A big story of the final day of West Virginia’s 60-day legislative session was what didn’t pass.
15-week abortion ban
A bill that drew attention early in the legislative session, establishing a 15-week abortion ban, stalled in the legislative process.
The bill to ban terminating pregnancies after 15 weeks, earlier passed the House of Delegates on Feb. 15 but was not taken up in the state Senate until Friday.
The bill was unexpectedly taken up in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday afternoon, passed in a matter of minutes with no debate, lifted from its second Senate Judiciary Committee assignment and read a first time on the Senate floor.
But it was never read a second time and, so, did not pass.
High school sports transfers
SB 586 would have allowed a student to transfer one time during their four years of secondary school and retain their athletic eligibility.
The bill stalled in the House of Delegates, so senators today tried amending it into the “Innovation in Education Act.”
The House didn’t buy that and asked the Senate to recede.
The Senate refused to recede and appointed a conference committee of legislators to break the stalemate in overtime.
The House ignored that and the bill died.
Equal Rights Amendment
On Feb. 14, a majority of West Virginia senators voted in favor of a resolution clarifying that the original ERA deadline has come and gone.
SCR 44 contended West Virginia’s ERA ratification officially lapsed at 11:59 p.m. March 22, 1979.
Delegates briefly and verbally skirmished about the matter and assigned it to the House Rules Committee, which is a group of leading delegates from both parties who sometimes gather before floor sessions to make decisions about what legislation will be considered each day and what may be pulled from the agenda.
Legislation is sometimes parked in Rules for complications to be worked out or as a kind of purgatory.
In this case that’s what happened. The resolution never popped back out for consideration.
Unemployment bills
After the House of Delegates sidelined legislation that would place greater restrictions on unemployment benefits, senators attempted a resurrection by amending a separate bill.
The unemployment legislation was set for passage Friday in the House of Delegates but was moved to the chamber’s inactive calendar that day without explanation. Throughout Saturday, the final day of this year’s regular session, the legislation remained inactive.
After a recess ended at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, the Senate majority moved to amend Senate Bill 2 and Senate Bill 3 into a separate bill officially establishing an unemployment fraud unit for Workforce West Virginia.
The move drew a quick reaction from Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier. “I would request a ruling from the chair as to the germaneness of the amendments being offered,” he said, meaning he questioned whether the other bills are actually related to the main bill.
After a gathering at the podium at the front of the chamber, Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, announced “Your point is not well taken. The ruling is that it is germane.”
Baldwin rose again and said, “I request the bill be read distinctly and fully in its entirety.”
After a long pause, Blair announced, “The clerk will read the bill.” So the clerk read the text of the original unemployment fraud unit bill.
When those fireworks concluded, a majority of senators voted first for the change and then for the bill to be sent back to the House.
Senate Bill 2 would have limited the eligibility period for benefits to 12 weeks if the unemployment rate is below 5.5 percent. The rate would go up an additional week for each half-percent the unemployment rate goes up– up to 20 weeks. Right now, the maximum in West Virginia is about 26 weeks.
Senate Bill 3 would have required four specific job search activities a week for people receiving unemployment benefits. Examples include registering with job placement offices, completing applications for employers “reasonably expected to have job openings,” participating in job fairs or taking a civil service exam. People who fail to provide an accounting of the work search activities could be ruled ineligible for benefits.
The House of Delegates had combined Senate bills 2 and 3 into one bill before moving the whole thing to the inactive calendar.
In the end, nothing happened on unemployment.