Redistricting Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Senate Passes Bills On Elections, Cost Of Insulin

The Senate passed five bills Thursday related to elections in the state, as well as issues around diabetes.

The West Virginia Senate passed three bills Thursday related to elections in the state.

All three bills originated from the Secretary of State’s office as technical cleanups.

Senate Bill 620 makes just four changes to state code that would increase the maximum number of registered voters per precinct, as well as the distance between polling places.

Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the bill’s lead sponsor, said the bill increases the maximum number of voters in an urban precinct from 1,500 to 2,500, and allows for greater consolidation of precincts.

“There’s also authority under this bill for counties, county governments, county commissions to consolidate precincts. But there are limitations on the geographical distance,” Trump said. “The consolidated precinct cannot contain more than 5,000 total – that’s up from 3,000 registered voters – and under existing law, there’s a one mile radius limit. This would expand that to five miles. It’s all permissive. It would be up to the county commissions to decide whether or not to do that when they exercise the statutory authority of drawing and configuring the voting precincts in their respective counties.”

During discussion of the bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 17, Sen. Mike Caputo, D-Marion, expressed concern that the consolidation of polling places the bill allows would create undue burdens on voters.

“I think it’s our job to make voting easier for our constituents, not to add what I think could be a cumbersome task,” he said. “I get that you’ll move the machines to one precinct, if you consolidate. I still think there could be bottlenecks at check-in. It would appear that we are doing things to make it more difficult for the voter.”

The bill ultimately passed on a vote of 27 to 7. All three Democratic senators were joined by Republican senators Jason Barrett of Berkeley, Laura Chapman of Ohio, Patrick Martin of Lewis and Ben Queen of Harrison in voting against the bill.

The Senate also passed Senate Bill 631, which would facilitate the state’s use of federal money from the Help America Vote Act in federal elections. Also known as HAVA, Trump said the bill was passed by Congress after the 2000 presidential election to help facilitate vote counting in states.

“As the technology of voting machines has become more advanced, they become more expensive. And so in West Virginia, the voting machines that are used by the 55 counties are purchased with combinations of county monies and federal monies,” he said. “This will allow the secretary of state to utilize federal monies that come into the secretary of state’s possession for that purpose.”

Senate Bill 631 also extends the deadline for when county clerks can accept voter registrations on the final day of registration by a few hours, from close of business to midnight.

Senate Bill 644, which aims to clarify the procedure for contested elections, also passed.

“In short, what this bill does is it moves to the courts the place where election contests occur,” Trump said. “If there’s an election contest from a municipal election, the current law is that it’s decided first by the mayor and council. Contests of elections involving the county and district contests, current law is that they’re decided in the county court. This moves all that to circuit court.”

All three bills now go to the House of Delegates for consideration.

Support For Diabetics

The Senate also took up two bills to address issues around diabetes in the state.

Senate Bill 195 would allow a licensed healthcare provider to prescribe ready to use glucagon rescue therapy in a school, or in a school district’s name, to treat severe hypoglycemic episodes.

The bill also sets forth procedures for administering glucagon, including the requirement that a school nurse approve its administration, and authorizes school personnel to receive training on assisting students in diabetes care and how to identify and react to a student experiencing a diabetes related emergency.

Senate Bill 577 would limit the cost sharing for a covered prescription of insulin to a total of $35 for a 30-day supply, and $100 for a 30-day supply for covered diabetic devices.

Senate Health and Human Resources Chair Sen. Mike Maroney, R-Marshall, said the bill would apply to West Virginians that currently have private health insurance.

“Our bill applies to private insurance, the 20 percent of West Virginians that have commercial insurance, roughly. That’s what this bill applies to,” Maroney said. “Medicare already has it. PEIA has similar ranges. I can’t answer Medicaid.”

The Inflation Reduction Act capped the cost of insulin at $35 per month for Medicare beneficiaries starting in 2023.

Maroney said a similar bill passed the Senate last year but failed to complete legislative action.

Both bills passed and now head to the House of Delegates for consideration.

Office Of Drug Control Policy May Leave DHHR

Changes may be coming to the Office of Drug Control Policy if a House bill passes the West Virginia Legislature. House Bill 3306 would take the office away from the state Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) and give it new responsibilities.

Changes may be coming to the Office of Drug Control Policy if a House bill passes the West Virginia Legislature.

House Bill 3306 would take the office away from the state Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) and give it new responsibilities.

One new duty is the creation of a Sober Living Home Taskforce. According to state surveys, there is an influx of substance use disorder treatment and rehabilitation homes around the state. That growth has prompted a number of related bills and studies.

Del. Scot Heckert, R-Wood, believes the task force will aid in controlling and decreasing what he and others say are a growing number of non-certified, unregulated, sober living homes more focused on making a profit than helping people.

“It’s like Dodge City,” Heckert said. “They do what they want to. Our approval in the house for a task force to study them will help weed out the baddies.”

The bill also charges the office with developing a strategic plan to reduce the prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse and smoking by at least 10 percent but it doesn’t set a deadline.

The legislation also deems the office must:

Oversee a school-based initiative that links schools with community-based agencies and health departments to implement school-based anti-drug and anti-tobacco programs; coordinate media campaigns designed to demonstrate the negative impact of substance use disorder, smoking and the increased risk of tobacco addiction and the development of other diseases.
Review Drug Enforcement Agency and the West Virginia scheduling of controlled substances and recommend changes that should be made based on data analysis.
Develop recommendations to improve communication between health care providers and their patients about the risks and benefits of opioid therapy for acute pain, improve the safety and effectiveness of pain treatment, and reduce the risks associated with long-term opioid therapy, including opioid use disorder and overdose.

The bill passed by a vote of 90 to 4 and now goes to the Senate for consideration.

W.Va. Political Party Leaders Assess Imbalance Of Power, Future Goals

As lawmakers prepare for the upcoming 2023 general session, they do so with a near historic imbalance of political party power.

The leaders of both state political parties went into detail on what brought them to this point, and their expectations for the future.

West Virginia Republican Party Chair Elgine McArdle said party dominance in both the general election and the state legislature – 88 to 12 in the House, 31 to 3 in the Senate – means the impact of this “supermajority’s” constituents will be clearly heard.

“I would hope that the conservative principles that have echoed through the state of West Virginia would continue to be put into law,” McArdle said. “I guess it’s just in conservative values on fiscal responsibility to carry through.”

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, is the West Virginia Democratic Party Chair. He said Democrats have a lot of work before them to organize from the ground up. He attributed the election losses in part to branding, blaming concerns about inflation and economy on the national Democratic Party. He also said it was no coincidence the historic defeats came directly after redistricting.

“The maps were definitely drawn to favor the party in power, the Republicans. In certain districts that made it very difficult for us to win,” Pushkin said. “We found that our candidates, if you look at their numbers versus the modeling that we had, really did quite well and overperformed. But it just wasn’t enough to overcome the gerrymandering that was done by the Republican Party.”

McArdle said the fact that so many candidates won, but every amendment Republicans supported lost was not a matter of voter disconnect. She blamed the defeats on a lack of voter education and research.

“Individuals have to do their own research and look at why a particular amendment is being pushed. And not so much listen to media or rhetoric that is being promoted by an individual or individual groups,” McArdle said.

“There were a lot of people who didn’t test the vote at all, one way or the other, for or against the amendments, because they just simply didn’t know what they were about.”

Pushkin said suggesting a lack of voter education and research in the amendment losses was an insult to voters.

“They voted no, because they saw it as a power grab from the state legislature, power grabbing by the Republican Party,” Pushkin said. “I think people still believe in checks and balances, people still believe in separation of power, something our country was founded on.”

McArdle charged her party’s elected representatives with committing to their campaign rhetoric as responsibility.

“They should all remember the promises that they made during the election and keep those promises to the constituents that put them there,” McArdel said.

Pushkin said the democratic hope is to work with representatives in a bipartisan manner on populist policy, not politics.

“The state has a whole lot of serious problems, whether it’s 7,000 children in foster care, our high rate of infant mortality, a whole host of poor public health outcomes, improvement of our public schools, access to health care,” Pushkin said. “I would hope that’s where we placed the focus and not on whatever kind of hot button political issue that they’re going to use to gin up the base.”

The 2023 general legislative session begins January 11th, and runs for 60 days.

Shift To Single-Member Districts Causes Confusion In Some Precincts

On Nov. 8, West Virginians will vote in new districts after the state redistricting in 2021. For some voters, it will be the first time they elect only one delegate to the House.

West Virginia was one of 10 states to still use multi-member districts in the House of Delegates. Monongalia County’s five member, 51st district was the largest in the state.

The passage of House Bill 4002 in 2018 required West Virginia to create single-member districts. During the 2021 redistricting process, the state created 100 single-member districts, doing away with the previous mix of 67 districts.

Carye Blaney is the county clerk for Monongalia County. She says her office saw some confusion about the new districts during the primary election earlier this year.

“The biggest question that the voters had, from seeing the single-member districts was, ‘Where were the rest of the candidates?’” Blaney said. “Having that many candidates and then going to single-member districts was a big change for our voters.”

Blaney says despite the exposure during the primary, her office is still answering questions about the district change in the leadup to the general election, when more voters are likely to participate. She says education efforts have been ongoing.

“We have been trying to increase our voter awareness and our education around these changes to the ballot all summer,” Blaney said. “We’ve been running the sample ballot, of course, on our website and providing all that information.”

Blaney says redistricting, which by law must be completed every 10 years to account for changes in population, is always a challenge. She says that while the shift to single-member districts added to the complexity of the process, voters seem positive about the change.

“I think that voters like the idea that the candidates that they would be voting for on their ballot would be representing their particular area,” Blaney said. “You would tend to think that if you were in a single-member district, that you would recognize the name, and would know the candidate. Their kids would go to school together, they would see them at different community functions.”

Kayla Young is one of four delegates from the old, multi-member 35th district in Kanawha County. She is now the democratic candidate in the new 56th district, and similar to Blaney, acknowledges that the change has caused confusion for voters. But Young says the confusion stems from the state using multi-member districts in the first place.

“There aren’t a lot of multi- member districts,” she said. “It’s kind of been confusing to me that some of them have been multi-member, and some haven’t. I don’t know how it could have gone better, but I do think it is somewhat confusing.”

Despite the confusion, Young says she is excited for the opportunity to serve a single-member district.

“I’m glad that we’re moving to single-member districts,” she said. “I think it’s going to be better representation for people, so I’m looking forward to it.”

Young’s race has her running against another incumbent, Republican and fellow delegate for the 35th district, Andrew Anderson.

Anderson was appointed by Gov. Jim Justice in August after Del. Larry Pack resigned to join Justice’s office as a senior advisor. Anderson did not return our request for an interview in time for this story.

Young says the biggest change for her as a delegate will be the smaller, more manageable number of constituents.

“It’s been interesting for me coming from a multi-member district to a single-member district,” she said. “I’m used to talking to about 85 to 90,000 people and now I need to talk to about 18,000 people.”

The text of House Bill 4002 begins by stating,“Single-member districts best exemplify the principle of one person, one vote”. Voters will put that to the test come Tuesday.

Del. Jim Barach Not Seeking Re-election, Frustrated With Redistricting

House of Delegates member Jim Barach said he is withdrawing from seeking re-election amid frustrations with what he calls a manipulated system.

House of Delegates member Jim Barach said he is withdrawing from seeking re-election amid frustrations with what he calls a “manipulated system.”

The democrat and former TV news meteorologist told West Virginia Public Broadcasting he was forced by a “gerrymandering Republican super-majority” to run in the primary against delegate and state Democratic Party chair, Mike Pushkin, or move to another district.

He decided he wasn’t going to pursue it.

He also said his daughter recently graduated from college and can’t find a job in West Virginia, so they are moving to Florida.

“This legislature needs to do a better job at getting people into the state and keeping them here,” Barach said.

The state democratic committee will name a replacement candidate for the November ballot.

Razor-Close W.Va. Delegate Primary Races Go To Canvass

The fate of three razor-close delegate races too close to call could be decided this week as canvassing begins across the state.

In the new 88th Delegate District, including parts of Hampshire and Mineral counties, on the Republican side, Rick Hillenbrand holds a one-vote lead over Keith Funkhouser.

The GOP race in McDowell County’s 36th Delegate District has Tom Acosta leading Anita Hall by one vote.

And in Wayne County’s Delegate District 28 Republican primary, Mark Ross leads incumbent Josh Booth by a one-vote margin.

Provisional ballots could make a difference as canvassing begins in these close races – if they get counted. State code says when a voter goes to the wrong precinct and casts a provisional ballot after being told by a poll worker where their new precinct is located – that ballot is not to be counted.

Voter registration clerks in Wayne County said they got hundreds of calls on election day, most due to statewide redistricting confusion.

Wayne County Board of Canvassers chair Kenneth Adkins said he’ll look closely at every one of the 126 provisional ballots in his District 28, while following the state’s new advice.

“Those new rules lend us to being as open minded as we can,” Adkins said. “We don’t want to rush this thing.“

The Secretary of State’s office has asked canvassing boards to keep voters’ redistricting challenges in mind when determining the validity of provisional ballots.