MORGANTOWN — Sen. Shelley Moore Capito met with members of the West Virginia press Thursday to talk about the federal elections bill, inflation, clean drinking water and other topics.

The Senate GOP on Wednesday voted to block the Freedom to Vote Act from coming to the floor — although Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also voted no so that he can bring it back for future consideration.

Capito said again Thursday, “This is a federal takeover of our election systems.”

The bill includes standardized national voter ID laws, five-day early voting, requirements for mail-in voting, same-day voter registration, public funding of campaigns, drop boxes and mandates for counting provisional ballots that allow people to vote for candidates that won’t represent them.

Capito reiterated that Secretary of State Mac Warner and 54 of the 55 county clerks — of both parties — oppose it. And election laws belong in the hands of the 50 states, not the federal government.

“These are things, I think, that are unnecessary in many ways. We don’t have a broken system,” she said. “I think it’s a rallying cry for the base of the Democratic Party. … Let us in West Virginia conduct our elections in a way we think is best for West Virginia.”

The Dominion Post raised the point that bill supporters believe GOP efforts in some states to limit drop boxes, ballot harvesting and early voting are efforts to suppress minority voters (and thereby votes for Democrats).

Capito said access to ballots and polling places is important for every voter and discrimination against any group is illegal. “We want as many people out voting as possible.”

But some states responded to the pandemic, she said, by altering election laws enacted by their state legislatures — for drop boxes, mail-in, same-day registration and such — and states are taking a look at those things to codify what works.

West Virginia has just 10 days of early voting, but in 2020, during the pandemic, she said again, more people voted than in any prior election but one. And a 2021 state Senate GOP bill to place some restrictions on early voting, among other measures, was killed in the House Judiciary Committee. Those decisions belong to the states.

“Let us decide and let us move forward where we think we can can have safe and effective elections.”

Capito noted, “The erosion of confidence in our election process is very concerning.”

Former President Trump played a role in undermining that confidence, with his efforts to declare the 2020 election rigged and stolen, and his pressure on Georgia Republicans not to vote. If we’re trying to encourage people to vote, she said, efforts like that are one way to dampen that encouragement.

Inflation

Capito talked about inflation several times, including in answer to a question about rising heating bills this winter. Costs are expected to climb as much as 54%, she said. And that will take a toll on seniors, young couples and others who will have to choose what to spend their money on.

“This is the result, I think, of the inflation under this administration.” Fuel, milk, groceries and many other things cost more than before President Biden took office. “What were seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg. … That’s alarming to me. I don’t see a plan out there. … I see the creeping signs of major dysfunction down the road.”

Drinking water

Capito participated in an Environment and Public Works hearing Wednesday where they discussed the EPA’s responses to the presence of PFAS chemicals in drinking water and Biden’s release of a “Strategic Roadmap” to deal with them.

PFAS are toxic man-made chemicals found in various household products and cleaning supplies, in water-repellant fabric and firefighting foam. They are suspected of being carcinogenic. The chemicals don’t break down and remain in the environment and in the bodies of humans and animals.

Capito reiterated Thursday that the Roadmap’s details are vague and its goals are too often too far down the road — for instance, EPA doesn’t plan to issue a safe drinking water standard until 2024.

“I’m basically frustrated because I want a level that we can use as a standard nationally,” she said, “and that we can be sure that our children and grandchildren are not going to be having any ill effects from drinking from their own water systems.”

Filibuster and earmarks

Republicans used the filibuster to kill proceeding to a vote on the Freedom to Vote Act. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is one of the few Democrats in favor of keeping it.

Capito said she views the filibuster as necessary for maintaining a cooling-off period between changes of our political systems. It slows the legislative process — frustratingly so sometimes — and forces compromise. It prevent wild swings — ping-ponging — of policy every two years.

“The filibuster holds, in my view, in the palm of its hand keeping our government in the lanes of what’s doable, what’s negotiable and what’s in the best interests of our country for a longer period of time,” she said.

Earmarks — alternately known as pork and Congressionally directed spending — have made a return to Congress after a long absence. Capito said Thursday there are more restrictions this time around: more transparency, no earmarks for private entities, more limits of areas of the budget subject to earmarks.

And earmarks don’t add to appropriations — they come out of the total, she said.

Capito has requested $242 million in earmarks for West Virginia Projects in Fiscal Year 2022 funding bills.

Many of her GOP colleagues, she said, haven’t requested anything. “I decided if I can get us a water project in Upshur County moving with $1.4 million for the ask, I’m going to want that money to go toward West Virginia rather than have to have them apply through some grant system. … Things like this can be exceedingly useful for me to direct the spending to where I know the need is.”