Day 30: We’re halfway through the metaphorical marathon
and the Senate's tax cut plan is now in a sprint
Good morning and welcome back to 60 Days.
It’s Thursday, February 9th — the 30th day of the West Virginia Legislature’s regular session. For those keeping score, that’s halfway to Day 60. By the end of today, we’ll have run 13.2 metaphorical miles so far.
It’s Dave here getting this morning’s briefing rolling for you.
Admittedly, I’ve haven’t watched a lot of marathons — but I do know that runners are handed tiny cups of water or Gatorade to keep them going throughout the race.
Why not shots of espresso or 64 oz. cups of coffee? Now that I think about it, I guess that might have some unintended effects and could cause runners to veer off course in search of a restroom.
Either way, following a legislative session goes hand-in-hand with consuming copious amounts of caffeine. And your coffee donations keep this newsletter coming to your inbox each morning.
The Senate is out with its long-awaited tax cut proposal, but before we dive too deeply into that and see what’s on deck around the statehouse today, it seems appropriate to take a moment to flag important looming legislative deadlines that are sure to play a role in how things play out over the coming days and weeks:
Day 35 (Tuesday, February 14) will be the last day to introduce bills in the House of Delegates.
Day 41 (Monday, February 20) will be the last day to introduce bills in the Senate.
Day 47 (Sunday, February 26) will be the last day for bills to pass committees in their chamber of origin to ensure three days of readings on the floor. But remember, lawmakers can suspend that constitutional rule and speed up the process. Think all the way back to Day 1 in the Senate. It also happened again yesterday, which you’ll read more about in a moment.
Day 50 (Wednesday, March 1) will be the deadline for bills to pass out of their chamber of origin. This day, known as “crossover day,” is rather significant. But, as we’ve already learned, this deadline also comes with a bit of a caveat.
As I learned from West Virginia Public Broadcasting matriarch Beth Vorhees, no bill or policy is dead until midnight on Day 60. If a lingering issue is even remotely related to another piece of legislation still in progress, that idea can always be amended into something.
The crossover day deadline also does not apply to the budget bill — the only measure required to pass under the state constitution. In fact, lawmakers are able to extend the session to complete work on the budget, if needed.
Now that we’re all prepared for those dates, I’m going to turn it over to Giles for a lookahead to this morning.
In other words, Dave is making me do the heavy lifting this morning while he breaks out the air guitar and wastes time rocking to a little Bon Jovi, his favorite band no matter what he’d have you believe.
To steal a quip from President Biden’s State of the Union speech, “lots of luck in your senior year, Dave.”
Anyway, the negotiations over tax cuts are ON. Here’s a ticktock on yesterday’s events:
While Dave and I were yucking it up on the phone late yesterday morning, Senate leaders unveiled their $600 million proposal when we weren’t looking.
While I took an afternoon nap, the Finance Committee stripped out the contents of SB 424, inserted their plan and sent it to the floor.
Majority Republicans suspended the requirement that bills be read on three consecutive days and passed the Finance Committee’s substitute of SB 424 on a unanimous 33-0 vote during a late afternoon floor session.
In other words, Senate leaders put their plan on a legislative bullet train.
Negotiations are the next stop.
In a press release, Senate President Craig Blair said the Senate plan “responsibly returns money to citizens to provide necessary tax relief without jeopardizing West Virginia’s financial future.”
Governor Justice seemed open to the Senate plan saying, “Now we sit down to the real business and we negotiate back and forth and come up with something that’s really good for the people.”
Almost forgot — here are the major points of the Senate proposal:
A personal income tax reduction, starting with a 15 percent decrease in personal income tax.
Elimination of the “marriage penalty” when filing taxes in West Virginia.
A rebate for the payment of taxes on vehicles.
A homestead real property tax rebate for 90- to 100-percent service-disabled military veterans.
A 50 percent rebate for the payment of equipment and inventory taxes paid by West Virginia small business. This component is more or less an attempt at a workaround from the failed Amendment 2 last year.
The Senate’s floor session begins at the usual time — at 11 a.m. You can find the complete floor agenda here. Three bills are at the passage stage:
Eng. Com. Sub. for S. B. 216 - Requiring all schools to instruct students on Holocaust, other genocides and financial literacy
Eng. Com. Sub. for S. B. 472 - Creating criminal offense of indecent exposure in front of minors - (With right to amend)
Eng. Com. Sub. for S. B. 495 - Providing correctional institutions and juvenile facilities video and audio records be confidential — this is the bill we told you about the other day. It fixes a measure passed last year that allowed “corrections officials to deny requests made under the state’s Freedom of Information Act,” as Mountain State Spotlight reported.
Here’s the Senate Committee schedule:
9 a.m. Government Organization (Room 208W)
Dave and I being Marshall grads, we would be remiss if we didn’t note that the Gov. Org. panel is considering H.B. 2412 - Declaring November 14 every year, a special Memorial Day in remembrance of the Marshall University airplane crash.
1 p.m.: Health and Human Resources (451M)
2 p.m.: Judiciary Subcommittee A – Criminal Law (208W)
2 p.m.: Judiciary Subcommittee B – Elections (451M)
2 p.m.: Judiciary Subcommittee C – Civil Justice and Courts (219M)
3 p.m.: Judiciary (208W)
3 p.m.: Finance (451M)
House floor session also begins at 11 a.m. The complete floor agenda is here.
There are a few notable bills Delegates will consider.
At third reading, the passage stage:
Com. Sub. for H. B. 2002 - Relating to providing support for families — While this measure would offer additional tax credits for parents of non-related adoptive children, it also establishes a “pregnancy support program.” Funding to any organization that provides abortions would not be allowed under the bill.
Com. Sub. for H. B. 2346 - Declaring a shortage of qualified bus operators and allowing retired bus operators to accept employment — For once, the short title of a bill seems self-explanatory. For background on the driver shortage, here’s a link to a West Virginia Public Broadcasting story on the shortage published in December.
Com. Sub. for H. B. 3130 - Creating the Coalfields Energy Research and Economic Development Authority - This bill creates a new state agency to promote energy development projects in the coalfields as David Beard reports for the (Morgantown) Dominion Post.
H. B. 2882 is getting closer to passage. It’s on second reading in the House. It’s the bill that would deliver another $105 million to that battery plant project in the Northern Panhandle town of Weirton. All told, the state’s investment in the project would top out at nearly $300 million. Some are urging caution, saying it’s a risky project. But Hoppy Kercheval over at MetroNews argues the risk may be worth it in this opinion piece.
Here’s the House committee schedule:
9:15 a.m. – The Committee on Senior, Children and Family Issues will meet in the Finance Committee room, 460M
10:45 a.m. – The Committee on Rules will meet behind the Chamber
* Watch www.twitter.com/wvhouse for any last-minute updates in case this meeting gets canceled or to see what happened during the meeting
1 p.m. – The Committee on Energy and Manufacturing will meet in the Judiciary Committee room, 410M
1 p.m. – The Committee on Technology and Infrastructure will meet in the Education Committee room, 432M
2 p.m. – The Economic Development and Tourism Committee will meet in the Finance Committee room, 460M
3 p.m. – The Committee on Health and Human Resources will meet in the East Wing Committee room, 215E
4 p.m. – The Finance Committee will meet in the committee meeting room, 460M
Finally, this from the 60 Days inbox:
Democratic Legislators To Discuss Priorities on Day 30
West Virginia House of Delegates Democratic Legislators will address legislative priorities as we mark the halfway point of the 2023 Session.
WHEN: Thursday, February 9 at 10:00 a.m.
WHERE: Governor’s Cabinet and Conference Room
This press conference will also be live streamed at West Virginia House Minority Office.
We’ll close out the legislative week tomorrow.
If there’s something you think we should know about — or maybe you just want to say hello, you can reach us at 60daysgilesdave@gmail.com.
Giles is on Twitter @gilessnyder and Dave can be found @davemistich.