MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A registered nurse with over a decade of healthcare is challenging for the 80th District West Virginia House of Delegates seat.
Summer Hartley is on the campaign trail as she reaches out to voters and discusses her goals for the Mountain State. A Morgantown native who has a graduate’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, who previously served as the Interim Associate Vice President of the West Virginia University Health Affairs Institute, Hartley wants voters to view her as someone who wants to contribute to ways to improve the lives of West Virginians.
“I want to see positive change, I want to see change to improve our economy, our healthcare, and our communities, and if I’m elected, I will be a force for that change,” said Hartley.
One area in which Hartley expressed open support in her conversations with voters has been the exploration of legislative options to reduce the statewide income tax. Using examples of other states that have taken an approach to eventually eliminate their respective income taxes, Hartley feels that working towards doing the same in West Virginia could greatly improve the economic prospects of the state. Along with the chance to recruit more people into the state, she feels any elimination of the state income tax could further support economic development efforts in the state that have taken place over a decade.
“I am a big proponent of the income tax reduction in West Virginia,” said Hartley. “I’ve seen it work in other states, one of the fastest-growing states in our region is Tennessee, and one of the reasons it’s so fast-growing is because they remove the income tax,” she said.
Avenues to improve on the recruitment of healthcare professionals in the Mountain State were also discussed as Hartley mentioned her goals related to positively impacting the state opioid crisis. This is based on her experience as a nurse and an independent strategic health advocate, where she’s heard reports of various healthcare providers being overstaffed or people needing rehabilitation services and being unable to do so due to demand. While Hartley supports a consideration to expand drug rehabilitation services within West Virginia correctional facilities, she also feels some way to address pay for healthcare workers across the state will help address the crisis on a long-term basis.
“The challenge here is our pay rates, the pay rates for people working in this type of treatment are very low, we have some of the lowest in the state,” said Hartley on WAJR’s Talk of the Town. “So I think that we need to look at what we can do to bring those pay rates up, so we can attract more professionals in that area,” she said.
As the Republican nominee for the 80th District seat on the West Virginia House of Delegates, Hartley faces Democrat and incumbent Delegate John Williams, who has served in the House since 2016. Despite facing a delegate who has served for almost a decade in Charleston and this being the first time she is running for a public office, there’s an expectation that she will still garner strong support given the state’s super Republican majority. This is also despite the 80th District covering one of the few remaining Democratic strongholds in the state. As Hartley prepares to make a final push before early voting begins on October 23, she wants voters to think of her as someone who will always listen and find ways to help West Virginia grow.
“I have good values, and I have a good work ethic,” said Hartley. “I think that if they vote for me, I’m going to show up, I’m going to be there, and I’m going to do what I can to be an effective voice for them,” she said.
Election day is November 5.
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