Delegate John Shott Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

House Judiciary Committee Announces Additional Impeachment Meetings, Managers

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has announced additional meetings to continue the impeachment process of one or more West Virginia Supreme Court justices.

House Judiciary Committee chairman John Shott has announced the additional meetings, which will take place Thursday, July 12 through Saturday, July 14.

The committee will then recess to organize additional witnesses and gather further evidence. It will then reconvene the following week for another three days — beginning Thursday, July 19.

Chairman Shott also announced the appointment of a team of bipartisan impeachment “managers” who will oversee the process going forward.

In addition to Shott, the legislative managers include Republican Delegates Roger Hanshaw and Ray Hollen as well as Democrats Andrew Byrd and Rodney Miller.

“I am confident that we can proceed in an impartial and non-partisan manner commensurate with the seriousness of the assignment entrusted to us,” Chairman Shott said in a written statement announcing the meetings and impeachment managers.

Last week, Delegates adopted House Resolution 201, authorizing the chamber’s Judiciary Committee to investigate possible impeachments of all five of the state’s supreme court justices.

While much attention has been paid to Justice Allen Loughry — who has been indicted on federal charges and suspended without pay — all other justices were named in the resolution.

House Judiciary Looks at Coal Jobs and Safety Act of 2015

House Judiciary took up a bill Tuesday that addresses mine safety. Senate Bill 357, also known as House Bill 2566, is the Coal Jobs and Safety Act of 2015. This is a big bill with many provisions, and House Judiciary considered a handful of amendments to it.

There were two amendments to the bill that stirred up some debate within the House Judiciary Committee. Amendment number 2, as the delegates called it, was an amendment proposed by Delegate Woody Ireland of Ritchie County.

Ireland’s amendment addresses when and how and who moves equipment within a coal mine. This amendment adjusts some language related to energized trolley wire, which is a way for miners to move large loads of equipment in shuttle cars.

Delegate Tim Manchin of Marion County proposed a rival amendment to Ireland’s. In Manchin’s amendment, which was referred to as amendment number 4, it suggests putting the language back in the bill that is currently law saying there would be restrictions on how the equipment would be moved.

Manchin called Ireland’s amendment a roll back in mine safety.

“This is a huge roll back in miner safety to take seventy some mines out of the control of this statute to say that seventy some mines will now be allowed to move oversized equipment with motors and other apparatuses that are being strained to their limits in carrying that equipment, to remove those from the provisions and to subject coal miners to being in by of those where they’re going to be exposed to those fumes and fire and all the noxious smoke that comes off of that is an outrage,” Manchin said, “It is a roll back in coal miner safety, it should not be permitted, that we have not been given any adequate excuse to do that, and therefore we should reject this. Men have died, men died to get this statute passed, men died after this statute was passed. Nine men, in Marion and Monongalia County died, I think it was in the 60s or early 70s if I’m not mistaken, because, for this statute, and now we’re going to remove that.”

Delegate Stephen Skinner of Jefferson County, a fellow sponsor of Manchin’s amendment, also spoke against Ireland’s amendment, number 2.

“The amendment offered by the gentleman across applies to a very narrow number of mines,” Skinner said, “The statute as it is right now applies to all mines and is safety focused. We should make the choice for making decisions based on evidence, and we don’t have that evidence here today.”

Delegate Patrick Lane of Kanawha County supported Ireland’s amendment, explaining that amendment number 2 was a good middle-ground and still addressed all the safety concerns.

“The gentleman from Ritchie has offered, what I would consider to be a balanced approach to making sure that miners in most of the mines where there’s a real safety issue with the movement of equipment are protected, but at the same time allowing that equipment to be moved in an efficient manner,” Lane noted, “and I would just remind people to look at the language that it says that a qualified person has to be in charge of transporting it, and specifically, as we heard yesterday, the primary issue is the energized wire that can create the problem, the real safety issue, and I think the gentleman has addressed that specifically, and would ask the committee to adopt amendment number 2 offered by the gentleman from Ritchie and reject amendment number 4.”

After the debate however, Ireland’s amendment passed, and Manchin’s amendment was rejected.

Two more amendments were proposed by Delegates Manchin and Skinner; one having to do with the diesel commission and inspections, while the other had to do with rail track variants from the face of a mine. Both amendments were rejected.

Senate Bill 357 now reports to the floor for its 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.

House Bills Move to Next Stage Without a Hitch

A number of bills were on the floor Tuesday from child welfare to the election of judges to the qualifications of the labor commissioner; all of them passed to their next stages without much of a hitch.

Eight bills were on the House Floor, and only House Bill 2200 was on third reading. This bill is to revise, rearrange, consolidate, and recodify the laws of the state relating to child welfare and juvenile disposition.

Judiciary chairman, Delegate John Shott, is the lead sponsor. He described the bill to be more user-friendly for those who have to deal with this area of law.

“There have been complaints for many years over how difficult it is to work in this area and how it can lead to misinterpretations, misunderstandings,” Shott noted, “and this is an effort that this bill, it’s got bipartisan support, it’s got widespread support among those who need to be able to navigate these complicated provisions of law, and Mr. Speaker I urge passage.”

House Bill 2200 passed 98 to 0.

The next five bills were on second reading; the amendment stage. First up was Senate Bill 13, which has to do with the liability of a possessor of real property for injuries caused by open and obvious hazards.

Delegate Shott proposed an amendment.

“The amendment that has been passed in the judiciary committee to modify the senate version, Senate Bill 13, basically recognizes a very limited exception to the open and obvious doctrine,” said Shott, “and that is where the danger on the landowner’s property is a violation of a law intended for the public safety, and that violation caused the injury, then in that narrow situation, the landowner is still responsible.”

Shott’s amendment passed and the bill progressed to third reading.

House Bill 2010 was up next. This bill relates to electoral reforms requiring the election of justices of the Supreme Court of Appeals, circuit court judges, family court judges, and magistrates to be on a nonpartisan basis.

Delegate Tim Manchin proposed an amendment that would extend public campaign financing to circuit court judges. It’s already in place for candidates for the Supreme Court.

“That program has worked. As a matter of fact, we have a current Supreme Court justice now who sits in the chamber upstairs because of this bill. It was a private project at the time, which is now been made permanent for Supreme Court judges,” Manchin explained, “The reason that I’ve offered this bill [amendment] is because, quite frankly, the only real reason to have nonpartisan judges, or the only stated reasons, are two; number one, so that there not beholden to anybody and they don’t appear to have partiality after they’ve been elected. Number two is to cut down on the cost of election, however if we miss this opportunity to extend the public campaign financing to those circuit court judges, we will leave in probably the greatest threat to the appearance of impartiality that there is, and that’s direct campaign contributions.”

Delegate Shott stood to oppose the amendment but in good faith.

“This is a good idea, and it’s an idea that it’s time may come, just not today,” Shott said, “I’m going to speak against this amendment not because I don’t think it’s a good idea, I think it’s where we want to be at some point, but I’m concerned that it complicates a bill whose focus is to take the first step, and that is to make these judicial elections nonpartisan.”

Delegate Manchin stood again to encourage the amendment be adopted.

“We have an opportunity right here to do something good right now and not wait until later, until all other kinds of people weigh in,” Manchin said, “and tell us all other reasons why the system won’t work, when in fact it already has.”

Delegate Manchin’s amendment was rejected 67 to 31, and House Bill 2010 moved on to third reading.

Also up for passage Wednesday will be House Bill 2217, relating to the qualifications of the Commissioner of Labor. The bill removes the term “labor interests of the state” and inserts language to require the commissioner to have knowledge and experience in employee issues and interests including employee-employer relations.

Strangling Could be Seen as a Felony Offense

The House Judiciary Committee is struggling with the definition of the word “strangling” as it relates to domestic violence and sexual offense laws.

House Bill 2240 would insert language making an act of domestic violence or sexual offense by strangling an aggravated felony offense, leading to criminal penalties.

By adjusting this language, the bill could potentially help a person or family involved in a domestic violence case get out of the situation sooner rather than later.

“One of the studies that we looked at found a very high correlation between strangulation and later homicide,” noted Danielle Swann of the domestic violence community at the YWCA in the Kanawha Valley, “and the reason that strangulation was considered with the seriousness that it was in the proposed language is because of this correlation in the hope to prevent any additional violence in the future.”

Swann is also an attorney in Charleston. She mentioned the bill could also cover someone who was strangled even without visible evidence of strangulation.

“Strangulation actually requires very little force to cut off the air passageway,” Swann explained, “in fact, ten seconds a victim can lose consciousness, and in four minutes, they can lose all brain activity. And when looking at the bill and speaking with other experts on the issue, that’s why no physical markings were required, because in fact strangulation actually requires very little force.”

The bill concerned some delegates because the term strangling could be viewed as very broad; potentially affecting someone who was either protecting themselves or accidentally performing the act.

Delegate Geoff Foster of Putnam County was one of the delegates who expressed this concern. He questioned Kip Reese, House Judiciary Counsel, with a hypothetical scenario involving three people; one person handled a knife and tried to hurt one of the two, and the third performed a choke-hold to protect the one being attacked with the knife. Foster asked if the person performing the choke-hold would be deemed guiltier than the person with the knife.

Reese explained that the decision would depend on the prosecutor, but the person who performed the choke-hold could be seen as guiltier.

Other concerns were how the bill would affect things like high school wrestling matches, as well as someone dying while under erotic-asphyxiation by a consensual partner.

But by the end of the meeting, three amendments were suggested to better narrow the definition of strangling, but Delegate John Shott, chairman of the committee, decided the concerns were too numerous to deal with in one day.

“In view of the numerous amendments we have and the apparent high level of concern over this bill, we’re going to refer this to our criminal working group and encourage them to get with the domestic violence group and representatives of the prosecuting attorney’s office and see if they can resolve some of these concerns that have been raised,” Shott said, “I think they’re all legitimate concerns, and rather than force through a bill that might have unintended consequences, we still have time to work this bill up.”

Tort Reform is Discussed on the House Floor

When a vehicle accident occurs, who is at fault? And how much should those at fault pay in damages? These are questions the House of Delegates grappled with Tuesday as they discussed abolishing joint liability and implementing comparative fault.

House Bill 2002 seeks to do away with joint liability in our state and instead introduce comparative fault. What this means is currently, before the bill, if someone is involved in an accident, and are responsible for 30% of the fault, but the other person responsible for 70% of the fault can’t pay their share, the person receiving 30% of the fault would take in all the fault.

House Bill 2002 would change this and only require the person who is 30% at fault pay 30% of their share.

The bill, while many in the House supported what it was trying to convey, many Democrats stood to offer amendments to the bill. Ranging from suggestions to offer exceptions to people who are intentionally harmed by someone to protecting children fourteen and under from taking any blame, to an economic impact statement, all of the Democrats amendments were rejected.

Republicans felt all of the additions would just muddy up the focus of the bill; to protect everyone.

During the fall election campaign, Republican candidates were clear that the state needs tort reform. Tuesday in the House, they got their chance. Delegate John Shott, chairman of the House Judiciary committee explained the party’s position.

“So one thing the leadership, or the basic thrust of leadership on both the House and the Senate side is try to identify those features of our state that are making, or creating a perception that this is not a good place to have a business, to grow jobs, to move to have a career or a profession,” said Shott, “And the legal system is one of those areas that’s been examined, and there are features of the legal system that contribute to that perception, and there’s no one that stands out, but among those features the concept of joint and several liability is one that is seen as unfair, because it creates an uncertainty among the business people, among the community, and among individuals as to the fact that you may end up having to pay more than the share of fault that you bear in an accident.”

But Delegate Tim Miley, once the House Speaker now Minority Leader, resented Shott’s assertion that the state is not business friendly.

“You know we hear a lot about the business climate of the state, perhaps someone should have shared that with the cracker plant coming, someone should have shared that with Antero that moved its corporate headquarters to north-central West Virginia, someone should have shared that with Mark West Energy who has built processing plants in north-central West Virginia and spent billions of dollars doing so. Someone should have shared that with, I think it’s Southwest Energy, a company who’s taken over the assets of Chesapeake Energy and we’re going to have a bill that benefits them up in the Energy Committee today,” said Miley, “I stand up on the floor every Thursday, and will continue to do so to talk about the jobs available in this state. Someone should have told all those business employers who have jobs available how bad it is to do business in this state. So it gets a little old justifying every effort to take rights away from consumers with the mantra, we need to make our state business friendly, when the unfriendly nature that’s been described from West Virginia has been done by these shady outside groups with no objective data to review.”

For years, West Virginia has been labeled a judicial hell hole by the American Tort Reform Association. This group accuses the state’s legal system of being out of balance. It’s a campaign the West Virginia Association for Justice, representing the state’s trial lawyers, has criticized. Shott maintains this Legislation and says its necessary to polish the state’s legal image.

“To the gentlemen from the 48^th, I am exceptionally pleased that things are going well in north-central West Virginia,” said Shott, “I wish they were going as well in southern West Virginia. What we’re really looking at folks is a change in an approach, an approach that’s been underway for 83 years or so that the results, I think, speak for themselves. Our children are leaving the state, our grandchildren are leaving the state, except in north-central West Virginia where a spark, has of, discovery of the Marcellus shale, has caused a, I’ll call it a mini-boom, and our, certainly, as West Virginians are all pleased about that. But unfortunately, that’s not what we see all over our state. I sometimes ask myself, why would businesses come to West Virginia, and I think the problem now is that they won’t come unless there’s something they have to take from us that’s already here, like the Marcellus shale. If a business can go anywhere, it’s not going to come to West Virginia. It’s just not deemed a friendly place to do business.”

The bill passed 74 to 25, with some of the Democrats voting for it. House Bill 2002 now goes to the Senate for consideration.