New House deputy speaker and education committee chair named as legislative session continues

by Amelia Ferrell Knisely, West Virginia Watch
January 28, 2026

There are leadership changes in the West Virginia House of Delegates as the legislative session continues. 

Del. Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, will now serve as deputy House speaker, a post shared by House Speaker Pro Tempore Matthew Rohrbach, R-Cabell.

“Dr. Ellington is a long-respected member of this body, and his dedication to bettering the education West Virginia children receive is to be commended,” House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said in a news release. “Many of us have leaned on him for his counsel, but now in this new role we will be relying on him for even more input and counsel in a wider area of policy.”

Ellington, an OB-GYN, has served as chair of the House Education Committee since 2019, He announced that he’d be stepping down from that role at the end of an Education Committee meeting on Tuesday.

Hanshaw, while addressing committee members, explained that former Deputy Speaker David Kelly had done a lot of administrative work for the House, including driving budget conversations in the executive branch and Senate. Kelly resigned from the House last year to serve as the state’s commissioner of corrections. Hanshaw said Kelly’s absence was “noteworthy.”

“To take care of that and to help us drive the overall agenda of the House, I’ve asked Del. Ellington if he’d be willing to assume the role of deputy speaker of the House,” Hanshaw said. 

Ellington said that he was “honored to serve in that lineup.”

Del. Joe Statler, R-Monongalia, will now serve as chairman of the House Education Committee and plans to focus on public school funding.

Statler has served as vice chair of the Education Committee. He served on the Monongalia County Board of Education from 2002 to 2012.

Del. Chris Toney, R-Raleigh, will serve as Education Committee vice chairman.

“Our education team didn’t use the previous session adjournment as a reason to stop working on solutions to the major issues we know our communities across the state are facing, so we didn’t want to disrupt that work going into this session, but it became clear right away that our committee will keep working hard on their efforts to improve education,” Ellington said.

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