Day Two: After a speedy first day in the Senate, the governor offered his own vision.
Day Two: After a speedy first day in the Senate, the governor offered his own vision.
Turns out, we had more to write about after yesterday than expected.
Good morning and welcome back to 60 Days — grab a cup of coffee, and let’s get to it.
Today is January 12th — the second day of the West Virginia Legislature’s regular session. The gears are now turning, and the sausage-making has commenced.
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With roughly 1.8 million state residents, we’re hoping to reach as many of our fellow West Virginians as possible.
For this morning’s edition, we’ll take a quick look back at a bustling Day 1 and look ahead to what’s on the agenda for Day 2.
The Senate went into overdrive on Day 1
Yesterday, the Senate suspended constitutional rules and quickly passed 23 bills.
Typically, bills get introduced and sent to committees for a look over and possibly amended before making their way back to the floor. Then, each bill is read a first, second and third time — on separate days — before going up for a vote. If you’re unfamiliar with this whole process, the only thing you really need to know is this: “second reading” is the floor amendment stage and “third reading” is when it goes to a vote.
Anyway, Senate President Craig Blair (R-Berkeley) seemed giddy to seize on the opportunity to pass these measures and get them over to the House.
“When we show up to work, we’re ready to start on time and get the job done immediately,” Blair said in a news release following the first floor session. “All of the bills we ran out of the Senate today have been passed by the legislative majorities before, nearly all of them with unanimous support.”
He’s not wrong.
Many of these bills passed the Senate last year — but the House didn’t finish work on them.
But one important thing should be noted: nine members of the Senate weren’t around last session, and therefore, voted on these bills yesterday without much time to consider their meaning and effect.
In any case, here’s a quick rundown of the bills that got stuffed into the cannon and fired across the rotunda to the House:
SB 126, Reorganizing DHHR
SB 127, Relating to reimbursement of hospital inpatient rates by PEIA
SB 128, Clarifying authority of Governor and Legislature to proclaim and declare state of emergency and preparedness
SB 129, Limiting gubernatorial authority to spend certain federal funds without appropriation of Legislature
SB 130, Anti-Racism Act of 2023
SB 131, Allowing municipal fire marshals to receive service weapon upon retirement
SB 132, Clarifying criminal offense of harassment
SB 133, Adding definition of “ammunition” for purposes of obtaining state license to carry concealed deadly weapon
SB 134, Protecting consumers against businesses using automatic renewals without consent
SB 135, Relating to Uniform Controlled Substances Act
SB 136, Requiring persons convicted of certain offenses to undergo psychological or psychiatric testing and have treatment plan to be eligible for probation
SB 137, Clarifying offenses of kidnapping and unlawful restraint
SB 138, Clarifying secondary sources are not law and public policy of WV in certain instances
SB 139, Requiring each county BOE to ensure all its meetings are open to public through in-person attendance and broadcast live on its website
SB 140, Updating offenses of extortion and attempted extortion
SB 141, Adding Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation employees working at certain institutions to WV Emergency Responders Survivor Benefits Act
SB 142, Modifying procedures to settle estates of decedents
SB 143, Relating to Adopt-A-Stream Program
SB 145, Allowing county BOE participating in operation of multicounty vocational center to withdraw
SB 146, Modifying regulations of peer-to-peer car sharing program
SB 147, Creating pilot program for recovery residences in Cabell County
SB 148, Relating to municipalities required to be represented on county authority boards
SB 149, Exempting certain organizations from property taxation
A caveat: one should not take these bills simply on face-value based on their short titles. For example, the “Anti-Racism Act” addresses the controversial topic of critical race theory.
No doubt, we’ll delve deeper into this issue — and plenty of others — as the session rolls along.
Gov. Justice delivers his seventh State of the State address
Following the floor sessions, lawmakers gathered in the House Chamber to hear Gov. Justice’s vision for the next 59 days.
Reporting year-to-date revenue figures tallying more than $833 million above estimates, Justice called his spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1st a “West Virginia tsunami.”
“And so here comes me cannonballing into the pool,” Justice said to lawmakers from both sides of the rotunda gathered in the House chamber. “By God, I’ll make a big splash. I’ll promise you … tonight I’m proposing our West Virginia tsunami that the world will hear in every single way.”
While there’s always a lot to dive into — tsunami metaphor notwithstanding — here’s a few highlights from what Justice asked lawmakers to consider this session:
A 50% cut to the personal income tax over three years (Justice called for a 30% cut the first year and then a 10% drop in the second and third years)
Yet another 5% pay raise for state employees — a semi-occurring trend that kicked off during the first teacher strike in 2018
$37 million to put more teachers’ assistants in kindergarten through 3rd grade classrooms
$40 million allocation to address hospital reimbursement by PEIA — and another $100 million in one-time funding to the state’s rainy-day fund for the state employees insurance program
Adding $10 million to an EMS training and recruitment program
A $5,000 moving bonus for veterans who want to move back to the state
You can watch the speech for yourself in this archive video on YouTube (though, as two radio guys like us will tell you, the audio is less than desirable):
Reflecting on his time in office but also looking ahead, Justice said he “surely won’t go away” once his term wraps up following the 2024 election. Given term limits, Justice is ineligible to run for governor again.
“You’ll probably be able to find me at home, or you may find me in Washington — [that’s] one of the two places I’ll be,” Justice said, continuing to tease a run for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democratic stalwart Joe Manchin.
In line with the grand experiment that is this newsletter, we turned on the Substack chat feature during Justice’s speech.
Much to our surprise and delight, 60 Days subscribers like you logged on. If you missed it, we’re planning to keep a chat open during the session as a way for you to express your thoughts and concerns as the session heats up. Keep an eye out for a link. Plus, you’ll need to download the Substack app to participate.
Day Two: Budget hearings and back to business as usual
Speaking of the budget, hearings are scheduled in the House and Senate finance committees today for lawmakers to get their first look at what the governor cooked up — and to begin to offer some tweaks and put their own stamp on the only bill that is constitutionally required to pass.
The designated bean counters in the House will gather at 9 a.m. in the Finance Committee and the Senate’s version of that panel will get together at 3 p.m.
Floor sessions for both the House and Senate will kick off at 11 a.m. — which makes us wonder if the Senate is going to zip through another set of bills. Either way, we’ll be sure to keep an eye out.
By the way, we figured you might want to check out some of the links contained on the Bulletin Board on the legislature’s website. That’s the spot to check out committee meetings planned for the day and any bills that lawmakers plan to introduce.
We’ll soon get into the groove of deciphering what’s found there. But in the meantime, feel free to have a look for yourselve — and let us know if something catches your eye as things keep rolling.
That does it for me this morning.
Be on the lookout for that Substack chat I mentioned. You can get in touch with us there, or you can simply reply to this email. You can also shoot us a message at 60daysgilesdave@gmail.com and find us on Twitter — @davemistich and @gilessnyder.
See you back here tomorrow morning.