WHEELING — Supporters of legal and regulatory reform in West Virginia aren’t holding out any hope for additional reforms when the Legislature convenes in January for its regular session.

West Virginia Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse organized a legal reform roundtable discussion in Wheeling Tuesday at Generations restaurant to voice their concerns.

“This upcoming session is not going to be a good session for tort reform, so we are having events like this,” said Greg Thomas, executive director of West Virginia Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse. “So we’re going to be highlighting this (a need for further reform) around the state saying it’s a real problem.”

Those promoting reform of laws pertaining to taxation, regulating and litigation are expecting the upcoming legislative session to be a difficult one. Despite initial efforts by the Republican majority to make reforms, their priorities are apparently changing, according to Thomas and at least one local legislator.

“The transformation …. is one of the most disappointing political changes I’ve ever.seen,” said Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke.. “When (a Republican majority) came in in 2015-2016, the changes that we made were on the tort reform side… and we created the ICA (Intermediate Court of Appeals). There was solid movement on major issues.

“Then it just happened. I don’t know where it came from… but some of our members just weren’t capable of raising money on their own. All of a sudden they were being funded on the plaintiff’s part.”

Thomas noted West Virginia had been on the “Judicial Hellhole” list for “more than a decade” before Republicans came into the majority following the 2014 election. He added that during their first two years the majority, the Republican-led legislature in 2015 passed 12 legal reform bills and 13 the following year.

“Literally, in two years, we got ourselves off the ‘judicial hellhole’ list,” Thomas continued. “Since then, we probably passed two or three bills a year until last year.”

Last year, a number of bills passed the Senate were considered by WVCALA to not be in the interest of legal reform, Thomas continued. Most of these were later shot down in the House of Delegates.

He noted Republican lawmakers need to get back to their original agenda, and WVCALA

“We did a lot,” he said. “We had the biggest tax cut in state history. We passed right to work, prevailing wage … pro-life … constitutional carry.

“We had a list — ‘This is 10 things you do when you are a conservative state.’ When we got to the end of the list, it’s like what do we do now? I do think the onus is on us right now to say we need a new list.”

The state still has taxes on the books such as business inventory taxes that other states don’t, according to Thomas.

“We’re not going to be competitive with places like Pennsylvania and Ohio until we address those issues,” he added.

Thomas said last year the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, former Sen. Mike Stewart, R-Kanawha, would at least run bills pertaining to tax and legal reform — though they would consistently get voted down in committee.

Thomas doesn’t hold out much hope for further conservative reform under the new committee chairman, Sen. Tom Willis, R-Berkeley.

He noted that some members “claiming to be the most conservative in the ranks” are actually among those taking in the most money from more liberal personal injury and trial lawyers.

“It’s hard to say you’re conservative if two-thirds of your (campaign) money came from liberal Democrats in Charleston,” he said.