Delegate Sean Hornbuckle Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Criminalizing Aspects Of Voter Registration Debated In House

The section of House Bill 4017 under debate notes that finding any person who intentionally coerces or offers payment in exchange for a person to register to vote is guilty of a misdemeanor and could be fined and jailed.

Five bills on third reading passed in the House of Delegates Tuesday, including two that fostered some debate over election laws, voting laws and candidate filing periods.

Criminal actions regarding registering to vote are key to House Bill 4017, modifying certain election laws, early voting laws, and absentee voting laws.

The section under debate notes that finding any person who intentionally coerces or offers payment in exchange for a person to register to vote is guilty of a misdemeanor and could be fined and jailed.

House Minority Leader Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, asked that with no specific definition of the terms coerced or payment, could a college campus voter registration table giving away bottled water and cookies, or the Secretary of State’s high school teen voter registration campaign be seen as criminal acts?

“This piece of legislation in front of us could potentially not only harm those high school students and the aforementioned college students, this could criminalize our Secretary of State,” Hornbuckle said. “I would urge us, with the language, to slow down and we need to rethink what we’re doing here because it can be problematic.”

There was no other debate on the floor. House Bill 4017 passed the House by a 90-7 vote. It will become effective Jan. 1, 2025 if it passes the Senate.

Also on third reading, House Bill 4350 removes the ability of political parties to appoint candidates for the primary election in positions where no one has filed.

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, was among several House Democrats opposing a proposed bill they said benefits incumbency and stifles participation in the elective process.

“This is a bill that only protects incumbency,” Puskin said. “The only people that care about this bill are sitting in this room, or down the hall or in a couple county courthouses across the state. So when you’re voting for this, ask yourself Who are your heroes? Who are you here to serve? Your constituents, the voters who deserve choices, or yourself? I’ll be voting against this bill. It is self serving at its worst.”

However, Del. Adam Vance, R-Wyoming, asked House Judiciary Committee Chair Tom Fast, R-Fayette, if the scope of the bill still contained defined time limits, opportunities and restrictions on filing for political office.

“Are there not filing periods for these candidates to file?” Vance asked Fast.

“There certainly are,” Fast answered. “There’s an election every two years in this state. If I want somebody to run for something, I’ve got two years at least to go to him and talk to him and try to talk with me to run it. I don’t see the problem with this bill and I’ve got two years, four years for a Senate seat and it shouldn’t be extra time to just grab somebody and say, here you’re on the ballot. So I’m gonna be a big yes on this.”

House Bill 4350 passed 79-18 and also now goes to the Senate.

Firefighter Funding, Cybersecurity, Cannabis Discussed At Legislative Lookahead

Legislative leaders met with the media Friday to discuss some expected highlights of the 2024 general legislative session that begins next week.

Legislative leaders met with the media Friday to discuss some expected highlights of the 2024 general legislative session that begins next week. The annual event is sponsored by the West Virginia Press Association.

Supporting Gov. Jim Justice’s 5 percent pay raise proposal for teachers and all state workers was an issue that Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, and House Minority Leader Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, all agreed upon.

“The PEIA Finance Board did move forward with a proposed premium increase, the governor’s pay raise announcement will offset that and we take that seriously,” Hanshaw said.

Blair said more than 70 percent of the marijuana that gets tested In West Virginia has fentanyl on it. He again called for legislation that applies the death penalty to those convicted of distributing fentanyl.

“Do I think anybody will ever be put to death in the state of West Virginia,” Blair said. “I doubt it. But what we’re wanting to do is send a message out to these animals that are selling us, and manufacturing this, to stay the hell out of West Virginia.”

Blair also said to expect a Senate initiative to enhance classroom learning by better handling disruptive public school students.

“What we need to do in the classroom is be able to take that disruptive student out,’ Blair said. “Move them to a classroom where there’s cameras, behavior specialists, and allow those teachers to do their jobs without the disruption.”
Hanshaw told the media the House would make firefighter and emergency medical services recruitment, retention and pay a funding priority.

“One of the priorities for us in the House this year is making sure that we’ve adequately funded those organizations,” Hanshaw said. “That we’re making sure that emergency responders are available to come deal with the tragedies that happen and confront our daily lives “

Hanshaw praised the $45 million legislative allocation for the Marshall University Cybersecurity Center. He said to expect legislation drafted to enhance cybersecurity statewide for individuals and businesses.

”Whether we as West Virginia can join the growing number of states around the country that are providing protections, liability protections, liability shields for businesses that implement proper cybersecurity protocols to safeguard their customers and employees’ data from nefarious actors around the world,” Hanshaw said.

Hornbuckle said House Democrats would be the champion of the people and stand up to extremism. He said public education should be put first, before alternative educational opportinities.

“We were able to put aides into our classrooms to help our tiniest mountaineers,” Hornbuckle said. “What we’ve also done is the Hope Scholarship, while affording people the ability to go to private schools and micro schools, charter schools, we’ve actually had dollars leave our state.”

Hornbuckle advocated a cost-of-living allowance raise for retirees and said he supports legalizing adult use of cannabis.

“That is something that we can have in our toolkit to help pay for items as we go down this journey in moving West Virginia forward,” he said.

Blair was asked if legalizing adult use of cannabis was a way of quelling the fentanyl scourge. He said yes.

“My gut tells me it might not happen this year,” Blair said. “But you’re going to see it sooner than later because that is a way to combat that issue.”

Charter School Bill Makes Its Way to the House

The Charter Schools bill made its way into the House Wednesday. The House Education Committee debated the bill until almost midnight that night. It ultimately passed and will soon be on first reading in the full House.

Senate Bill 14 was the focus of a lot of debate in the Senate, and passed Monday on a vote of 18 to 16. Public Charter Schools still receive government and county funds, just like regular public schools, but charter schools would not be overseen by the county Board of Education. This in turn would give teachers at charter schools more flexibility in the way they deliver their curriculum, but they would still be subject to state education standards.

Delegate Amanda Pasdon of Monongalia County, the House Education Chair, says charter schools will provide more options.

“I don’t have any concerns with the progression of it,” Pasdon said, “I think that there are those that support charter schools; public charter schools, I think there’s a lot of support, because it gives our students a choice, and I think that’s what this is really about is focusing on our students, making sure that we’re meeting their needs to the best of our ability, and this is really just a county option and a community option to allow communities to develop school choice and options that really benefit our students.”

In the House Education Committee meeting Wednesday night, there were a handful of amendments proposed by members. One of those amendments came from Delegate David Perry of Fayette County, the Minority Education Chair. It provided more auditing and oversight of charter schools.

“I proposed an amendment that the offices of education performance audits would monitor the charter schools,” Perry explained, “and this means that they would check on school climate, that they would monitor finances, that they would monitor instruction to ensure there was some accountability.”

Perry’s amendment was rejected, and he says he’s concerned that will make it difficult to make sure charter schools are providing quality educations for West Virginia students and spending their funds properly.

“Well I have concerns, number one, that there was not a fiscal note with the bill that we discovered, hadn’t been prepared after changes in the Senate, and I still have very much concern over accountability and when we’re dealing with public funds and the education that those children would receive or not receive,” Perry said.

Delegate Sean Hornbuckle of Cabell County also proposed two amendments to the bill. One would require three parents on the charter school governing board be proportionate to the demographic of the students attending the school. This amendment, however, was rejected, as well as a second amendment that dealt with a new idea not raised in the Senate.

“The other amendment that I proposed is we’re going to have two charter schools in the first five years of this program allowed to open up. The amendment simply stated that at least one of those schools need to be aimed at student populations of at risk pupils,” Hornbuckle said, “So this could be in super rural areas of the state, it could be in inner, inner cities of the state, but I feel again that if we’re gonna do this thing, and I think it has great, great potential, we need to make sure that we’re uplifting the students who truly, truly need it.”

Hornbuckle says by not adopting his amendment, it will set the state back.

“The concerns that I have is that we will go backwards. It will be, has potential, has potential to sort of segregate people as far as lower socioeconomic kids and higher socioeconomic kids, and I just don’t think we can afford that in our state. With the potential of charter schools being very, very good, we need to make sure that we craft it as best as we can to fit our demographics here in West Virginia,” Hornbuckle noted.

Delegate Pasdon says there were other amendments offered in the committee that, like Perry’s and Hornbuckle’s, she doesn’t believe are necessary.

“Well there were various amendments, you know, and for different reasons,” Pasdon said, “What we wanted to do is preserve the integrity of the bill. We wanted to be sure that we were making children and students the focus of this legislation, and we’ve steered away from anything that did the opposite.”

Senate Bill 14 will be on first reading in the House this weekend.