CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A longtime Kanawha County pastor who Governor Patrick Morrisey recently appointed to serve a vacant seat in the state’s 8th district says he has several key concerns he plans to bring to light, including the stoppage of legalizing recreational marijuana.

Sissonville native and Pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church in Sissonville Kevan Bartlett will soon be sworn in as state Senator for the 8th district, filling the vacant seat left behind by Mark Hunt who resigned to take up the role as state Auditor.

T. Kevan Bartlett

Bartlett said on 580 Live Monday morning that while he enjoys his ministerial duties, he also likes serving in politics and is grateful Morrisey gave him the opportunity to do so again.

“I’ve just been looking and praying for the opportunity to step back into politics, I enjoy it, I see it as an extension of my pastoral ministry,” Bartlett said. “This is the door that the Lord opened and only he could have opened it, and I’m thankful to be in this position of service.”

Bartlett said he got engaged in politics as a pastor when he had the opportunity to go on annual trips to Washington D.C. to minister to representatives there.

He said he then started doing the same ministerial work on a state-level with fellow pastors in the Charleston area.

Bartlett said he was given the opportunity to serve in a temporary representative role in 2019 when former Governor Jim Justice appointed him to fill a vacant seat in the House of Delegates.

“When Delegate Sharon Malcom passed away suddenly, I was appointed by Governor Justice to fill out the remainder of her term, there was a year left on that, that was the year leading into Covid,” he said.

Bartlett said his appeal to politics is the ability to accomplish and get things done.

“In the House you’re one voice of a hundred, in the Senate you’re one voice of thirty-four, but those voices can have an impact and can effect the lives of West Virginians,” he said.

The 8th District is broken up into all of Roane and Clay counties, bits of Wirt, Jackson, a northern slice of Kanawha County that goes some into downtown Charleston, and a slice of western Putnam County.

Bartlett said this is kind of an odd district to serve as issues concerning some of the state’s most rural areas within the district may be very different than issues those within more populated, urban areas of the district may experience.

However, with the regular legislative session beginning next week, he said he has a few key issues that are big on his agenda that he wants to work together with other lawmakers to address, which includes pro-life-related issues, pro 2nd amendment, and religious freedoms.

Bartlett said one of his most major concerns is the element in the legislature that seeks to legalize recreational marijuana.

He said he thinks this would be a terrible mistake for future generations.

“I think it will harm our young people, I think it will put in the normalcy, even more melees, and just non-accomplishment among young people,” he said.

He said there is also a great need to address the structure of the state’s foster care system.

Bartlett said work needs to be done to reassess how to bring more qualified foster parents into the system as well as more funding.

However, he also said that the legislature is going to have to look into ways of quote, “tightening their belts” financially overall.

“The fact that the previous administration under Governor Justice had one perspective of where we are financially and now Governor Morrisey has a different perspective, there’s obviously going to need to be some work done,” he said. “One thing we don’t need to do is tax the people of West Virginia any harder.”

Bartlett said the Democratic Party taking the lead in the state for so long has helped get us to the place we are today, but he said the pendulum has now swung to the right, and it’s their turn now.

“I think the other side rode the traditions of West Virginia from the Mine Wars and all that and the Democratic Party was the Working Men’s Party and all that, and you know, that momentum carried them for a long time, even beyond substance, in my opinion, but when it swung, it swung quick.”