Special Legislative Session Story Archives - Page 2 of 5

House And Senate Make Quick Work Of Special Session Bills

The West Virginia Legislature returned to its special session Monday after introducing 44 bills in each chamber on Sunday. Both bodies sent a number of bills to their respective Finance and Judiciary committees for further consideration.

The House Finance Committee rejected an amendment to House Bill 122 from Del. Joe Statler, R-Monongalia, to include $6 million for the state’s Emergency Management Services coalition. He was told the governor’s call for $12 million was for fire departments only, and his amendment was not germane. Statler disagreed.

“How is it not germane when it’s an emergency services fund that we’re putting it in?” he said. “And EMS gets money out of the emergency services? Normally throughout the whole section, not this particular section, but to code and law.”

HB 122 was sent to the House floor.

House Bill 130 appropriates $2 million to the state Office of Technology for upgrades. Heather Abbott, information officer for the department, told the committee the upgrade highlights cybersecurity including hacker disaster recovery.

“The ability to make sure that if a hacker does get in, that all of our data is secure and we can get it back up and running as quickly as possible, is part of cybersecurity but not something that people think about because it’s not quite as flashy and shiny,” she said.

HB 130 was sent to the House floor.

The Senate Judiciary Committee took up several bills relating to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Senate Bill 1006 allows jails to provide inmates a state-issued identification upon release if the inmate’s own ID has expired or is set to expire within 30 days of release.

Sen. David Stover, R-Wyoming, noted that he had seen the problems arise when a recently released inmate didn’t have an ID.

“I spent 16 years as the circuit clerk in Wyoming County and I can recall at least eight or 10 instances when someone would be getting out, had a job opportunity waiting on them and didn’t have an ID,” he said. “We would scramble every way we could to help them get one. Sometimes we failed, and they simply didn’t get that job.”

Senate Bill 1007 and Senate Bill 1008 looked at the costs cities have to pay for incarceration and the conditions of pre-trial release respectively. All three bills were reported to the full Senate with the recommendation that they do pass.

The Senate Finance Committee looked at a number of bills as well including Senate Bill 1005 that includes pay raises for Division of Correction and Rehabilitation employees. Currently, the agency has 700 vacancies in corrections employees.

The West Virginia National Guard is currently filling in nearly 400 slots. The proposed pay raises would actually cost the less than filling the slots with the guard soldiers according to Corrections Commissioner Billy Marshall.

The full Senate suspended rules and passed all but seven of the pending bills still before the body. Each of those passed bills must still be approved by the House of Delegates and both chambers must agree to any changes.

The House of Delegates returned to work at 6:30 p.m. Monday evening.

W.Va. House Democrats Call For Special Session To Remedy Multiple Crises

The caucus suggests the session focus on the state’s corrections and foster care employment shortfalls and what they call a higher education funding crisis.

In a letter delivered Tuesday to Gov. Jim Justice, the House Democratic Caucus urged the chief executive to call a Special Legislative Session during the August interim meetings.

The caucus suggests the session focus on the state’s corrections and foster care employment shortfalls and what they call a higher education funding crisis.

The letter reads:

“With the surplus that you (Justice) announced this month, we should address these challenges that for far too long have gone unaddressed. A $1.8 billion surplus doesn’t do much good for the 8,000 children in foster care if we don’t act to help them. The surplus won’t help our colleges and universities offset their shortfalls if we don’t act to help them. And the surplus won’t help our struggling corrections workers if we don’t act to help them by finally adjusting their outdated pay scale.”

House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, said these are all non-partisan issues.

“Regardless, if you’re a D or an R, it’s about helping West Virginians,” Skaff said. “Whether it’s higher education and our students, or those trying to find people to fill all the vacancies in our correctional facilities. We’ve got to quit kicking the can down the road. It’s going to continue to get worse. I know for a fact there’s, there’s institutions of higher learning right now deciding if they’re even going to be open this fall or not.”

Justice has said he wants a consensus before talks on corrections and has talked of progress in foster care hiring.

The interim meetings are slated for August 6 to 8 in Charleston.

House Special Session On Abortion To Be Short And Administrative

The West Virginia House of Delegates will be called back into special session Monday to continue the process of clarifying West Virginia’s abortion laws. The session is expected to be short and administrative and any resolution still seems a long way off.

The West Virginia House of Delegates will be called back into special session Monday to continue the process of clarifying West Virginia’s abortion laws.

The session is expected to be short and administrative and any resolution still seems a long way off.

Back in July, Gov. Jim Justice called the West Virginia Legislature into a special session to discuss personal income tax. At the last minute, he added abortion to the call. After days of discussion, the two chambers could not agree on either piece of legislation.

On Friday, Sept. 2, House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said he is calling the House of Delegates back into session to name a five member conference committee intended to meet with a Senate conference committee — and attempt to forge an agreement.

Del. Dianna Graves, R-Kanawha, and pro-life, said the administrative session shows the House is ready to do business.

She said she doesn’t believe in killing any child who is viable as long as the life of the mother is preserved and she doesn’t agree with exceptions. But she said if the reality of exemptions for rape and incest is a building block that will curtail abortion in the state, then the legislature should pass it — and work on improving it.

“Are we going to say we’re not going to save any baby’s lives, because we can’t save every single one of them,” Graves said. “I just don’t think that makes logical sense. I don’t think that the end of the road has been reached.”

Del. Ed Evans, D-McDowell, and pro-choice, said he is also ready to consider compromise. He calls it a “no-brainer” to not force a woman to carry a child from rape or incest.

“We saw the young lady there on the news not too long ago, 14 years old,” Evans said. “She’s a child being forced to carry a child. Some things bother me. But I don’t think Sen. [Craig] Blair wants anything to do with it.”

Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berekley, said his number one priority is to shut down West Virginia’s only abortion clinic and see that 98 percent of abortions taking place are stopped when it comes to exemptions for rape and incest. But he said he will not call the Senate back into session, and not form a conference committee, to forge any agreement until he knows what the results will be.

“They can make a decision then be voted down in this body,” Blair said. “I am not interested in wasting a minute of time or the taxpayers’ dollars. This is not going to make it so that there’s going to be back alley, coat hanger, abortions taking place in this state.”

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals is in the early stages of considering Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s appeal on an injunction ruling regarding the state’s abortion laws. There is currently a 19th century law on the books that some feel is enforceable, but still needs legislative attention. Until the legislature acts, or the supreme court decides, abortion is still legal in West Virginia.

Over the weekend, Justice also called the legislature into a new special session for Monday afternoon to consider bills on economic development and roads funding.

W.Va. House Speaker Plans Resumption To Abortion Bill Session

West Virginia's House speaker says he plans to contact members next week to call them back for a special session, likely to discuss an ongoing abortion bill.

The speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates said Friday he plans to contact members next week to call them back Sept. 12 for a special session likely to discuss an ongoing abortion bill. The call drew a terse response from the state Senate president, who said it took him by surprise.

Speaker Roger Hanshaw, a Clay County Republican, said the return of lawmakers would coincide with regularly scheduled interim committee meetings.

In July, the Legislature met in special session to address bills on abortion and on an income tax reduction. Neither bill passed before lawmakers adjourned.

Senate President Craig Blair, a Berkeley County Republican, said that when he learned about Hanshaw’s statement, “to say I was shocked is an understatement.

“Communication is vital to ensuring government works in an efficient and productive manner,” Blair said. “While there has been communication on modifications to House Bill 203 that would be acceptable to both chambers, to date no agreement has been reached.”

The House, which earlier passed its version of an abortion bill, refused to concur with Senate amendments. Instead, delegates asked for a conference committee to iron out differences.

The bill, which some lawmakers complained was not vetted by any Senate committees, would ban abortions except in case of rape or incest. The Senate approved an amendment sponsored by a physician, Kanawha County Republican Tom Takubo, that would remove criminal penalties of three to 10 years upon conviction for any medical provider who performs an abortion.

A statement issued by the House on Friday said conference committee members must be announced during a House session. Because it had already adjourned, the Senate has yet to receive the House’s request for the conference committee.

Blair said that while he supports passing abortion legislation, “I will not cause further chaos and disruption to the process, or burden our taxpayers with unnecessary expenses, by calling Senators back into session without a concrete plan for producing a bill that has the votes to pass both chambers.”

Abortions remain legal in West Virginia after a judge blocked enforcement of the state’s 150-year-old abortion ban in July.

Justice Promotes Vaccinations; Talks Other Issues

Gov. Jim Justice continued to advocate for vaccinations and boosters during a regular COVID-19 briefing that spanned topics from the impacts of recent flooding to the drawn out special legislative session.

After reading out 14 additional COVID-19 related deaths, bringing the state’s rolling total to 7,163 dead Tuesday, Justice renewed his calls for people to get vaccinated and boosted against the virus. His focus was on older residents.

“For crying out loud if you happen to be 50 and older and you’re not getting a booster shot, making a big mistake,” Justice said. “It’s completely silly. It doesn’t make any sense at all if you’re vaccinated that you don’t have your booster shot because if you’re out of the time period and everything you need that booster shot, your immunity is almost nothing.”

With the BA.5 variant now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in West Virginia, and its increased ability to reinfect patients, coronavirus czar Dr. Clay Marsh discussed the developing understanding of the risks of reinfection.

“We are now starting to track that the more times you’ve been infected with COVID-19, the more likely you will be to have long COVID and also to suffer some more important limitations as far as the impact on the vital organs in your body, the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, etc.” Marsh said. “That is really another important reason to be up to date on vaccinations.”

Hospitalizations, now more than 330, continue to creep up, but the number of ICU cases and patients on ventilators remains comparatively low. Marsh has previously pointed to this as evidence that vaccines are working to protect against severe infection.

Justice discussed the groundbreaking for the Coalfield Expressway yesterday, before his visit to communities in the south of the state impacted by last week’s flooding.

“We need to remember and try with all in us to not just walk away, and I told the folks there we don’t want to put a bandaid on cancer,” Justice said. “I sit right there and listen to all their issues, all their problems that they have going to all their solutions because at the end of the day, those are the folks, not necessarily us in Charleston, that know what needs to be done.”

He then focused on the flooding in eastern Kentucky, calling the devastation “a magnitude even greater than the 2016 flood.” Justice said Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky told him that West Virginia helicopters had aided in the rescue of more than 40 individuals from the floods.

Later in the briefing, Justice responded to a question about his feelings regarding the ongoing special legislative session.

“I’m not going to perpetuate the food fight,” he said before expressing his disappointment in the failure of the legislature to pass his proposed personal income tax cut.

Justice offered up prayers and well wishes for Senate president Craig Blair, who underwent a hip replacement earlier in the day, before moving on to the special session’s other issue of abortion.

“Fifty years this country has surely changed our footprint, and now our Supreme Court has spoken and our laws are old and ancient and they need modernized,” Justice said.

He expressed regret that more hasn’t been accomplished in the special session.

Public Hearing On Abortion Law Debate Highly Charged, Emotional

More than 100 people signed up to speak at a public hearing Wednesday on the abortion bill.

With so many wanting to speak, each person was given 45 seconds. Several were escorted out of the chamber by police for running overtime.

Several of the women who spoke said they have had one or multiple abortions. Others said not having an abortion made their lives better.

Rev. Emily Harden, a Presbyterian minister, said she did not regret her two abortions.

“They’ve made my life better. They’ve made my children’s lives better,” Harden said. “It is perfectly acceptable within my religious faith that I’ve done this. The way that we are using religion to make laws that govern our bodies is truly evil. And I hope that you all know that the blood of West Virginians will be on your hands.”

Lorie Lugursky, with West Virginians for Life, said she got pregnant at 15 and was told abortion was her best choice.

“Wrong. At five months pregnant laying on an abortionist table, God saved my baby girl,” Lugursky said. “The abortionist told me to get out as I was being uncooperative. And my daughter now, praise God, is a mother of three. She’s a pro life warrior.”

Sean O’Leary, Senior Policy Analyst at the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy spoke of cause and effect.

“Too often, policies in the state disproportionately harm vulnerable people, abortion bans are no different,” O’Leary said. “Seventy five percent of people who seek abortions are low income people without access to family work supports like parental leave or affordable childcare. Over half have recently gone through disruptive life events such as death of a family member or job loss. Most already have a child when access to abortion is denied. The consequences are profound.”

Tranae Mathis listed her representation as a servant of Jesus Christ.

“We as women know that two pink lines mean that we are carrying life and abortion stops that beating heart,” Mathis said. “The goal of an abortion is always prenatal death, and the baby is the only one with no bodily autonomy because her mother has deemed her insignificant.”

The public hearing was requested by legislators as a part of the proceedings for House Bill 302, called by the governor to clarify the state’s conflicting abortion laws.