Tag: Debate

Education and Workers' Comp Debated on the House Floor

Coal mine safety was on the minds of Democrats in the house Tuesday; that issue was House Bill 2011, dealing with deliberate intent.  The measure doesn’t address mine safety standards, but those opposed to the bill said it will hurt miners.

Emotions were high on the floor as House Bills 2005 and 2011 were discussed for passage.

House Bill 2005 relates to alternative programs for the education of teachers.

Delegate Amanda Pasdon, the House Education Chair, stood to explain the bill.

“We know that there’s many counties around the state that do not have a qualified pool of applicants,” Pasdon said, “There are classrooms without teachers, there are about 300 classrooms that do not have a highly qualified educator in them right now, which means they have someone filling a role, but they are not highly qualified. What this bill does is try to expand that pool of options for our counties. This is not a mandate from Charleston; this is a tool in the toolbox for our counties to give them the opportunity to look outside of our normal, traditional methods and hire in instances that they could find someone in their community that could fit their need.”

Many Democrats stood to oppose the bill saying it was cheapening the process many teachers have to go through to acquire their degrees.

Delegate Nancy Guthrie stood to oppose the bill saying the focus should be raising the wage for teachers.

“I was hoping that we would be able to count on all of us rallying together to fight against cuts for children and families as we did last year, to fight against cuts for higher education, as we all believe we should do, and yet what we’re doing in a tight budget year is something that every teacher that I’ve received letters from has said please don’t do,” Guthrie said, “I think it undermines the credibility when what we really ought to be doing is knuckling down and trying to prioritize our budget, so that we give teachers the pay raise that they need so that we can reduce the shortages that we’ve got.”

Delegate Pasdon stood again to support the bill in her closing remarks.

“We have over 700 teaching vacancies, as you’ve heard many times, through many references and speeches on this floor today, that number is from the Department of Education’s 2014 report,” Pasdon said, “We have over 300 teachers teaching outside of their field of study. This isn’t anything against teachers, for those teacher that have stood with us and worked hard to get their certification and their education, thank you, because we don’t pay you enough, and we don’t appreciate you enough. This isn’t against teachers, this is, as the gentleman from the 7th put it, about 280,000 little lives that are depending on us to do the right thing for them. It is our responsibility to make sure that we put the most effective educator in front of them to give them the best foundation that they could possibly have to take on the role of their dreams of the 21st Century.”

House Bill 2005 passed 60 to 35.

The next bill that caused a lot of debate on the floor was House Bill 2011, another priority tort reform bill.  It’s called the deliberate intent bill…meaning an injured employee must provide proof that an employer deliberately intended to do something to cause the injury. 

Delegate Shawn Fluharty opposed the bill.

“This is a public relations ploy, that’s what this is,” Fluharty said, “and you want to call it tort reform, but I think that’s a wrong assertion to make, it’s really safety reform, because what it’s doing is creating an environment that is created the likes of Sego, creating the environment of protectionism, making it impossible to bring a claim; protectionism of the likes of Don Blankenship, who currently is facing criminal indictment. We should just call this thing the Don Blankenship Protection Act, if you really want to get down to it.”

Numerous Democrats stood to oppose the bill calling the bill grotesque and impossible for employees to be protected. Delegate Barbara Fleischauer stood and said she had 29 reasons to oppose the bill and read the names of the 29 miners who died in the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in 2010.

By the end of the debate, Delegate John Shott, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Democrats are mischaracterizing the bill. He went on to point out that the disasters at Sago in 2006 and the Upper Big Branch disaster, had they happened today, those miners would be protected under the bill because of the immense about of evidence of violations.

Shott then held up an advertisement to further his point.

“This is an advertisement online from a local lawyer, and here’s what he says, if you are injured on the job under certain circumstances, you may be eligible for a deliberate intent and workplace injury case, which is unique to the state of West Virginia, which is unique to the state of West Virginia. Well ladies and gentlemen, we can remain unique and continue to kiss our kids goodbye, our grandkids goodbye, or we can get in line with the rest of the country, compete with our neighbors, and have a reasonable deliberate intent statue. We are not abandoning the idea that there are situations in which employers do extreme things that will injure our employees, that is preserved in here, but we do need predictability, we need certainty and we need to be in the mainstream of this country,” Shott said.

House Bill 2011 passed 59 to 38.  It now heads to the senate for consideration.

Liability, Non-Partisan Elections, & Labor Cause an Uproar in the House

For years, Republicans have called for nonpartisan election of Supreme Court Justices. But the Democrats never put the issue on the agenda. Now having taken control of the House, Republicans finally got their wish.

Before confronting that issue, the house took up Senate Bill 13, which protects a landowner from liability if someone is injured on his or her property.  The bill re-instates the open and obvious doctrine.  It means a property owner won’t be responsible for injuries that a person sustains if it’s clear what the conditions are.  

Delegate John Shott, chairman of the Judiciary committee, stood to explain that this bill would be worthwhile.

“What we’re doing here is, today if we vote in favor of this bill is saying that regardless of a few remote horror stories, we think its legitimate policy of this state to protect those people who have premises. In those situations where the injuries caused by something as well known and obvious to the person who’s injured as it would be to the person who occupies those premises,” Shott explained.

Senate Bill 13 passed 81 to 18.

Then it was on to House Bill 2010, the non-partisan election bill.

Again, Judiciary Chairman Shott explained why this is good for the state.

“This removes the taint of a partisan election from the operation of our judiciary,” Shott said, “and it extends not only to our state’s Supreme Court of Appeals, but to our circuit judges, our family court judges, and our magistrates, and this is intended to remove any perception that those individuals might be beholding to a particular party organization or a particular group of people with whom that party is perceived as being affiliated.”

Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer stood to oppose the bill, saying voters want to know which party their candidate is affiliated with.

“Well in our state, we’ve had some pretty bad experiences with money in judicial elections, and there have been accusations that judicial seats have been purchased by individuals. By not knowing what party a person’s in, you are deprived of information, and that you otherwise would have in any other election,” Fleischauer said.

But the bill passed overwhelmingly 90 to 9.

But there was uproar about House Bill 2217, relating to the qualifications of the commissioner of labor. This bill changes the current definition of the labor commissioner by taking out the words “labor interests of the state” and inserts “with experience in employee issues and employee-employer relations.”

Delegate Mike Caputo, a labor representative, clearly did not like the bill.

“This is nothing, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, with all due respect but a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to the working men and women in West Virginia,” Caputo explained, “I just cannot believe that we’re about to vote on a bill that could allow a Don Blankenship to become the commissioner of labor in the state of West Virginia. I can’t believe we’re about the vote on a bill that someone who had nothing but the interest of the corporation at heart their entire adult life can now become the commissioner of labor. Now nothing against corporate executives, we need them, and they need to tend to the business of that corporation, so we can have jobs in West Virginia, but when it comes down to the grassroots level of that working mom, somebody needs to look out for her, and nobody’s going to look out for her other than someone who worked their entire adult life for a paycheck and took the interest of workers at heart.”

Delegate Michael Ihle spoke to try and reason with the word change, using an example from his own experience.

“I deal with both union and nonunion employees, and one of the accomplishments that we, and I do say we, have is a month into my term, we negotiated a labor agreement that was passed unanimously, and I say that not to brag on myself but to brag on our employees. But more relevantly, I say that to illustrate that the interest of management and the interest of labor are not always mutually exclusive,” Ihle said, “And I feel some of the rhetoric that I’ve heard from those who oppose the legislation reflects that belief that those interests must naturally conflict with each other, and I don’t believe that to be the case at all. I think if we’re to move our state forward, if we are to create an environment that is friendly to more jobs for both union and nonunion employees, all interest of labor, if we’re to do that, then we have to move beyond the mentality that labor and management are mutually exclusive.”

House Bill 2117 passed 64 to 35.

3rd Congressional District Candidates Square Off in Debate

The two candidates for West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District squared off in their only scheduled debate Tuesday evening in Huntington. The event was sponsored by the Huntington Herald-Dispatch.

Republican state Senator Evan Jenkins came out swinging, immediately attacking Democratic Congressman Nick Rahall in his opening remarks for his party connections, calling him a “foot solider” for President Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

Those attacks continued throughout the evening, but weren’t without rebuttal from the Congressman, who called Jenkins- a former Rahall campaign supporter a “Johnny come lately” on coal and permitting issues with the Environmental Protection Agencey.

“Has he been at the pro-coal rallies, the anti-E.P.A. rallies that I’ve been at, testifying before the E.P.A. against their efforts to revoke a previously granted permit in southern West Virginia?” he said.

Coal was the major talking point of the night. Jenkins attacked Rahall for his previous voting record, including a vote in favor of a Progressive budget that he says included a carbon tax. Rahall refutes its inclusion in the bill at the time he voted for it. 

Rahall said its time for the state to start focusing on diversifying not just its economy and for the nation to put in place an energy policy that contains many forms of energy production, as long as they are all domestic.

On healthcare and the Affordable Care Act, Jenkins continued to link Rahall to Obama and Pelosi, but avoided saying if the bill should be repealed and replaced or just adjusted. 

Rahall defended his vote for the ACA saying at the time, insurance companies were taking advantage of consumers by drastically increasing premiums without checks and said the bill put in place some good measures. He cited coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and being able to stay on a parent’s health insurance plan until 26 as two of those improvements.

Both candidates looked weak when it came to education issues and avoided any substantive answer on what should be done to take on problems with student loan debt. 

What Do You Want to Hear from the U.S. Senate Candidates?

West Virginia Public Broadcasting is hosting a second debate for the candidates running for U.S. Senate and wants to know, what do you want to hear from…

West Virginia Public Broadcasting is hosting a second debate for the candidates running for U.S. Senate and wants to know, what do you want to hear from them?

Submit your questions to us by the morning of Thursday, October 16, and we’ll choose some to ask the candidates Friday morning.

The debate itself will air Friday evening from 7-8pm on West Virginia Public Broadcasting and West Virginia Public Radio. All of the candidates on the ballot have been invited to participate.

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