Leah Willingham, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

W.Va. Governor Signs Ban On Gender-Affirming Care

West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice on Wednesday signed a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors, joining at least 10 other states that have enacted laws restricting or outlawing medically supported treatments for transgender youth.

The bill outlaws those under 18 from being prescribed hormone therapy and fully reversible puberty blockers. It also bans minors from receiving gender-affirming surgery, something physicians say doesn’t even happen in West Virginia.

Unlike measures passed in other states, however, West Virginia’s law contains a unique exemption: It permits doctors to prescribe medical therapy if a teenager is considered at risk for self-harm or suicide.

Under the law, which will take effect in January 2024, a patient can be prescribed puberty blockers and hormone therapy after receiving parental consent and a diagnosis of severe gender dysphoria from two clinicians, including a mental health provider or an adolescent medicine specialist.

Both practitioners must be trained to diagnose and treat young people with severe gender dysphoria and provide written testimony that medical interventions are necessary to prevent or limit possible or actual self-harm.

The provisions were added at the urging of Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, who is a physician.

“These kids struggle. They have incredible difficulties,” the Republican said on the Senate floor earlier this month. Takubo cited more than a dozen peer-reviewed studies showing a decrease in rates of suicide ideation and attempts among youth with severe gender dysphoria who had access to medication therapy.

Gender dysphoria is defined by medical professionals as severe psychological distress experienced by those whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth.

The bill also prohibits minors from being prescribed hormone therapy before the age of puberty, something West Virginia physicians say doesn’t happen anyway.

The medication dosage for any adolescent must be the lowest possible necessary to “treat the psychiatric condition and not for purposes of gender alteration,” according to the bill.

The West Virginia law comes as Republican lawmakers across the U.S. have pursued several hundred proposals this year to push back on LGBTQ+ rights, particularly rights for transgender residents, including banning transgender girls from girls sports, keeping transgender people from using restrooms in line with their gender identities and allowing or requiring schools to deadname trans students.

Lawmakers in West Virginia and other states moving to enact bans on transgender health care for youth and young adults often characterize gender-affirming treatments as medically unproven, potentially dangerous in the long term and a symptom of “woke” culture.

Every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association, supports gender-affirming care for youths.

A 2017 study by UCLA Law’s The Williams Institute estimated West Virginia had the highest per capita rate of transgender youth in the country.

The rate of suicide ideation, or having suicidal thoughts or ideas, for transgender youth in West Virginia is three times higher than the rate for all youth in the state, according to West Virginia Youth Risk Behavior Survey data.

Natalie Frazier, who oversees gender-affirming care for Planned Parenthood in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, said the bill Justice signed Wednesday was “better than it could have been.”

“But it’s still unnecessary — just an unnecessary barrier to care that is going to end up harming people,” she said, adding that not every child’s family will have the resources to travel to two different clinicians for a gender dysphoria diagnosis.

Frazier, who is also a certified nurse midwife, said the diagnosis of severe gender dysphoria with risk of suicide “could probably apply to just about any kid getting access to gender-affirming care.”

“That’s why people are are so invested in providing the care because there is a disproportionate risk,” she said. “That’s something that any of these kids could be at risk for and nobody’s going into this care lightly.”

West Virginia’s ban also includes exemptions for people who are born intersex and for people taking treatments for infection, injury, disease or disorder that has been “caused by or exacerbated by the performance of gender transition procedures.”

Surgeries can be performed if a child is at risk for “imminent danger of death or impairment of a major bodily function.”

At least 11 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah, South Dakota and West Virginia. Federal judges have blocked enforcement of laws in Alabama and Arkansas, and nearly two dozen states are considering bills this year to restrict or ban care.

W.Va. House Passes Bill To Cut Personal Income Tax By Half

West Virginia's Republican-dominated House of Delegates passed a historic 50 percent reduction of the state's personal income tax Wednesday, rejecting a plan from Democrats that would have completely eliminated the tax for the lowest earners in one of the poorest U.S. states.

West Virginia’s Republican-dominated House of Delegates passed a historic 50 percent reduction of the state’s personal income tax Wednesday, rejecting a plan from Democrats that would have completely eliminated the tax for the lowest earners in one of the poorest U.S. states.

The bill — a proposal from Gov. Jim Justice — passed the House of Delegates 94 to 2, with four members not voting. It now heads to the Senate, where legislative leadership has clashed with Justice over proposals to cut taxes for nearly two years.

In a statement immediately following the vote, the Republican governor said the cut would “put money in the pockets of hardworking West Virginians.”

“There is no better incentive than this. Period,” Justice said. “I encourage the Senate to expediently vote in favor as well.”

Justice’s plan would cut the personal income tax across income brackets incrementally over the course of three years: 30 percent the first year, and then an additional 10 percent each year after that. He has described the plan as a “West Virginia tsunami,” and a first step toward eliminating the state’s personal income tax altogether.

House Republicans moved quickly to pass the legislation, greenlighting the proposal just a week after Justice announced the plan during his State of the State address and lawmakers gaveled in for the 60-day legislative session last Wednesday.

“At the end of the day, a prosperous economy is going to fix an awful lot of the problems that we debate in this body,” Republican Delegate Matthew Rohrbach said. Close to 17% of West Virginians live in poverty, and the median household income is $50,884, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The personal income tax rate in West Virginia is 6.5%. Neighboring state Ohio’s personal income tax rate ranges from about 2.8% to 3.99%. Kentucky has a flat individual income tax of 5%. There are 15 states have a higher tax bracket than West Virginia, Rohrbach said. Eight U.S. states have no personal income tax at all.

The Democrats’ plan would have cut the personal income tax completely for earners who make less than $80,000 a year, or 72 percent of the state’s residents, according to lawmakers. People who make more than $80,000 would continue pay personal income taxes at the current rate of 6.5%.

“What the Democratic plan is trying to do is: ‘Keep it simple, stupid,’ ” Democratic Delegate Joey Garcia said. “Let’s start with the people who need it the most.”

A family making $80,000 would have saved $4,075 a year under the Democrats’ plan, a family making $60,000 would have saved $2,778; a family making $40,000 would have saved $1,575. The cuts under Justice’s plan for those income groups would be half as much.

Democratic Delegate Larry Rowe said the governor’s plan is not fair because the more money people make, the bigger tax break they get.

“All we’re asking is let them pay their fair share of what they got out of this society,” Rowe said. “When you are able to make a million dollars in income, a whole lot of things clicked to get you in that position. Pay your way, pay it back.”

“We can we can run and skip through the cornfields barefoot and give great big tax breaks, if we’re going to do it,” he continued. “The plan over here is very simple: be fair.”

Republican Delegate Marty Gearheart said the underlying idea of the bill is to put the state on the path to eliminate the income tax entirely. But he said lawmakers have to take a measured approach.

“It fails to respect all West Virginians, particularly those that have worked hard, worked smart and have put their money at risk to be earning an amount of money that is subject to tax,” Gearheart said, of Democrats’ plan. “We want to get rid of that. However, it’s not something that can be done at the snap of a finger. This takes us a long way there.”

He said the way to do that is “a little bit at a time” and not by favoring one group of residents over another.

“It appears to me that those that pay more tax are going to get more dollars in break because they pay more tax,” he said. “They contributed more from an economic standpoint to the state of West Virginia than those that paid less tax.”

Republican Delegate Daniel Linville said those earning a higher income are job creators who could hire additional employees if they see a tax cut.

“I must mention that it’s hard to earn a wage without an employer,” he said.

Senate GOP leaders are expected to offer their own tax cut proposals.

The governor suggested a permanent 10% reduction in the personal income tax in July after the state ended the fiscal year with a record $1.3 billion surplus. The state Senate refused to take up the proposal during a special session that month.

In October, Justice floated another plan, saying he wanted to eliminate a personal property tax that residents pay annually on vehicles. The following month, voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment designed by state lawmakers that would have enabled lawmakers to eliminate a business and inventory tax, along with the personal property vehicle tax.

West Virginia Can Keep Transgender Sports Ban, Judge Says

A federal judge in West Virginia has ruled that the state’s ban on transgender athletes competing in female sports is constitutional and can remain in place.

West Virginia’s ban on transgender athletes competing in female school sports is constitutional and can remain in place, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The American Civil Liberties Union and its West Virginia chapter filed the lawsuit in 2021 on behalf of an 11-year-old transgender girl who hoped to compete in middle school cross-country in Harrison County. The lawsuit named the state and Harrison County boards of education and their superintendents as defendants.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey applauded Thursday’s decision by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin.

“This is not only about simple biology, but fairness for women’s sports, plain and simple,” the attorney general said. “Opportunities for girls and women on the field are precious and we must safeguard that future.”

The ACLU of West Virginia said Thursday that it is reviewing the decision with co-counsel to determine next steps. The ban applies to middle and high schools, as well as colleges.

Transgender athletes’ ability to compete in sports is the subject of a continuing national debate. More than a dozen states have passed laws banning or restricting transgender participation in sports based on the premise it gives them an unfair competitive advantage — despite the general lack of a problem to address.

A 2017 study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA law school used state-level, population-based surveys to estimate that West Virginia had the highest percentage (1.04 percent) of residents ages 13 to 17 among all states who identified as transgender. That equated to about 1,150 teens.

The West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission, which oversees scholastic sports, said in 2021, when the lawsuit was filed, that it had not received any complaints about transgender athletes on girls teams.

Son Of W.Va. Helicopter Crash Victim Files Wrongful Death Suit

The son of a man who died in a June helicopter crash in West Virginia that killed six people has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company that owned the Vietnam-era aircraft and others, claiming negligence contributed to their deaths.

Brian Bledsoe’s father, 64-year-old Marvin Bledsoe, died when he was a passenger in the Bell UH-1B “Huey” helicopter during a reunion for helicopter enthusiasts at MARPAT Aviation in Logan County on June 22, according to the civil suit filed Friday in Logan County Circuit Court.

The suit alleges that the helicopter’s frame “had been subject to innumerable stressors and abuses for 60 years” and it was unsuited for providing joy rides and sightseeing tours. It claims a combination of pilot error and a lack of appropriate wire-strike protection and crash-resistant fuel systems caused or contributed to crash, as well as improperly marked power lines.

Bledsoe’s family is seeking “compensatory and punitive damages to the fullest extent of the law,” according to their attorney, Mark Troy. The amount of compensation will be for a jury to decide, but he said West Virginia’s wrongful death statute “recognizes the various impacts of losing a loved one, from funeral expenses and lost income to mental anguish and loss of companionship.”

A representative who answered the phone at MARPAT Aviation on Monday declined to comment.

The fatal flight was the last scheduled for the day during a multiday reunion for helicopter enthusiasts where visitors could sign up to ride or fly the historic Huey helicopter, described by organizers as one of the last of its kind still flying.

The helicopter was flown by the 114th Assault Helicopter Company, “The Knights of the Sky,” in Vinh Long, Vietnam, throughout much of the 1960s, according to MARPAT. After the Huey returned to the U.S. in 1971, the website says, it was featured in movies like “Die Hard,” “The Rock” and “Under Siege: Dark Territory.”

During the reunion, people who made a donation could fly the helicopter with a “safety pilot” seated in the left front seat, according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report. People could take a ride on the helicopter for a suggested donation.

The crash was near the Battle of Blair Mountain historic sites, where a deadly clash erupted a century ago as thousands of coal miners marched to unionize in West Virginia. A private pilot, two pilot-rated passengers and three others were killed.

According to the lawsuit, the helicopter lost control and crashed when it struck unmarked power lines in Logan County about 15 minutes after takeoff. The suit says the lines located about 200 feet off the ground “constituted an inherently dangerous condition which posed a high degree of risk of serious injury or death to the occupants of aircraft.”

According to U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration guidelines, the lines should have been marked with warning devices to protect aircraft flying in the area from striking them, the suit alleges.

American Electric Power, the company that owns the power lines, is also named as a defendant in the suit. An American Electric Power spokesperson said the company was unable to comment because of the pending litigation.

When the aircraft crashed, it burst into flames, preventing attempts to rescue any potential survivors. The suit alleges that the helicopter’s owners should have ensured the aircraft should have been retrofitted with a crash-resistant fuel system to prevent fire and fire-related injuries.

The suit also claims that the Huey was not fitted with an appropriate wire-strike protection system to mitigate the risks of wire strikes and cut cables when helicopters unexpectedly encounter powerlines, telecommunication lines and other aerial cables.

NTSB investigators released its preliminary report on the crash in July but have not yet released any information about the cause of the accident. A final report could take a year or two to complete, they said.

W.Va. Voters Reject GOP Proposals On School, Tax Control

Voters in West Virginia rejected four proposed amendments to the state constitution Tuesday, including two that would have given the Republican-dominated legislature more power to regulate public education policy and certain taxes.

Updated on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022 at 9 a.m.

Other failed amendments would have prohibited the state Supreme Court intervention in the Legislature’s impeachment trials and allowed churches to incorporate.

West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee praised the outcome on the education and tax amendments, saying West Virginia voters “clearly saw through the power grab from the legislature” to “continue their assault on public education and education employees.”

“Local control is one of the cornerstones of our county government and local school system,” said Lee, head of the state’s largest public educators’ union. “Rejecting the proposed amendments will allow that local control to continue.”

Amendment 4 on Tuesday’s ballot would have required the state Board of Education to submit new rules and regulations to the legislature annually for final approval. Currently, it’s the only government agency that’s exempt.

The vote came amid a fight raging nationally over the politicization of schools. West Virginia’s Republican leaders have joined politicians elsewhere in pushing to regulate how subjects such as race are taught in classrooms and funnel public money into alternative education options, including charter schools and voucher programs.

Just this year, the state Board of Education joined a lawsuit against top Republicans over a school choice program — one of the nation’s most expansive — alleging it unconstitutionally drains money from public schools. The case went to the state Supreme Court, which sided with lawmakers.

GOP lawmakers who supported the amendment said people making decisions about things like curriculum, student discipline and teacher training should be accountable to voters. West Virginia’s governor-appointed and Senate-confirmed state school board members serve nine-year terms — the longest in any U.S. state — and can’t easily be removed.

But the change was opposed by teachers’ unions and other top education officials who said lawmakers want power over education to further their political agendas. Education officials also maintain that lawmakers have no business taking over public schools when they’ve consistently failed to help them.

Four years after more than 30,000 school workers went on strike in one of the nation’s poorest states, igniting teacher walkouts nationwide, many said they’re overworked and exhausted.

Additionally, Republican Gov. Jim Justice and GOP state legislative leaders clashed over Amendment 2, which would have given state lawmakers the ability to eliminate a business and inventory tax along with the personal property vehicle tax.

Justice, who wants to cut — and eventually eliminate — the state income tax instead, toured the state to urge voters to reject the proposal. He said the passage of the amendment could harm schools, cities and counties and give companies large tax breaks.

Top lawmakers asserted that the amendment would attract economic and business development to the state.

Speaking in a video posted to Facebook on Tuesday after votes were counted, Justice said if Amendment 2 had passed, it “could have been really bad.”

“We would have been upside down … The police, the firemen, your schools, the seniors, the sports leagues, on and on and on and on,” he said.

He said his priority for the upcoming legislative session will be to find a pathway to cut the personal income tax as well as the car tax.

“Who won tonight was absolutely hands down the people — the people won,” he said. “And who lost? Who lost unequivocally? Selfishness lost.”

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Follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

GOP Reps Miller, Mooney Soar To Reelection In W.Va.

Two sitting Republican U.S. representatives in West Virginia have easily overcome challengers to keep their seats in the deep red state’s shrinking congressional delegation.

Updated on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022 at 9 a.m.

Two sitting Republican U.S. representatives in West Virginia have easily overcome challengers to keep their seats in the deep red state’s shrinking congressional delegation.

U.S. Reps. Alex Mooney and Carol Miller defeated lesser-known Democratic and Independent candidates on Tuesday in a state controlled by Republicans at every level of state government. West Virginia hasn’t elected a Democrat to the House since 2012, and was one of only two states where former President Donald Trump won every county in 2016 and in 2020.

Miller said Tuesday she looks forward to working to bring “more investment, opportunity, and prosperity” to West Virginia.

“God bless West Virginia and God bless the United States of America!” she said in a statement on Facebook.

Mooney released a statement on Twitter thanking voters for their confidence in him, saying “there is much work to be done to get our country back on track.”

“I look forward to working with the new Republican majorities in Congress to stop the partisan witch hunts and instead fight for constitutional freedoms,” Mooney wrote.

The congressman said top priorities of his next term will be securing the border and fighting inflation.

In a closely watched May primary race, Trump-endorsed Mooney beat veteran lawmaker Republican Rep. David McKinley to become the GOP nominee for the 2nd Congressional District. The incumbents were pitted against each other after population losses cost West Virginia a U.S. House seat. McKinley faced criticism for breaking with his party to support President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.

Miller, another Trump ally, easily breezed to the Republican nomination in West Virginia’s 1st District in May, defeating four little-known candidates. Miller has represented West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District — which was eliminated in redistricting — since 2018.

In Tuesday’s race, Mooney faced former Morgantown city councilor Democrat Barry Wendell. The two candidates are both Maryland transplants — but that’s where the similarities ended.

Wendell is an openly gay Jewish man who supports access to abortion and investing in clean energy alternatives to fossil fuels.

Mooney, who has represented West Virginia in Congress since 2015, is a member of the most conservative voting bloc in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is adamantly opposed to abortion and policies that would hamper West Virginia’s coal industry. He has said he believes marriage is between “a man and a woman.”

Miller faced challenges from Democrat Lacy Watson and Independent Belinda Fox-Spencer. Watson is a Ph.D. student at Virginia Tech. Fox-Spencer, who filed to run after the primary, is a small business owner. She worked in health care for 20 years as a diagnostic medical sonographer, specializing in women’s health.

Follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections