House of Delegates Story Archives - Page 33 of 34 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

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.”

Role of Labor Commissioner Argued in House Committee

The Government Organization Committee met Friday to discuss a number of bills, one of which was House Bill 2217, relating to the qualifications of the Commissioner of Labor. With a bill that’s been getting a lot of attention, it was relatively quiet in committee today, with only one vocalized vote against it progressing to the floor.

Earlier this week, this was not the case. On Tuesday, the Committee on Industry and Labor first saw the bill, and some delegates were very concerned.

Currently in state code, the Commissioner of Labor is described as a competent person, who is identified with the labor interests of the state. House Bill 2217 strikes that language to read; has knowledge and experience in employee issues and interests including employee-employer relations in the state.

This language change didn’t go over well with Delegate Mike Caputo from Marion County.

Caputo questioned John Reed, counsel for the Committee of Labor, asking him if the change would alter the qualifications of the Labor Commissioner and require him or her to have a background in Human Resources or HR work.

Reed said he didn’t think so, and said the new language was still looking out for employees. But Caputo wasn’t convinced. He asked for the current Commissioner of Labor, John Junkins to speak to the committee.

Delegates on both sides questioned the commissioner about the qualifications this bill might change. They asked about employee-employer relations, and by the end, there was a distinct split on feelings about the word change.

“We’ve heard from the commissioner, and this agency was established in 1898, and its purpose was to protect the worker,” said Delegate Caputo, “That’s what the gentleman said; protect the worker. Now take a look at the language in this amendment. I can see a CEO becoming labor commissioner for the state of West Virginia. Maybe that CEO worked at a factory for a year or two and got into management, worked his or her way through, became CEO, now all of a sudden, they’re going to come down and protect the interest of the worker? That’s insane. That’s just absolutely insane. Look we’ve got to have good labor management relationships at the workplace, but this agency is not about that, this agency is to look out for the worker.”

Delegate Daryl Cowles from Morgan County spoke to support the change saying it made more sense.

“The bill says the amendment would say, a competent person identified with employee issues of the state and has knowledge and experience in employee issues and interests, including employee, employer relations,” Cowles said, “It would seem to me that employee, employer relations are very important indeed, very important to the interest of employees. It simply clarifies the mission and direction, the mandate of the office does not change with this bill; doesn’t gut anything. The mission and mandate do not change. The qualifications and experience of the appointed position are simply clarified.”

House Bill 2217 will report to the floor for its first reading on Monday, February 2nd.

Confusion in the House Government Organization Committee

What started out as a simple committee meeting to examine the progression of a bill turned into an hour of confusion in the House Government Organization Committee Wednesday.

The Committee met to discuss House Bill 2182, which relates to an examination of the Potomac Highlands Airport Authority’s accounts by state officials. Delegate John Shott sponsored the bill after getting word there was some confusion going on at the airport located in Mineral County.

What the Delegates came to realize is they were confused, too.

“I guess what’s confusing with this is, maybe this is a question for counsel, but how can the state of Maryland have authority for property that’s situated in the state of West Virginia,” asked Delegate Justin Marcum.

“Well they own the actual property, so I mean Alleghany County owns the property,” said Rick Lechliter, the Mineral County Commissioner with the Airport Authority Board, “but that’s where, beyond that, that’s where the compact has been confusing all this time, because it splits up who operates it, and so neither state really has a say.”

Lechliter came to explain the confusion going on at the airport and ask for help from legislators.

Delegate Gary Howell, the chairman of the House Government Organization Committee, clarified the situation.

“The airport itself lies completely within Mineral County, West Virginia,” Howell said, “It’s in an unincorporated area of Wiley Ford, West Virginia. But the airport was originally built by the city of Cumberland, Maryland in West Virginia then transferred to Allegheny County, Maryland, and sometime, I believe it was in the 1970s, West Virginia got involved with funding the airport. West Virginia now through tax breaks and funding actually funds the majority of the operations of the airport, and there’s been an argument over whose laws take precedent, the airport being in West Virginia and West Virginia funding the majority of it, you would think it was our state, but some of the others have some disagreement, and that’s what led to this. And Delegate Shott thought it was a good idea to go ahead and change it in the code to make sure it could be audited to follow, make sure they’re following West Virginia law.”

Delegate Larry Faircloth was one of many in the meeting baffled to find out the accounting firm used by the airport was auditing itself.

“One company that performed the audit that is also doing the accounting,” Faircloth said, “in your opinion, I mean, if we dig deep enough…”

“I know that’s not the right thing by West Virginia regulations,” said Lechliter.

“No, it shouldn’t be the right thing by any regulation,” responded Faircloth, “You know with all due respect this smells.”

By the end of the meeting, Delegate Jim Morgan brought into perspective that most of what was discussed was not what anyone was expecting and not relevant to what the original focus was of the bill.

“It would seem to me that this committee should be deciding on what’s on line six on page two that they should submit an agency review, etcetera, etcetera, and that the gentlemen who is responding is being asked about the operation in the airport and several other things that really aren’t what we’re asking for in this piece of legislation, and that most of those questions really have really not been germane to what we’re doing,” noted Morgan.

Delegate Howell explains why the committee was so confused.

“We originally had attorneys from the auditor’s office come up and tell us that they didn’t cut the checks that the treasurer’s office did, so we had to make an amendment to the bill,” said Howell, “Apparently this was someone who was new to the auditor’s office and had it backwards, and there was different attorneys from the auditor’s office that were in there, and once we done that, they come up and told my staff, they said, that’s not right that’s backwards. So we kind of had to back out and correct the mistake. We’d originally gotten some bad information from the attorneys in the auditor’s office.”

At the end of the meeting, the bill was amended to change the word auditor to treasurer.

Delegate Howell says what happened in the meeting was a strange instance for everyone.

“We want to make sure we’re doing this the right thing, we want to make sure that the tax payer’s money is being protected and spent wisely and that’s essentially what this did. Let’s make sure this is going to be done wisely,” Howell said.

House Bill 2182 will now be considered by the House Finance Committee.

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.

More Upset Over Energy in the House Chamber

A controversial bill that gives employers some immunity from lawsuits over work place accidents is off the agenda for the House Judiciary committee for now. Committee chairman, John Shott, announced today that stakeholders are meeting to find some agreement to the bill. House Bill 2011 deals with the issue of deliberate intent. It was the subject of a public hearing earlier this week.

Friday on the House Floor, another bill relating to energy was the center of attention, including an amendment that caused some concern from Democrats.

In the House Chamber, House Bill 2201 was up for its third reading but with pending amendments for the chamber to consider.

The bill requires the Public Service Commission to adopt certain net-metering and interconnection rules and standards. Net-metering is a practice already used in the state. Individuals who own their own personal source of electricity, things like solar panels or wind turbines, send the extra electricity they generate back to the grid for sale to other customers. Their electric company would in turn give the client a credit to use later, saving them on future electric costs.

The first amendment to the bill was proposed by Delegate Woody Ireland, chair of the House Energy Committee. He suggested two provisions be added, one to include some new safety provisions for lineman, and the other allowing non-profits to receive energy credits from companies who own and operate renewable energy equipment on their property.

Ireland’s amendments passed unanimously, but the same could not be said for an amendment proposed by Delegate Michael Folk of Berkeley County.

“Mr. Speaker,” said Folk, “this simply adds language that states the commission shall assure that any net-metering tariff does create a cross-subsidization between customers of one class.”

What Folk means is if a utility company must upgrade their system to comply with net-metering standards, the costs for those upgrades cannot be passed on to rate paying customers who do not participate in the net metering program.

“For instance, over 99% of our customers are not net-metering customers,” explained Folk, “Those people by very definition, and practice of what is done today, are subsidizing the net-metering customers.”

This brought some concern from Delegate Stephen Skinner, who questioned why an amendment like this, was never discussed in committee.

“We’re bringing the committee work to this chamber, and we’ve had no testimony about it, and we don’t know what the consequences are,” noted Skinner, “We can’t predict those consequences. One of the things that my good friend, the Chair of the Judiciary has said constantly over the last few years is we need to look out for unintended consequences. And we don’t even have the information right now to understand what this means. We’re adding a new term to code that hasn’t been defined. We’re letting government get further involved in the actions of the PSC. It doesn’t make sense for us to amend this at this time when we don’t know what it means.”

Other Democrats backed Skinner’s proposal, but in the end, the amendment won the vote. John Shott is the House Judiciary Chair.

“Although I generally agree with the policy of the committee doing all the legwork, this particular case, this amendment does not make an extreme change to the purpose of the bill,” said Folk, “It basically is an expression of our policy that as this, we assume net-metering will grow across the state, and it’s basically a policy of this body that growth not be on the backs of non-net-metering customers that the customer that benefits from the net-metering basically pays the fair price of the net-metering. We’re not telling the commission how to do that. We’re simply saying, you as the experts, you make sure that this doesn’t happen.”

Delegate Folk’s amendment passed 63 to 33. The bill itself, House Bill 2201, passed.

Repealing the Alternative & Renewable Energy Portfolio Act Passes in the House

Emotions were high in the House Chamber Thursday as House Bill 2001 was on its third reading and up for a vote.

Fireworks went off in the House Chamber as Delegates discussed whether or not to pass House Bill 2001. By the end, more than half of the Democrats chose to support the bill, but not all of them agreed quietly.

If passed, utility companies would no longer be required to make 25% of their energy come from renewable energy sources like solar or wind. This would instead put all the energy output back on coal, potentially creating more jobs and bring more money back in the state.

Delegate Joshua Nelson brought into perspective the jobs lost since the House Bill 103 was passed in 2009; the bill originally behind making the rule.

“Since 2012, six plants have shut down, partially due to anticipation from increased scrutiny, from bills like this, and from the EPA, and from the anti-coal, anti-coal miner climate that exists in Washington, DC.,” said Nelson, “From 2011 to 2014, we have lost 7,000 coal jobs in the state of West Virginia, and that is completely unacceptable, and almost solely due to market manipulation.”

Tensions arose when Delegate Nancy Guthrie stood to call out those in favor of the bill, saying it was a step backward for the state.

“What I can’t understand is why this body that wants to make a name for itself, that wants to move this state forward, isn’t embracing every possible energy source at our finger tips,” said Guthrie, “In the Eastern panhandle, we have geothermal that we could be tapping into; we have an abundance supply of water. People who are using solar, our municipalities included, are saving on their energy costs, and a lot of those municipalities were hard pressed to save the light bill. Customers are saving money, because they’ve incorporated solar into their portfolio and are selling back. So rates are coming down for those folks who are smart enough to get away from just one source. We are going to wear coal around our neck, like a yoke that will drag all of us down.”

Republican Delegates were outraged and deeply offended by Guthrie’s statements.

“We’re talking about this black rock right here,” said Delegate Gary Howell, “The gentlelady from Kanawha County said that this is a yoke hanging around the neck of West Virginia, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this is made out of carbon, and there’s something else made out of carbon and that’s diamond. I see this as the diamond necklace hanging around the neck of West Virginia.”

Delegate Randy Smith stood to fight back against anyone opposed to repealing the bill. He said that after the bill was passed six years ago, then Governor Joe Manchin took it to Washington to show it off.

“What did that say to the coal miners in the state of West Virginia,” asked Smith, “what did that tell us, me, my colleagues here, there’s a lot of us here, the retired coal miners, or laid off coal miners, or ones going into different fields? What did this bill say to us coal miners? Did it say we’re behind you, we got your back? No, that’s not what it said, it said, we’re on your side, Mr. President. And I can tell you one thing right now, I’m not on his side, and I’m glad that the lot of you have woke up and seen just what this is worth. It’s a slap in the face to us coal miners.”

Delegate John Shott was one of the last to speak. He spoke to both sides saying this bill would not hold the state down.

“A lot was mentioned earlier about our failure to diversify. Folks, if we pass this bill, there’s nobody going to put handcuffs on us and say you can’t diversify,” noted Shott, “We will diversify as the market allows, and we can protect our folks, especially our disabled, our elderly, those on fixed incomes, without burdening them with an unneeded expense that the restrictions, the mandates of this act now put on them.”

House Bill 2001 was passed 95 to 4.