become more of a valuable resource for municipalities. Weld said smaller towns and cities need a centralized resource to help provide them with the legal services they might not otherwise be able to do on their own, such as going after rogue property owners with abandoned properties.

“We want to invite everyone all over the world to come to West Virginia and move here and make this a better place,” Weld said. “We need to ensure that we’re painting a good picture when people come here to visit. I think that if the Attorney General’s Office could serve as the center for those resources to help those municipalities who would really do a lot to move West Virginia forward. I’m interested to see if one day, if I were fortunate enough to be the next Attorney General, if we could make that happen.”

According to the Secretary of State’s Office, no one has filed precandidacy paperwork for Attorney General. The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported last week the freshman state Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, will run for Attorney General. Stuart is a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District under former president Donald Trump and a former chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party.

Weld points back to his career in public service, his military service, and his experiences helping implement conservative legislative priorities – including legal reform, lowering tax rates, expanding school choice and more – as reasons for the public to put their trust in him to be the next Attorney General.

“The conservative policies that we have enacted, I really think it changed West Virginia and I’ve been a part of all of that,” Weld said. “These are all conservative policies that I’ve been proud to be a part of. Combined with my prior history and the fight that I’ve shown for my district, it has all prepared me to be West Virginia’s next Attorney General.”