CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Sunday marks the two-thirds point of the 2012 legislative session, and the word that best describes the session to date is copasetic, at least compared to this point in the 2011 regular session.
Last year, the Senate was in chaos over its change of leadership when then-President Earl Ray Tomblin went downstairs to act as governor, and it didn't help that Tomblin, then-acting President Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, and House Speaker Rick Thompson, D-Wayne, were gearing up to oppose each other in the special gubernatorial primary -- or that Tomblin punked them both with his food tax repeal legislation and his veto of the DMV fee increase bill they shepherded.
Tensions were also frayed over the pending legislative redistricting, with many members already plotting out maps for their new districts.
Ultimately, the session ended with legislators exchanging harsh words over the Legislature's failure to reach agreements on key issues including regulations for Marcellus Shale gas drilling, or a plan to pay down the state's massive OPEB liability for future retiree health benefits.
In the meantime, legislators got through the painful process of redistricting in the summer, passed regulations on horizontal drilling in December, and -- thanks to the PEIA finance board's decision to cap benefits for future retirees -- came into the 2012 session ready with a bailout plan for a more manageable $5 billion OPEB liability.
Midway through the session, the Legislature has already passed the OPEB bill and a tax incentive plan to try to attract a multibillion-dollar ethane cracker plant to the state. (Critics will say that would cost the host county $300 million in lost property taxes over the life of the plan; on the other hand, 60 percent of nothing is still nothing ...)
Meanwhile, legislators appear to be making progress on key bills on coal mine safety, prescription drug abuse and jail overcrowding. If they could get even two out of three passed, they could gavel out on March 10 knowing they'd put together a fairly productive session.
***
Speaking of redistricting, the next round in the showdown between Sen. Donna Boley, R-Pleasants, and former Sen. Frank Deem, R-Wood, comes Tuesday, when responses to Boley's motion to have the state Supreme Court remove Deem from the May primary ballot are due.
Boley, of course, is contending that Deem can't run, since if he wins, the multicounty 3rd Senatorial District would have two senators from Wood County, in violation of the West Virginia Constitution.
Deem is arguing that the state provision violates the principle of one man, one vote in the U.S. Constitution, by denying representation to voters of disproportionately large counties in multicounty districts.
(The best illustration of Deem's argument is in the 5th Senatorial District, where a little, 7,500-population sliver of Wayne County is guaranteed a senator (currently, Education Chairman Robert Plymale), while the remaining 100,000 or so residents in Cabell County can have no more than one senator.)
If Deem prevails, it will have huge ramifications in future elections. Consider the 8th Senatorial District, which because of population losses in Kanawha County, now consists of the northern halves of Kanawha and Putnam counties.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Sunday marks the two-thirds point of the 2012 legislative session, and the word that best describes the session to date is copasetic, at least compared to this point in the 2011 regular session.
Last year, the Senate was in chaos over its change of leadership when then-President Earl Ray Tomblin went downstairs to act as governor, and it didn't help that Tomblin, then-acting President Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, and House Speaker Rick Thompson, D-Wayne, were gearing up to oppose each other in the special gubernatorial primary -- or that Tomblin punked them both with his food tax repeal legislation and his veto of the DMV fee increase bill they shepherded.
Tensions were also frayed over the pending legislative redistricting, with many members already plotting out maps for their new districts.
Ultimately, the session ended with legislators exchanging harsh words over the Legislature's failure to reach agreements on key issues including regulations for Marcellus Shale gas drilling, or a plan to pay down the state's massive OPEB liability for future retiree health benefits.
In the meantime, legislators got through the painful process of redistricting in the summer, passed regulations on horizontal drilling in December, and -- thanks to the PEIA finance board's decision to cap benefits for future retirees -- came into the 2012 session ready with a bailout plan for a more manageable $5 billion OPEB liability.
Midway through the session, the Legislature has already passed the OPEB bill and a tax incentive plan to try to attract a multibillion-dollar ethane cracker plant to the state. (Critics will say that would cost the host county $300 million in lost property taxes over the life of the plan; on the other hand, 60 percent of nothing is still nothing ...)
Meanwhile, legislators appear to be making progress on key bills on coal mine safety, prescription drug abuse and jail overcrowding. If they could get even two out of three passed, they could gavel out on March 10 knowing they'd put together a fairly productive session.
***
Speaking of redistricting, the next round in the showdown between Sen. Donna Boley, R-Pleasants, and former Sen. Frank Deem, R-Wood, comes Tuesday, when responses to Boley's motion to have the state Supreme Court remove Deem from the May primary ballot are due.
Boley, of course, is contending that Deem can't run, since if he wins, the multicounty 3rd Senatorial District would have two senators from Wood County, in violation of the West Virginia Constitution.
Deem is arguing that the state provision violates the principle of one man, one vote in the U.S. Constitution, by denying representation to voters of disproportionately large counties in multicounty districts.
(The best illustration of Deem's argument is in the 5th Senatorial District, where a little, 7,500-population sliver of Wayne County is guaranteed a senator (currently, Education Chairman Robert Plymale), while the remaining 100,000 or so residents in Cabell County can have no more than one senator.)
If Deem prevails, it will have huge ramifications in future elections. Consider the 8th Senatorial District, which because of population losses in Kanawha County, now consists of the northern halves of Kanawha and Putnam counties.
No one from Kanawha filed to run since the 8th District incumbent, Senate Judiciary Chairman Corey Palumbo, D-Kanawha, isn't up for election in 2012.
Meanwhile, there is an odd sense of symmetry to West Virginia's archaic multimember legislative districts, with House districts favoring candidates from more urban areas, while the Senate provision assures overrepresentation of rural parts of the state.
***
As demotions go, Jacqueline Proctor's abrupt transfer from communications director for Gov. Tomblin to a long-vacant position of deputy commissioner of tourism isn't a bad one.
At Tourism, there are no calls in the middle of the night for natural disasters or mine explosions, and there's the opportunity not only to visit tourist sites around the state, but to attend conferences and conventions around the country. And, at her current salary of $70,789, Proctor would make a little bit more than her new boss, Commissioner Betty Carver.
Meanwhile, landing Amy Shuler Goodwin to succeed Proctor is a coup for Tomblin.
During my time covering the Statehouse, the best of the best when it comes to gubernatorial communication directors/press secretaries have been Carolyn Curry, under Gov. Caperton, and Lara Ramsburg under Gov. Manchin, but Goodwin (under Gov. Wise), wouldn't be far behind.
(With an honorable mention for special effects to Dan Page (Underwood), who would get red in the face and seemingly levitate two feet off the ground during his frequent tirades over the Gazette editorial du jour.)
Besides strengthening Tomblin's connections with the Goodwin family, Goodwin has a strong background in TV, a medium with which the governor is still not entirely comfortable.
***
Finally, as evidence of the level of goodwill this session, Delegate Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, got to preside, briefly, over the House floor session Thursday.
When Speaker Thompson motioned him up to the podium, Carmichael assumed he wanted to discuss a pending bill, which is not uncommon. Instead, the speaker said he needed a bathroom break, and instructed Carmichael to take over.
At one point during Carmichael's brief tenure at the helm, Delegate Mike Caputo, D-Marion, rose to quip, "I guess this would be a good time to take up the right-to-work bill."
Reach Phil Kabler at ph...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1220.
