Tag: House Floor Session

House Passes Concealed Carry Bill After Two Hour Debate

Thursday in the House, among the multitude of bills passed, the Firearms Act of 2015 was also up for a vote. Senate Bill 347 has received an overwhelming amount of controversy among legislators, their constituents, law enforcement, and others, and no less was seen on the House floor.

The biggest change this bill brings to the state’s current gun laws is it would no longer require a law-abiding citizen to acquire a permit to carry a concealed firearm.

“You shouldn’t be taking your guns concealed without a permit into a public area, into a Baskin Robins or into a Kroger for heaven’s sakes,” Democrat Nancy Guthrie of Kanawha County said, “People with guns can be very dangerous, and if we don’t enforce that rule of law, we have no law.”

“This bill is not going to put guns in the hands of the criminals, they already have’em,” noted Republican John Kelly of Wood County, “What this bill is gonna do is make a level playing field for the honest people in the state of West Virginia who will be able to carry concealed and be able to carry concealed legally. The criminal? He doesn’t care.

“Handling guns is not video games. This is reality people,” said Republican Bill Hamilton of Upshur County, “When you do this, and please turn around and look at me. When you squeeze the trigger, you can’t say I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t know you were standing there. It’s gone out of the chamber and down the barrel. Let’s be aware of what we’re voting for.”

“When I applied for my concealed carry permit and went through the training, I really did so, because I was being under that situation, and it was because of my involvement in the political arena, and it was very stressful to me to have to wait and wait and wait,” Republican Cindy Frich of Monongalia County said, “And I got that training as soon as I could, because I knew people that were involved in this, so I didn’t have to wait to receive my training, but I did have to wait on receiving the permit. So, I think that adds a lot of stress in some young lady, or a lady’s life under these circumstances when they have to wait. So I am in support of this bill. I think if you’re, need to defend yourself, you need to defend yourself as soon as possible.”

“I oppose this bill because of law enforcement officers across our state that are gonna be going into situations that are already dangerous,” Democrat Linda Phillips of Wyoming County explained, “and they put their lives on the line anyway for us, and this is just gonna make it just a little bit more dangerous for them. Lastly, I oppose this bill because of domestic violence victims, I know the perp is not supposed to carry, but again this law just makes it easier.”

“We’ve heard a lot of talk about good people and bad people, but this bill only addresses good people,” said Republican Gary Howell of Mineral County, “The bad people are criminals, they break the law. They carry right now, if they’re a convicted felon, and they’re not allowed to have a gun, they carry one anyway. Make no mistake, this law is only dealing with good people, and whether or not good people can carry a gun without a permit.”

After the two hour debate, Senate Bill 347 passed 71 to 29.

After the vote, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin released a statement in opposition to its passage. Manchin said he thinks concealed carry applicants should receive proper firearm training. He called the vote irresponsible.

Friday will be another long day for the members in the House of Delegates. The bills to create public charter schools and to amend the aboveground storage tank laws will be up for a vote on the floor.

Courtesy Patrol Debated in the House

The Courtesy Patrol is a free roadside assistance service offered to those traveling through West Virginia. The program is within the Division of Tourism, as the patrol often helps visitors as they travel. It has a budget of four million dollars. In the House Wednesday, Delegates considered a senate passed bill that transfers the patrol to the Division of Highways, but allows Tourism to keep the money for state marketing campaigns. But the debate took a turn, as Republicans debated whether the courtesy patrol should even exist.

Senate Bill 581 relates to the transferring of the Courtesy Patrol from the Division of Tourism to the Division of Highways, eliminating requirement that moneys be transferred from the Tourism Promotion Fund to the Courtesy Patrol Fund. This would also specify how funds may be spent.

Delegate Michel Moffatt, a Republican from Putnam County, proposed an amendment to Senate Bill 581 that would do away with the Courtesy Patrol completely and have that four million dollars go toward West Virginia road maintenance.

While all Democratic Delegates were opposed to the amendment, the majority of Republicans were also.

Delegate Matthew Rohrbach of Cabell County visited the Courtesy Patrol’s website after Delegate Moffatt offered his amendment. He found that between November 1998 to the end of February 2015, the Courtesy Patrol has aided a lot of people.

“I’m gonna give you some statistics of the services that these folks have provided to the citizens of this state and to our visitors,” Rohrbach said, “They’ve assisted 292,000 vehicles, removed 18,000 pieces of debris, 8,500 deer carcasses, surprisingly 181 bears have been removed by the Courtesy Patrol as well as 3,900 other animal carcasses. They perform 14,000 procedural checks, and in total they’ve assisted 78,000 vehicles.”

Republican Bob Ashley of Roane County also opposed the amendment because he says it’s necessary for those who can’t afford assistance.

“I was here when we created the program in 1998. I remember when Governor Underwood put this program in to use the people from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, and that’s what we use,” noted Ashley, “We take the people who are on welfare who receives this assistance, and they, they get their training with West Virginia, and they do the service, and as the gentlemen from several places, several counties has talked, these people are then picked up by private, they’re trained, and they’re picked up by the companies of West Virginia.”

Republican Delegate Cindy Frich of Monogalia County, however, supported  Moffat’s amendment to eliminate the courtesy patrol.

“I suspect that if the Delegate’s amendment were to succeed that perhaps there would be four million dollars more for perhaps road maintenance or some other sort of road repair, and then perhaps there’d be less people needing assistance on the roads and perhaps there’d be jobs created filling potholes,” Frich said.

Delegate Michael Ihle, a Republican from Jackson County, also supported the amendment, because he says the 4 million dollars might be better used if put toward sending Courtesy Patrol employees back in school.

“If we wanted too, we could take that four million dollars, split it up amongst the eighty people and give’em all each a fifty-thousand-dollar scholarship to go back to school,” Ihle explained, “To me, there are benefits from this program, but we have to weigh them versus the costs, and when you talk about fifty-thousand-dollars a person, I don’t know that we’re getting the return on our spending slash investment depending on which term you want to use. The math just doesn’t add up for me.”

By the end of the debate, Moffatt’s amendment was rejected 12 to 87. Senate Bill 581 will be on third reading Thursday.

Raw Milk is Debated on the House Floor

Senate Bill 30 permits a shared animal ownership agreement to consume raw milk. Currently in the state, it is illegal to purchase or sell raw milk. And just like when it was debated in the Senate, some members of the House also questioned the health effects of drinking raw milk, while others maintained it allows for personal freedom.

Senate Bill 30 would allow two parties to have a written agreement saying they would share ownership of a milk producing animal and that milk would be used for consumption. The bill would also require the Department of Agriculture to be aware of the agreement, and the seller would have to meet state standards from a licensed veterinarian. If an illness would occur after consuming raw milk, those persons in the agreement would have to report the illness to their local health department.

Debate erupted on the House floor as health risks and freedoms were discussed.

Delegate Nancy Guthrie of Kanawha County opposed the bill because she worried it would reintroduce diseases like polio and others.

“When I look at this bill,” Guthrie said, “and I realize that we could’ve taken one more preventative measure by just saying to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services, while we recognize that agriculture is in a growing industry in our state, we need to be very careful about maybe reintroducing E.coli, maybe reintroducing polio, maybe reintroducing some of the diseases that have been associated with non-pasteurized milk over the years. Let them have joint custody on writing the rules.”

Delegate Jim Morgan of Cabell County says he used to own a dairy farm and questioned the cleanliness of those parties selling raw milk.

“That was a difficult job keeping that sterilized, clean, and the Kanwaha, Charleston Health Department examined our farm every two weeks. I just don’t understand why somebody who maybe thinks that a nice cow giving milk is going to be better than buying it pasteurized off the shelf,” said Morgan, “If you have seen farming conditions other than the ones under the, subject to health department rules, and I understand they’re some rules in this. I feel that it’s a step backwards in public health, and that for those conditions to be met is going to be very difficult, and when you go to the farm to visit your cows, be sure to look at their utter and be sure it’s clean.”

Delegate Lynne Arvon of Raleigh County supported the bill and argued it would not require retailers to sell raw milk, only two consenting parties with an animal that produced milk.

“I think people need to remember, this bill is not about selling raw milk. This is about people owning their own cows, their own goats and using the milk from those cows and goats,” Arvon noted, “I think they have the right to use those animals as they choose. We talk about freedom; that is freedom. We’re not selling it to anyone else, although personally I think they should be able to do that. If people want to buy raw milk, they should be able to buy raw milk. And I’ll use the example I spoke about in Health committee. Alcohol. How many deaths can we relate to alcohol? I can’t even count. How about to raw milk? I know one in twenty-five years. So are we gonna ban alcohol? I think not.”

Delegate Kelli Sobonya of Cabell County also supported the bill and says there are more deaths related to foodborne illnesses than from raw milk.

“There are ten million people in America that consume raw milk. Ten million people,” Sobonya said, “We haven’t heard a big problem that people are out there dying, but yet there are millions and millions of foodborne illnesses in America, due to cantaloupe, three-hundred people were hospitalized for candied apples. We haven’t outlawed candied apples for the consumption of children. Seven people died in 2015 from candied apples, and three-hundred were sickened.”

Delegate Matthew Rohrbach of Cabell County says he will support the bill, but only because he thinks it’s an attempt to regulate something that has the potential to be harmful.

“I think we have to be realistic that raw milk is being sold, and we’re not regulating it,” Rohrbach noted, “I think this bill is an attempt to regulate a cottage industry that is going on, and if it does get some oversight over the herds, begrudgingly I can support this bill, but I’m gonna rise to tell the members that we’re gonna have some tough debates this week about some issues of public health, and the people of this state depend on a hundred people sitting here to make decisions for their health and well-being, and I urge you not to go backward.”

Senate Bill 30 passed 81 to 19.

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.

Coal Jobs & Safety Act of 2015 Passes in the House

The House passed Senate Bill 357 Friday, the Coal Jobs and Safety Act of 2015. This bill has caused a lot of controversy, so it was no surprise when the House debated the bill for two hours. Republicans feel like the bill is an update to previous safety laws, while some Democrats feel like it’s a scale back.

“This act strengthens the state’s enforcement of the coal industry’s drug testing program to treat all miners the same and promote drug free coal mines,” Delegate John Shott, the Judiciary Chair, explained, “It updates West Virginia mine laws on equipment movement and operation to match federal regulations and well-established safety standards; in one instance exceeding the federal regulations requiring the movement of workers out by when in the case of the movement of equipment where electrified trolley wires are present. It also places oversight of underground diesel equipment in the hands of experienced state mine safety regulation, regulators. It syncs state reclamation rules with federal laws to bring consistency to regulatory oversight. It adjusts the aluminum water quality standard to reflect the latest science and better protect the environment, and it conforms, permit enforcement processes to federal laws.”

After the bill was explained to members, a flood of debate ensued on the floor. Republicans expressed belief the bill was steering the coal industry in the right direction, because it was updating technology and saving money, while Democrats felt the bill would roll back the safety laws currently in place.

The bill had full support from Republicans but Democrats were divided.

Delegate Rupert Phillips of Logan County was one of those Democrats who supported the bill.

“If we’re going to move our state forward and be competitive on what’s built this state, the backbone of the state; the coal, the coal miner, we’ve got to move forward,” Phillips noted, “We cannot continue to let DC, EPA, and other groups overregulate our industry.”

Delegate Gary Howell, the Government Organization Chair, also supported the bill.

“It is time we updated these laws for safety,” Howell said, “Time changes, technology changes, we must make sure our coal miners are safe. I support this bill, and I hope you will to for the safety of our miners.”

Delegate Barbara Fleischauer of Monongalia County was strongly against the bill.

“There’s not anything in this bill that improves safety, nothing,” Fleischauer said, “And I can’t believe, after all the fires and explosions we’ve had in this state, recently, we would, and you know what they are; Upper Big Branch, Aracoma, Sego, that we would ever consider rolling back safety protections.”

Minority Leader, Tim Miley, also expressed rejection of the bill.

“We haven’t even heard the cost savings per ton, as to what this bill will accomplish,” Miley noted, “Wouldn’t you think, you can measure man hours saved by activities in the mine that you do or don’t have to do as a result of this bill, you can measure that. How many man hours, combined man hours does it take to stop the mining operations, move heavy equipment, and then bring the miners back, you can measure all of that, this is the 21st Century. You can measure all of that. We can measure what effects and cost savings, the environmental aspects of this bill will have. We can measure how much it costs to lay track, we can measure all of that, that’s how you come up with a cost per ton as far as how much it costs to mine a ton of coal. If it really were to gonna save that kind of money to reinvest back into creating jobs, I think we would know that.”

After the two hour debate, House Bill 357 passed, 73 to 25, with only Democrats voting against.

House Passes Bill Transferring Children's Health Insurance Program Operations to DHHR

Since it was created by the legislature in 1998, the Children’s Health Insurance Program known as CHIP has covered thousands of children and teens under age 19. 

It’s proven to be very popular for the state’s working families.  The house considered a senate bill today that would transfer CHIP’s operation from the Department of Administration to the Department of Health and Human Resources.  That was one of the bills up for passage today.

Delegate Don Perdue wasn’t too happy with this switch.

“CHIP is the one agency in the healthcare in the state of West Virginia that has performed magnificently, even through some really tough times,” Perdue said, “Now I understand that the ACA will reduce, or ostensibly has reduced and will continue to reduce the number of folks who will be eligible for that fund. My fear is, absent of the Supreme Court deciding otherwise, that it could go down, and if it goes down, then CHIP’s going to go back up, and it’s going to be given to an agency that I don’t believe is going to be prepared for that great influx. I think that it’s premature to do this. I’ve always felt it’s premature until we know exactly what’s going to happen in terms of the ACA, so for that reason I oppose this bill.”

Senate Bill 262 passed, however, 62 to 37.

House Bill 2391 was up next. This bill is to reduce the amount of days students in early childhood education programs are required to attend per week. This bill would impose a minimum of four days per week instead of five.

Delegate Amanda Pasdon, the House Education Chair, further explained the bill.

“As a bit of background for this bill, and Senate Bill 359, which we passed in the 2013 session, we mandated five, half-day programs for Pre-K, in many of our counties there are already existing four, full-day programs, so what this bill does is allow flexibility in our counties where they’re already meeting the minimum instructional time minutes, but doesn’t force them to go add an additional day and add the additional cost of a bus route and educators and that kind of thing to their expenses, so this offers some flexibility,” explained Pasdon.

House Bill 2391 passed 99 to 0.

The West Virginia State Police will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2019, so delegates unanimously passed House Bill 2523, which creates a special revenue account to pay for  the commemoration.

Delegate Bob Ashley says the fund would be made up from merchandise sales, appropriations, and donations.

“The superintendent would be authorized to spend funds to offset costs for the hundredth anniversary, including the purchasing of commemorative merchandise, and items or other activities,” Ashley said, “The fund would expire December the 31st, 2019, and any remaining funds would be transferred to the Academy Training Professional Development Fund.”

Delegate Pasdon stood again to explain another bill up for passage; House Bill 2557, creating a Task Force on Prevention of Sexual Abuse of Children, also known as “Erin Merryn’s Law.”

“This bill establishes the Task Force on prevention of sexual abuse of children. The Task Force is intended to share ideas, gather information, communicate best practices, and child welfare and advocacy fields, and ultimately to make recommendations to the legislature and governor regarding state policy for decreasing the incidents of child sexual abuse,” Pasdon explained, “The membership includes representatives from the education, child advocacy, child protection, law enforcement, and legislative sectors, as well as citizen members. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of the bill.”

House 2527 passed 99 to 0.

Last on the third reading agenda was House Bill 2777; a bill to update the licensing of barbers, cosmetologists, and hairstylists, as well as revising the membership requirements of the Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists.

Delegate Gary Howell, the House Government Organization Chair further explained the bill.

“The bill changes the requirements for memberships on the board to add citizen members representing the general public to improve public safety,” Howell explained, “The bill maintains licensure requirements for estheticians, barber, cosmetologists, hair style, and nail technician, and creates certifications for several crossover practices. The bill also exempts shampoo assistants and hair-braiders from licensing. The bill modifies the authority of the board to mandate specific curriculum and hours of study per class but retains the authority to recommend topics of study.”

House Bill 2777 passed 99 to 0.

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