By Gary Zuckett, WV CAG Co-Director
This week, on March 13, we’ll hit the midpoint in this legislative session—thank goodness! Actually, there hasn’t been much goodness so far during this unusually challenging session.
Special interests and social stigma bills assault all sectors of our people-centered policy matrix, basically doing nothing to move our state forward. In contrast, lawmakers ignore critical problems such as affordable housing, clean drinking water, childcare, and education.
Now that we’re in the middle of the session, we’ll start bumping into some crucial deadlines that affect how bills move (or don’t). On the legislative calendar, the deadline to introduce House bills is March 18, and for Senate bills, March 24. We look forward to this, as more than 2,000 bills have been introduced as of this writing.
As these deadlines approach, the pace picks up and bills that are stalled start being ‘amended’ into bills that are moving to keep them alive. For example, HB 2400, a bill that criminalizes the distribution of absentee ballot applications has been amended into HB 2117, which shortens the window when mail-in ballots can be accepted and counted. (See our statement on HB 2117, one of the many conspiracy-based election bills moving to fix problems that don’t exist.) We’re also seeing identical bills moving in both houses to speed up their damage. This happened to the bill to ban Ranked Choice Voting, which we opposed.
Longtime Charleston Gazette-Mail political reporter Phil Kabler stated in his weekend Statehouse Beat, “As of my Friday deadline, 88 election bills have been introduced, the majority of which are aimed at making voter participation more difficult.”
Why are they so scared of having more voters casting ballots?
Déjà Vu: Weakening Water Safety—Again
The annual “Tank Bill” is back—once again aiming to reduce inspections for tanks upstream from public water intakes. Lawmakers added SB 592 to Monday’s Senate Energy Committee agenda with just a Sunday afternoon announcement. Worse, they introduced a committee-amended substitute, but the public couldn’t see it until after the committee acted. So much for transparency.
The Aboveground Storage Tank Act was created after the 2014 water crisis, when a chemical leak contaminated the Elk River, affecting 300,000 people’s drinking water. Over the past decade, the legislature has repeatedly tried to weaken these protections. This year, the Senate is pushing to deregulate the very tanks responsible for the disaster.
We can’t let history repeat itself. Take action! Contact your senators today to urge them to oppose SB 592. Our drinking water depends on it.
Federal Accountability Actions Needed
Following up on our lobby/protest DC fly-in, we’re asking folks to contact their US Senators and Representatives and ask them to meet with their constituents face-to-face in local town hall meetings to explain why they’re voting to cut Medicaid and other vital social programs to pay for permanent tax cuts for millionaires and big businesses.
Politico recently reported that Republican leadership has advised members not to hold town hall meetings because folks are angry about federal workforce firings and threatened cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and everything else. Rachel Maddow has aired several clips showing regular folks who are fed up and calling out officials at these events.
Watch for announcements of community town halls in your area, and if one isn’t forthcoming, consider organizing one with friends. Don’t forget to invite local State Senators and Delegates, too. They need to feel some heat for their antics in Charleston.
Of course, there is little chance that any Republicans will show up. Then it’s an ‘empty chair’ town hall—so be prepared to have a lineup of several speakers who can outline the antics going on in both Charleston and DC.
Let us know if you’re thinking about doing one of these, and we can help get the word out and provide some talking points!
Your Support Makes the Difference—Thank You!
Finally, a big thanks to all who’ve taken the time to contact lawmakers on one or more of the critical issues we’ve been outlining. Also, thank you to those who’ve renewed your membership or donated to keep our lobby team going!
As mentioned, most foundation grants have a ‘no lobbying’ restriction on their funds, so our lobby efforts rely on you, our supporting members. Thanks again for your support!