Tom Takubo Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Senate Acts In Frustration Over House Inaction On Bills

With four days left in this legislative session, tension between the two chambers is rising. Each chamber is waiting for their prospective bills to be passed by the other chamber before the fast-approaching deadline.

The Senate passed 25 bills Tuesday, about half of which were House bills and the others Senate appropriations bills.

The Senate cruised through the other chamber’s bills like House Bill 4998. It would increase the penalties for the third offense of shoplifting. House Bill 4768 expands a program for out-of-state medical students who receive in-state tuition if they agree to stay in the state and work for the same number of years they received in-state tuition.

However, the process hit a snag when an otherwise non-controversial bill was introduced. House Bill 5002 would require at least one baby changing station to be placed in all men’s bathrooms in rest areas in the state.

Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, opposed the bill. He said this is essentially in retaliation for the House’s failure to advance bills sent over to them from the Senate and urged a no vote.

“None of those bills, or very few, of those bills,” Woelfel said. “based on my review of today’s agenda in the House had been looked at or even examined, much less never, never, showing up on an agenda.”

He said that one of the committees he is part of, the Judiciary Committee, sent 27 bills to the House that have yet to reach the floor.

“What they send us. A bill about changing a poopy diaper at a rest area is a metaphor,” Woelfel said. “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but it’s a pretty good metaphor for how they do business down the hall.”

After a brief discussion between Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley and Majority Leader Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, the bill was parked in Senate Rules, a small but powerful committee responsible for setting the agenda for what bills hit the floor and have a chance to advance.

Baby Olivia Video Bill Passes Despite Bipartisan Pushback

Senate Bill 468 requires that public schools show a four minute video on human development to eighth graders and eleventh graders. An amendment to the bill includes language that life begins at conception.

The Senate passed a bill that would require public schools to show a video on the early stages of human development.

Senate Bill 468 is known as the Baby Olivia bill. It requires that public schools show a four minute video on human development to eighth graders and eleventh graders.

The bill had support across party lines. Then controversy surrounded the bill Monday evening when Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, offered an amendment.

Grady’s amendment added language that life begins at conception.

Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, opposed the amendment because he said it could violate the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“Even though I agree with that,” Trump said, “I think it is an imposition of what is fundamentally a religious or spiritual belief. I don’t think it is a matter of proven or established science.”

The amendment barely made it out of the chamber, passing 18-15.

Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, and a practicing doctor, said he was not going to vote for the bill because there is information in the video that is not medically accurate.

“The problem I have with it is there are inaccuracies in the video overall,” Takubo said.

He said that the bill that came out of the Rules Committee included compromises.

“One of the changes we made in the Rules Committee was to say that whatever video we teach your children, it has to be scientifically accurate. That was removed with the amendment yesterday,” Takubo said.

Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, stepped down from the dais to speak on the bill, a rare move. He said though he did vote against the amendment he would still vote for the bill.

“The world changes around us and I’m certain that the world’s going to change in the future,” Blair said. “The way the bill was constructed, until the amendment, allowed that flexibility. But we come back every year, this isn’t a big deal. I’m going to vote proudly for this.”

Tuesday, the bill was approved by the full Senate and heads to the House.

Senate Takes On School Discipline, Other Bills

Teachers may have the ability to remove troubled children from elementary school classrooms if Senate Bill 614 becomes law. The bill sparked a lot of debate on the chamber floor. It gives kindergarten through sixth grade teachers the ability to remove children from classes or from school if they are exhibiting certain behavior like threatening teachers or classmates or otherwise creating an unsafe learning environment.

Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, is the lead sponsor of this bill and a school teacher herself. She said the bill is to help address the teacher shortage in the state.

“One of the major issues that we are seeing is that teachers are leaving the profession in droves,” Grady said.

She said the number one reason they are leaving is teachers don’t feel they are given the authority in addressing disturbances in the classroom.

“We’re seeing violent and threatening behaviors in students as young as kindergarten that we’ve never seen before. How will this address it? This helps give the teacher a voice,” Grady said.

She said that often an administrator will remove the child from the class, and then put them right back.

“This gives teachers more of a voice to say, I feel unsafe, this child is being violent, my other students are unsafe, and they need to be removed from the classroom for today,” Grady said.

However, some opponents of the bill, like state school board members and the Kanawha County Schools General Counsel, say that this bill takes students out of the best environment for them – the learning environment – where they are surrounded by people trained to help children.

Others like Sen. Mike Woeflel, D-Cabell, questioned why this bill is not accompanied with funding or other initiatives to help children who are being disruptive in the classroom.

“If you have a child that’s misbehaving to this point,” Woeflel said. “He or she has other issues that are giving rise to this behavior and needs resources to address those issues. So it seems to me there would be funding here for counseling or intervention within the family or there’s no funding that goes to implement this bill.”

There is a shortage of school counselors in the state. Currently, there are 306 students for every one counselor in West Virginia public school systems.

Senate Bill 378

Another notable bill before the full Senate was Senate Bill 378, which would fine anyone smoking in the car in the presence of someone under the age of 16.

Lead sponsor of the bill, Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, and a pulmonologist, said he has received letters in support of the bill. He read excerpts from a letter on the Senate floor from a man in Mingo County whose parents smoked in the car with him.

“He too, grew up in a car full of that heavy smoke,” Takubo said. “It made him so short of breath, so constricted, that it made him cough to the point of vomiting, amongst other things. Then [he] went on to say his brother died of lung cancer. Another sister with brain cancer died of emphysema.”

The bill states the fine for smoking in the car with a minor would be $25.

He said the bill will double as a public service announcement to parents so they rethink smoking in the car with their children present.

However, Mike Azinger, R-Wood, said this is a violation of parental rights.

“Parents make this decision over their children, in their vehicle,” Azinger said. “This is where the state has no business going. So I would urge a no vote.”

The bill passed with 25 – 8. .

Senate Bill 590

Currently a city, county, or municipality could set a minimum wage higher than the state minimum wage of $8.75. A bill passed by the Senate Monday seeks to change that.

Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, voted for the bill. He said because there are currently no municipalities in the state that have their own minimum wage, this is a preventative measure. He said the bill protects both business and low income earners.

“If you have a state minimum wage, and some municipality says, ‘nope, the minimum wage here is twice that’,” Trump said. “It hurts the people in that municipality, because jobs go away. It eliminates jobs. And that’s what we want to prevent, make sure nothing like that ever happens.”

Senate Bill Aims To Bring More Forensic Pathologists To West Virginia

Facing a national shortage of doctors trained to perform autopsies, West Virginia lawmakers are considering a bill that would fund student loan repayments for forensic pathologists in the state.

Both nationally and in West Virginia, a shortage of forensic pathologists — doctors specially trained to perform autopsies — has slowed medical examinations of the deceased.

Now, lawmakers aim to incentivize more of the doctors to practice in West Virginia.

Senate Bill 572 would grant forensic pathologists student loan repayments from the West Virginia Department of Health. The repayments would occur over a period of ten years, provided that the doctors remain licensed within the state.

Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, sponsored the bill. He said that this would help forensic pathologists establish roots in West Virginia and encourage newcomers to pursue the field.

“Hopefully, it gets them here in plenty of time to grow roots and help us get these death certificates done in a timely fashion,” he said Tuesday in a meeting of the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee.

At the meeting, members of the committee voted in favor of the bill, but first referred it to the Senate Finance Committee for further discussion.

Senate Introduces Nearly 300 Bills In First Two Days Of Session

Two days into the 86th West Virginia Legislative session, the Senate introduced another 99 bills Thursday after entering nearly 200 bills Wednesday.

The majority of those bills were sent to committees for further discussion while some were moved to first and second reading.

A couple notable bills on second reading include:

Senate Bill 154 increases penalties for drug possession and updates lists of offenses.

Senate Bill 162 would establish a summer feeding-for-all program.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, said the bills that have moved to second reading are all bills that had almost the full Senate’s support last session but were not passed into law.

“Pretty much the entire Senate voted to affirm those to move them along last year, and for whatever reason they didn’t pass in the House,” Takubo said. “So we relisted those again this year, just to speed the time when nobody had any issues.”

W.Va. Senate Unveils, Passes Tax Cut Plan

The Senate gaveled back in right at 4 p.m. to discuss Senate Bill 424, which includes proposed tax cuts. The Senate suspended its own rules to advance the bill to third reading and complete action on the legislation.

Updated on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023 at 4:45 p.m.

The Senate gaveled back in right at 4 p.m. to discuss Senate Bill 424, which includes the proposed tax cuts. The Senate suspended its own rules to advance the bill to third reading and complete action on the legislation.

A number of senators – including all three Democrats – rose to voice their support, and the bill passed unanimously. It now goes to the House of Delegates for their consideration.

Original Post:

Senate Republicans gathered in front of the Senate chamber Wednesday morning to present their tax reduction plan for West Virginia.

“What we believe we’ve put together is a very comprehensive, safe tax reduction plan that is as wide as we could possibly make it to capture and help the vast majority of West Virginians across the state of West Virginia,” said Senate Majority Leader Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha. “What we want to do now is try to be able to give some tax relief back to the West Virginians across the state, but we want to do so in a way that we don’t overspend, that we don’t overstep, and kind of get out in front of our skis and then get in a situation where we hurt anybody.”

The plan would reduce personal income tax by 15 percent across the board next year, and continue reducing personal income tax in the years to come.

“There’s a trigger that as our economy grows here in West Virginia, it further brings down the income tax all the way to zero,” said Senate Finance Chair Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam.

The plan is a departure from Gov. Jim Justice’s plan to reduce personal income tax by 50 percent over the next three years, starting with a 30 percent cut. The House of Delegates approved the governor’s plan weeks ago, but Senate leaders called it “dead on arrival” before it ever reached their chamber.

Tarr clarified that the personal income tax would continue to decrease as the economy grew.

“When our sales tax collections, without ever raising a sales tax, increase 105 percent over the previous year, it triggers a dollar for dollar reduction of that amount of increase,” Tarr said. “If it’s 107 percent, then it’s going to be 7 percent that triggers it down. If it’s less than 105 [percent], there’s no trigger. It creates a smoothing mechanism to safely bring down our income tax to zero.”

The Senate’s tax reduction plan also includes a rebate for the payment of taxes on vehicles, reminiscent of the proposal in Amendment 2 that was voted down in November 2022. Takubo said the vehicle tax rebate would ensure low income households, and those on fixed income, also benefited.

“Regardless if you’re low income or regardless of your fixed income, you usually got to have a vehicle to get around, and we’re gonna give that back in a rebate so that that they also can benefit from this comprehensive tax plan,” Takubo said.

Similarly, the plan would give a homestead real property tax rebate for some service-disabled military veterans, as well as eliminate the West Virginia tax filing “marriage penalty.”

“Many West Virginians don’t realize that the tax code in West Virginia actually helps those that are single and not married couples, and that’s not what West Virginia values are about,” Takubo said. “We should be promoting and helping those financially that want to build a family and have that family unit. So this will eliminate that penalty in our tax code.”

The plan is not limited to personal income, and promises a 50 percent rebate for the payment of equipment and inventory taxes paid by West Virginia small businesses. Tarr said the legislators had heard criticism of a similar action during their push for Amendment 2, and now limited the rebate to small businesses only.

“What this bill does, it does not include corporate net,” Tarr said. “It’s your pass through entities, it’s your sole proprietors, it’s the small businesses of West Virginia. This does not affect the corporate net income tax, which would have included those big boxes.”

Takubo said Senate leadership has been speaking with Justice throughout the session, and believe their plan achieves his goals of, “helping the small folks, the small businesses, those that are less fortunate in the state,” but are still waiting for comment on the plan.

Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, said he has reached out to House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, to let him know what’s happening.

“We’re family here,” Blair said. “We’ve been working back and forth for over a month long.”

He concluded by saying the Senate is ready to move quickly to get the plan into the House of Delegates as soon as possible.

“One of the goals is to be able to finish this legislation and have it moved into the House of Delegates before day 30,” Blair said. “Today’s day 29. Our goal was to be able to move this on through and get it done. We’ve been working for over a month.”

The Senate plans on reconvening a split session Wednesday evening at 4 p.m. to ensure the plan is passed through the chamber.

Governor’s Reaction

Shortly after the Senate’s announcement, Gov. Justice held his own press conference to give an administrative update. He praised the Senate and Blair for their proposal.

“We’ve got to get everybody on board and get to a compromise or get to a solution here, but we really thank [Blair] and thank all the senators that jumped on board and really tried to help and everything,” Justice said. “Now we’re on a pathway to put real meaningful money right back into people’s pockets, and I know you’ll do the right thing with it.”

In response to questions, Justice said he needs to look at the details of the plan before commenting further. He continued to compliment the Senate’s plan, while also giving credit to the House of Delegates.

“The House, absolutely, we should give so much respect to the House,” Justice said. “We have not done this kind of stuff since 1987. We have finally, finally got this state really moving in a great, great, great way. What we want to do is we want to pull the rug together.”

When asked about the small business rebate, a different version of which Justice focused on in his campaign against Amendment 2, he said the Senate’s changes addressed his concerns.

“In this situation now, the counties will remain whole. That is really, really, really good,” Justice said. “If there’s a way to move forward and be able to do things for our small businesses and be able to move forward and do things for the possibility of additional manufacturing or whatever coming to our state, I don’t think anybody in the world is turning their nose up at anything about that.”

Justice will meet with legislative leaders Thursday morning to further discuss the various plans for the state’s taxes.

*Editor’s note: This story was updated to include Justice’s reaction to the Senate announcement.