WHEELING – West Virginia Sen. Mike Maroney is seeking a third term in 2024, and he indicates it will be his last.
“This will be it,” he said.
Maroney, R-Marshall, wants to spend the next four years finishing up in Charleston, and focusing on issues pertaining to the elimination of taxes and personal income and making certain children are vaccinated before starting school.
He faces opposition in the May 14 GOP primary election ballot from Chris Rose of Morgantown.
A radiologist, Maroney, 56, serves as chairman of the Senate Health Committee and has been a proponent of existing child vaccination laws during his tenure.
During his six years as committee chairman, Maroney has fought against proposals to eliminate child vaccination mandates – though a bill was passed this year that would have dropped the requirement for private and parochial school students. It was later vetoed by Gov. Jim Justice.
The West Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics presented its Friends of Children award this year to Maroney and Justice.
“The vaccination bill … had it gone through it would have been a disaster,” Maroney said. “I am known as the main defender against the anti-vaxxers. I was able to successfully stop the legislation for six years.”
He noted an estimated 600,000 people worldwide die every year because they don’t receive vaccinations that aren’t available to them as they are to Americans. Vaccination mandate laws have been in place since the mid-1960s.
“Why do we want to go back and lose people?” Maroney asked. “It seems vaccines are the victim of their own success.
“People who want to go backwards don’t remember their mother being scared about getting polio or some other disease, and later taking polio vaccine on sugar cubes. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around being trained in this field.”
Maroney is one of two doctors in the Senate, with the other being Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha.
“My background is in health and medicine,” Maroney said. “These bills contain real medicine in them sometimes and sometimes it’s a moving target. It’s important to have someone with that background to be chair of the Health Committee.”
As senator, Maroney passed a bill that prohibits smoking in cars when a passenger is a child under age 12. He explained this is important as children that young “have lungs not completely formed yet,” and they could be more susceptible to the effects of secondhand smoke.
Maroney added that among his priorities in the Senate for the next four years are “anything that promotes health,” and anything that promotes further tax cuts. He supports the elimination of taxation on Social Security, and abolishing the state’s income tax.
“That’s economic stimulus,” Maroney said.
One of the biggest unknowns facing the West Virginia Legislature next year will be dealing with a new governor, he continued.
“One of the challenges – and one of the most interesting challenges – will be getting into a good relationship with the new governor,” he said. “The relationship just wasn’t there with the current governor.
“Most of the time the problem was he was not there. It would be very helpful if whomever the governor is is just available to get together.”
Maroney indicated he is excited “to get down there” to Charleston for four more years.
“It is truly a public service, but it’s time to step back and let somebody else take charge,” he said. “We got a good team down there. A lot of good things started. … But I want to see more stuff get through.”
