Delegates felt so strongly about a bill limiting the governor’s emergency powers that many made sure to show up for session meant to work out differences with the Senate, but in the end no agreement was reached.
A conference committee of three delegates from each chamber explored whether they could find middle ground while delegates lingered in the hallway outside the standing-room-only meeting.
But at the conclusion of a little less than an hour, senators would not relent from the Senate position and delegates would not relent from the House position. That killed the bill on Day 52 of the 60-day legislative session.
“Thank you all so much. Great seeing you as always,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Trump told the delegates at the end. “I wish you all the best for the last nine days of the session.”
Delegates and senators have had different views on this matter for months.
Over the summer, a supermajority of delegates from both parties signed off on letters asking to be summoned into session to provide legislative oversight of the governor’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including the allocation of federal relief dollars.
But most of the Senate Republican majority took no action, so the Legislature remained sidelined until the regular session began.
During the regular session, the House almost immediately took up a bill with Majority Leader Amy Summers, R-Taylor, as the lead sponsor. Summers and a group of delegates had spent time studying and crafting it before the session began.
“This bill’s sole objective was to rectify a potentially dangerous problem that has arisen in our state: Place a firm check against the executive branch and put an end to arbitrary one-man rule, something that is entirely foreign antithetical to the American way,” said Delegate Pat McGeehan, R-Hancock, who gathered 61 signatures for special session last summer.
An original version of House Bill 2003 passed by delegates established a 60-day time limit for emergency declarations unless the Legislature would extend the time. A legislative extension could last 30 days more — or the Legislature could remove the declaration.
Last week, the Senate considered that bill and changed it. Under the Senate’s version, declarations could could be extended through written correspondence that includes notice and explanation to legislative leaders every 30 days as long as condition would remain in effect.
The House refused to concur with those changes and asked the Senate to back off. The Senate refused to do that, setting up a conference committee.
Senate conferees were Trump, Republican Charles Clements of Wetzel County and Democrat Stephen Baldwin, the minority leader from Greenbrier County.
House conferees were Summers, Republican Jeff Pack of Raleigh County and Democrat Nathan Brown of Mingo County.
At one point, during vigorous discussion, Trump reached out to fist bump Pack.
For more than a year, Governor Justice has been making decisions about the coronavirus pandemic with orders based on his own State of Emergency declaration last March 16 and a section of state code describing the governor’s emergency powers.
The orders cite one of those powers giving the governor the authority “to control ingress and egress to and from a disaster area or an area where large-scale threat exists, the movement of persons within the area and the occupancy of premises therein.”
In other words, Justice has been citing the large-scale threat of the virus to restrict people’s movements. That included a stay-at-home order last spring, the closures and reopenings of schools, restrictions on visits to nursing homes and hospitals, a mandate on facial coverings, crowd limits in restaurants and bars and more.
“This is about in the future what we think our role should be in the process of extending states of emergency and extended executive orders,” Summers said. “We’re changing the process for the future.”
They gathered in the Senate President’s conference room this morning and aired their differences. More delegates crowded into the room or peered in the door from the hallway.
Conference Committee on HB2003 https://t.co/F6eciOmBjT
— Ann Ali (@AskAnnAli) April 2, 2021
Trump argued against the House proposal, saying the Constitution provides the governor with the discretionary power to call the Legislature into session. Putting into law an apparatus forcing the governor to do so would be unconstitutional, Trump said.
“The House proposal seems to require upon pain of some consequence the governor to exercise what is purely and clearly a discretionary constitutional power,” the senator said.
“I believe the proposal violates the Constitution of West Virginia and violates the separation of powers.”
Pack, speaking for the House conferees, disagreed.
“The House does not feel this is usurpation of the governor’s constitutional authority,” Pack said.
“If he believes firmly continuance of executive order is in interest of the state, the Legislature should have the opportunity to discuss that.”
In the end, all of the senators voted to reject the House position. All of the delegates voted to reject the Senate position.
That effectively ends the bill’s viability this session.
McGeehan, a sponsor who advocated for its passage throughout the session, was frustrated.
“The failure of this bill is disappointing, but not surprising,” he said today. “Many within the so-called leadership of the Senate and the House simply never gave this critically fundamental issue the priority it deserved. As a result, the bill received little attention since it first passed the House and this complacency allowed time to run short, which was likely done by design.
“It’s been my experience here that some people simply place less value on the best ideas and more on the path of least resistance.”
Both chambers did pass a separate bill asserting the Legislature’s role of approving expenditures even in situations like the recent rounds of federal relief. The bill cites a $150 million limit for the governor’s spending authority of unanticipated federal dollars during emergencies without legislative approval.
That bill now goes to the governor to accept or reject.
“We believe there is a role for the legislature in long-term executive decisions,” Pack said.