Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

West Virginia’s Manchin key Senate swing vote

- Cuneyt Dil

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – West Virginia has long proclaimed itself “Almost Heaven,” a nod to a song and soaring mountainto­p vistas. Now some joke the state name-checked in “Take Me Home, Country Roads” could take things up a notch as Democratic U.S. Sen Joe Manchin bargains his way through Congress.

“Maybe we’ll get to heaven status,” said longtime Democratic Party official Nick Casey.

Reviving West Virginia’s economical­ly battered coal towns and reversing a persistent population decline is a tall order. But Manchin, who grew up in the mountain town of Farmington, has emerged as a key swing vote in a divided Senate. Now he has his best shot in years to steer federal dollars back home.

Manchin put himself in the middle of things again as the COVID-19 relief bill makes its way through Congress, single-handedly halting work on the measure Friday as Democrats sought to address his concerns about the size and duration of an expanded unemployme­nt benefit.

As for his own agenda, Manchin has dropped hints publicly about “common sense” infrastruc­ture investment­s sorely needed back home: expanding rural broadband and fixing roads among them. He declared that West Virginia could supply the manufactur­ing firepower to “innovate our way to a cleaner climate.” And more than once, he’s said coal miners can build the best solar panels if given a chance.

Some wonder if his newfound clout might help him do something former President Donald Trump promised but couldn’t – reignite a state economy long overly dependent on a coal industry in free-fall.

Manchin’s Senate colleagues have good reason to study the needs of small towns beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. Manchin, 73, was a recognized dealmaker on Capitol Hill, but deference to the most conservati­ve Democrat in a 50-50 Senate has ratcheted up since November. A senator from Hawaii recently teased him as “your highness.” The guessing game of which way he will vote has become fodder for late-night television.

In recent days, Manchin’s opposition helped sink Neera Tanden as President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the federal Office of Management and Budget.

Not since Robert Byrd, who died in 2010, has a senator from West Virginia wielded this much influence. Over a half-century, Byrd brought home billions of dollars in federal buildings, landmarks and roads, many bearing his name.

“This is hardscrabb­le country, man – our population is dropping, the demise of coal,” said Casey, an attorney and former chair of the state Democratic Party. “We got a guy now who can maybe do something legacy-wise. And I think there’s a lot of hope and some expectatio­n that Joe’s going to do things that are significant, exceptiona­l.”

Pam Garrison, a retired cashier, said she told Manchin at a meeting seeking a $15 federal minimum wage that Byrd has universiti­es and hospitals named after him because “when he got into power, he used that power for the good of the people.”

“If you do what’s good for the people, even after you’re gone, you’re going to be remembered,” she said.

Manchin, though, sees himself not as a seeker of pork-barrel projects but as a champion for policies that aid Appalachia and the Rust Belt.

“What we have to do now, and I think it’s appropriat­e – we show the need, and that the base has been left behind,” he said.

He started down that road by joining Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow in co-sponsoring a proposal for $8 billion in tax credits to boost clean energy manufactur­ing for coal communitie­s and the auto industry.

Robert Rupp, a political history professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College, said Manchin can use his position in a 50-50 Senate to put his small state in the forefront of everyone’s mind.

“He’s at the center of attention, and he could assert power,” Rupp said.

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