CHARLESTON — With the 60-day legislative session more than a quarter of the way complete, Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Friday there is still time for some of his legislative priorities to make it over the finish line while accusing some lawmakers of not being team players.

One of Morrisey’s top priorities, repealing the certificate of need program in West Virginia, was blocked earlier this week in the House Health and Human Resources Committee, while a similar bill on the state Senate-side has not made it on a committee agenda.

Speaking Friday morning during a press conference at the State Capitol Building, Morrisey believes that he has a majority of lawmakers who agree with him that certificate of need (CON) laws that require potential health care providers to apply to the state to locate services around the state need to be taken off the books.

“I want to protect citizens that are in need, and I want there to be a viable private health care marketplace. Right now, we’re going in a direction where that’s not happening. That’s going to change,” Morrisey said.

“We’re going to continue to push for policies that make a difference that put the people first, not the special interest. That’s what we’re working on,” Morrisey continued.

“I do think you’re going to see more activity in the upcoming days and weeks ahead.”

House Bill 2007, repealing the CON program, was not recommended for passage by the House Health Committee in a 12-13 vote Monday afternoon. Later that evening, a motion was made to reconsider the vote in committee on HB 2007, a parliamentary move that would have allowed committee members to once again vote the bill down and keep the bill from being reconsidered again. Committee members rejected the reconsideration motion.

One of the nay votes against HB 2007 in committee was Del. Scot Heckert, R-Wood. During an appearance on HD Media’s Outside the Echo Chamber podcast, Heckert accused the Governor’s Office of using pressure to force House members to change their votes and support CON repeal. Morrisey was asked about Heckert’s comments Friday.

“Here’s the thing. They’re always going to be outliers who don’t speak for their districts, or they may be opposed to President (Donald) Trump or other things,” Morrisey said. “They’re not part of the team. I get that. So, I’m not going to worry about them.”

Heckert, when asked about Morrisey’s remarks Friday afternoon after the House’s floor session, said the Governor’s Office is working against lawmakers instead of working with them.

“Well, there’s three keys to run the state. They have one, the Senate has one, and the House has one. As far as being a team, team means all three are working together,” Heckert said. “One of the three is not working with the other. They’re demanding, and that would be the Governor’s Office.”

CON repeal is opposed by the West Virginia Hospital Association, which believes lifting regulations on placement of health care facilities could cause rural hospitals – who primarily see Medicaid, Medicare, and patients with PEIA – to close due to the already low reimbursement rates those programs provide.

Morrisey said his office will likely be pushing for a new version of a CON repeal bill in the coming weeks while he and his government and political affairs team works to bring members of the House of Delegates around to some form of CON repeal.

“I do think you’re going to see more activity in the upcoming days and weeks ahead,” Morrisey said. “Obviously, the House has one set of issues and we respect that people have different opinions, but I do believe that we need competition and we’re going to be advancing it through different means. We’ve had some good conversations with different people in the Legislature.”

Heckert said lawmakers were open to having dialogue with the governor but called on Morrisey and his staff to work with lawmakers instead of threatening them politically.

“There’s a process here and we all have an opinion. And we all have a decision to make. Being told what to do, how to do, and when to do it, is not working out real well,” Heckert said. “There should be some meetings. I know they say there’s been some, but there hasn’t been enough.”

Other bills introduced on behalf of Morrisey are on the move. Senate Bill 456, the Riley Gaines Act defining “male” and “female” in State Code and limiting single-sex spaces to those of the biological gender, will be up for passage in the Senate Monday. The House version of the bill, HB 2006, was moved to the House inactive calendar on second reading Friday.

Senate Bill 460, allowing for religious and philosophical exemptions to the state’s mandatory immunization schedule for school-age children, passed out of the Senate last week and is on the second phase of the House’s new committee process, where it will be taken up by the House Health Committee next week. The amended version of the bill stripped out reporting requirements that were in Morrisey’s original bill, but he said he is open to changes.

“In life…I don’t get everything that I want,” Morrisey said. “There could be some differences of opinion, but you look for something that’s good for people. So, as this process goes through, we’ll be looking at that.”

In the House Government Organization Committee Thursday, members amended Morrisey’s executive branch reorganization bill – House Bill 2008 – limited it to only recombining the Department of Economic Development back into the Department of Commerce and eliminating a proposal to have the adjutant general of the National Guard also serve as the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Morrisey’s proposal to eliminate the Department of Arts, Culture and History and transfer its divisions, boards, and agencies to the Department of Tourism was moved to its own originating bill – House Bill 2009 – by the House Government Organization Committee Thursday. Both bills would eliminate new hires in the reorganized Department of Commerce from being protected by classified civil services protections beginning in July.

When asked whether eliminating classified civil services protections for new state employees in those departments would open up the hiring process to politics. Morrisey said he believed making these changes would allow him to award merit and pay employees more to fill vacancies.

“When there are processes that make it more difficult to have efficiency and accountability and quality, you want to change those,” Morrisey said. “I want to pick the best people for the best jobs and not be worried about if you’re in slot A-13 but the system says you can only go to A-14 where there’s some limits on what you can do. That’s not going to be successful.

“We’re going to focus on quality. We’re going to focus on merit: the people who are best capable of doing the job. That’s what this is all about,” Morrisey continued.