Day 14: Session rolls along as candidate filing deadline approaches
Good morning and welcome back to 60 Days, your daily guide to the West Virginia Legislature’s regular session.
Today is Tuesday, January 23, 2024 — Day 14 of the session. It’s also Hunger Free Day and Raze/American Lung Association Day — and the West Virginia Association of Optometric Physicians will also have a table in the upper rotunda.
To sum all that up: It’s take care of your eyes and lungs — and look out for other people’s bellies — day. All around, probably things we should all be getting behind. If you’re interested in other activities under the dome this session, check out the Activity Calendar.
Anyway, we’re almost a quarter of the way through the session, which means floor calendars and committee agendas are getting longer and the pace of things is starting to pick up.
Seeing as how it’s an election year, I figure we ought to start suggesting that you check your voter registration status. If you need to register or update your status for any reason — be it a change to your party affiliation or your address or whatever — check out this link.
West Virginia’s primaries are May 14 and you have until April 23 — 21 days before the election — to get your voter registration up-to-date.
And with that, the 60 Days editorial board has done its good deed for the day — so maybe check your registration and buy us a coffee to thank us for keeping you engaged in our democracy.
Today’s Agenda:
The House of Delegates will convene for an 11 a.m. floor session. There’s a few things up for a vote today, but I’ll be keeping an eye on second reading, which includes HB 4973, allowing for anyone over 21 to manufacture alcoholic liquor “for personal or family use.” The bill would cap production at 50 gallons of homemade liquor per household (if there’s two or more people of age in the home) per year. Selling homemade liquor would not be allowed.
Don’t say the 60 Days crew isn’t looking out for you when it comes to important legislation such at this, because clearly we are.
The Senate will also get down to business at 11 a.m. this morning, with a handful of bills up and down the calendar on respective stages.
And here’s a rundown of committee schedules and their agendas:
9:15 a.m - House Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security Committee
10 a.m. - Senate Education Committee
10 a.m. - Senate Gov. Org. Committee
10 a.m. - House Political Subdivisions Committee
10:45 a.m. - House Rules Committee
10:45 a.m. - Senate Rules Committee
3 p.m. - Senate Judiciary Committee
3 p.m. - Senate Finance
Budget hearings from the state School Building Authority, the Department of Arts, History and Culture and the West Virginia National Guard.
60 Days links: Reading that’s good for you and good for West Virginia. Click on the links to help support the reporters who work at the state Capitol — and elsewhere around the state — day in, day out.
Mountain State Spotlight’s Henry Culvyhouse has a piece on SB 154, which would toughen penalties for possession of very small quantities of drugs like cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and meth. The measure has already passed the Senate and is now in the hands of the House Judiciary Committee.
The candidate filing period for the 2024 election cycle ending this coming Saturday at midnight. Jeff Jenkins of WVMetroNews has a story — and just in case you’re interested in throwing your name in the hat for a statehouse seat or another office up for grabs this year, you can square yourself up against those who’ve already filed by peeking around the candidate listing on the West Virginia Secretary of State’s website.
Speaking of candidate filings, Steven Allen Adams of Ogden Newspapers wrote about two names who (expectedly) officially entered the race for governor on Monday: Former House Judiciary Chair Moore Capito and business owner and tough man competitor Chris Miller. Each of them has a mother who represents West Virginia in Congress. Capito is the son of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito. Miller is the son of Rep. Carol Miller.
State Auditor J.B. McCuskey — who spent a good portion of last year running for governor before switching gears — filed paperwork in Clarksburg to run for West Virginia Attorney General. He created a post on Facebook about it and shared some photos.
And…former West Virginia health official Timothy Priddy has pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about verifying invoices for a company that claimed to have conducted COVID-19 tests in the state. John Raby of The Associate Press reports.
Resources:
Know of any bills we should be keeping tabs on? Any events, press conferences, etc., we should know about? Tell us about them in the comments.
Telling your readers that Election Day is May 14 discourages early voting. Eligible WV voters can apply for absentee ballots now, & Early In-Person Voting begins May 1. Please help us in our efforts to improve voter turnout.
thank you for all this great information.