Legislative Update Week 3: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

By Dani Parent, WV Citizen Action Group Executive Director

We’ve officially one-quarter of the way through the 2026 Legislative Session, and the pace is starting to ramp up. We call it the Bad Idea Factory for a reason, so I’d like to start this update with a few bright spots.

The Good

• HB 4335 passed the House and was sent to the Senate last week, requiring an expedited five-day timeline for Medicaid enrollment. Access to care is always a win!
• SB 48 and SB 20 have advanced through committee to prevent electricity rate hikes during the winter months and require the Public Service Commission to report annually on rate stability.
• HB 4461 advanced from the House Energy Committee and will require that Internet customers not be required to pay for service during outages of greater than 12 hours. 
• HB 4907, which would restrict the use of pesticides within 1000 feet of school property was also advanced out of committee, although there was some interesting discussion about exempting PFAS that didn’t make it into the text this time 👀
• HB 4393 passed the House unanimously and will require a comprehensive plan to deliver trauma-informed care to foster families and young adults transitioning out of foster care. West Virginia’s foster care system is in a crisis, and this is but one of many steps needed.
• HB 4656 reclassifies consistently absent students from being “status offenders,” a designation that only furthers the school-to-prison pipeline, and instead mandates prevention-based interventions. 

The Bad

• Rulemaking for last year’s data center/microgrid bill, HB 2014, is still in process, with a rule advancing this week that will keep basic information about so-called “high impact” data center projects confidential—like the permits for data center projects over the last year haven’t been redacted enough as it is. How will communities have informed input into projects that affect their health, wellness, and property values? This rule still needs to be confirmed by the full Legislature. Read more about it here, including information on Del. Kayla Young’s commonsense amendment, and stay tuned for how you can stay involved in this fight.
• SB 216 advanced through the Senate Select Committee on School Choice to the floor for second reading. The bill, called the “Restoring Private Schools Act of 2026,” would eliminate many current requirements for private schools, including standardized testing. As Sen. Woelfel commented, “We’re doing away with every rule for these schools.”
• SB 173 was taken up in the Senate Health and Human Services committee Tuesday afternoon. SB 173 would double down on the state’s existing abortion ban by severely restricting the mailing and delivery of certain medications in the state. Abortion has been banned in West Virginia since 2022, and prescribing medications for abortion via telehealth has been prohibited since 2017.
• The conversation around SB 388, which would require classrooms in certain grade levels to have the Aitken Bible available, has been simply wild, and is what we’ve sadly come to expect from the Legislature in an election year. This one passed the Senate with a provision requiring Bibles to be procured through private donations and is now in the House.

The Ugly

There are some narratives and ideological differences that, while not encapsulated above or enshrined in bills yet, are nonetheless prevalent under the Dome this year, especially regarding immigration and taxation.

The Governor is pushing lawmakers to cut income taxes by 10% for his so-called “backyard brawl,” an economic competition between West Virginia and surrounding states in which working-class West Virginians are sure to lose critical services in exchange for pennies, and our top earners and extractive industries are sure to prosper.

Finally, and perhaps most critically, West Virginia is caught up in the fervor around ICE and immigration, with over 650 members of our communities arrested this month and a slew of bills advancing through the Legislature that will require law enforcement cooperation with ICE (SB 615 and HB 4671), criminalize providing basic aid to undocumented residents (HB 4433), mandate all employers use E-Verify to confirm work status of new hires (HB 4198) , exempt undocumented migrants from restitution if they’re victims of human trafficking (HB 4433), and require local governments to report on their capacity to provide basic services to refugee and immigrant populations (HB 4863). However, in the midst of all this chaos there is still some sanity and community care;  Judge Joseph Goodwin ordered that two individuals who were detained during this ICE surge be released due to a lack of due process.

All of this is set against the backdrop of a partial federal government shutdown, continuing resistance to ICE occupation in Minneapolis and across the country, and skyrocketing healthcare costs for millions of Americans, and serves to underscore the point: all we have is each other. Community is resistance.

If you’re reading this and you want to help but don’t know how, maybe you want to build a safer community with your neighbors, advocate for commonsense legislation that protects the working class, or feel drawn to making resistance art—literally anything—WV CAG can be your political home. We’re organizing our friends and neighbors every day, all across the state, to build communities that withstand and improve our political climate, and we want to build with you.