The start of a legislative session can sometimes be boring. Sure, there is pomp and circumstance, the swearing in of new members, the pageantry of the State of the State. But in between all of that is a bunch of sitting around and waiting.

Not so for the start of the 2023 legislative session on Wednesday. In the days leading up to the start of session, Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, told the press and public to pay attention. He warned the Senate was going to quickly pass up to 25 bills on day one.

The Senate the last few years has taken day one to pass out bills, suspending constitutional rules requiring bills be read on three separate days and quickly sending a handful of bills to the House of Delegates. Usually these are bills that passed the Senate the year before, often unanimously and with support of the Senate Democratic caucus, but simply never made it over the finish line in the House.

The Senate passed 23 bills Wednesday, some of which met that criteria. The hospital reimbursement fix for the Public Employees Insurance Agency was one such bill. The Senate passed that bill last year but the House stuck it on their inactive bill calendar and never took it up.

With Wheeling Hospital firing across the bow of the ship of state by announcing they would stop accepting PEIA effective July 1 due to the low in-state PEIA reimbursement rates compared to what out-of-state hospitals receive, quick action was needed. The Senate can say “I told you so” for trying to tackle this last year. Gov. Jim Justice’s budget for the next fiscal year includes funding to cover raising the reimbursement rates in anticipation of this bill.

But while I was expecting quick action from the Senate on reforming the Department of Health and Human Resources, I wasn’t expecting them to pass a brand-new bill splitting DHHR into three departments on day one. But they did, and did so unanimously. I suspect the bill was written in part by former DHHR deputy secretary Jeremiah Samples, who now works for the Legislature. I’ll have a detailed story on how that bill works next week.

I was also not expecting the return so soon of the anti-critical race theory bill. Sure, I knew the bill itself would return. I predicted as much last week in this column and the bill’s lead sponsor last year, Delegate Chris Pritt, R-Kanawha, reintroduced it in the House on Wednesday. Last year’s bill was watered down from where it started when Pritt first introduced it, but it died in the final seconds of the 2022 session in the Senate.

And two new bills the Senate passed on day one put some controls on how long states of emergency can be and how much federal money sent to the state during emergencies can be spent at one time. The Legislature put a $150 million limit on the governor a few years ago, requiring legislative approval for any spending higher than that. The new bill from the Senate lowers that threshold to $10 million in any given fiscal year.

—

The $10 million cap bill should tell you exactly how the Senate feels about Gov. Jim Justice right now. It was only a few years ago the Senate helped kill a bill from the House to limit the governor’s state of emergency powers. It was also only a few years ago when the Senate and the governor were arm-in-arm on phasing out the personal income tax.

Senate Republicans I’ve talked to are still in favor of phasing out or cutting personal income tax rates, but don’t expect them to go along with Justice’s plan to cut the personal income tax by 50% over the next three years.

I find it interesting that the governor’s plan would return as much as $800 million to taxpayers after year three. That’s nearly the same amount as the Senate Republicans’ plan they were going to introduce this year had voters approved Amendment 2 in November. Their plan would have returned $515 million to taxpayers had voters given them the constitutional authority to eliminate six categories of tangible personal property taxes, plus they had their own 10% personal income tax cut, returning around $250 million to taxpayers.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Justice’s tax plan would return the same amount of money to taxpayers as Senate Republicans wanted to do. The Senate turned up its nose in the summer at Justice’s 10% personal income tax cut, preferring to focus on Amendment 2 and its own tax reform plan. Justice hit the road leading up to November to rally the public against Amendment 2 and the amendment went down in flames.

So, will the Senate go along, make their own changes, or radically alter the Governor’s plan in spite? Stay tuned.

—

One thing to watch this session is whether some lawmakers will tweak the laws to hurt or help various candidates for certain offices, such as governor.

One bill that was briefly on a committee agenda Thursday, Senate Bill 66, seems squarely aimed at Republican candidate for governor Chris Miller, the owner of the Dutch Miller automotive chain in southern West Virginia and son of Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va. The bill’s sole sponsor is Sen. Eric Nelson, R-Kanawha, who once shared the 35th multi-member House district with House Judiciary Committee Chairman fellow Republican candidate for governor Moore Capito, R-Kanawha.

The bill’s only major change to current state code removes an exemption in election law that allows candidates for office to advertise products or services that do not mention their candidacy.

I don’t know where all these ads are, but I know Miller has ads in “West Virginia Executive Magazine” that appear to blur the line between an advertisement for Dutch Miller and a campaign ad. The one-page ad includes Miller’s photo and campaign logo at the top, two columns of text promoting Dutch Miller and Miller’s upbringing, and a sidebar promoting Miller’s campaign.

I agree the ads are confusing at best and cross a line at worst. But the bill seems squarely targeted at one single candidate.