Legislative Litmus Test
Mountain State Spotlight, an excellent news organization, sums up the 2024 legislative session this way:
Teachers, state troopers and correctional workers will receive pay raises — and the budget contains a 5% raise for state employees.
Lawmakers said they wanted to boost the state’s workforce, but all they did was pass a bill cutting unemployment benefits.
A last-minute move to relax childhood vaccine requirements now means kids in virtual schools won't have to be vaccinated if they have medical reasons why they shouldn't be — and it will be up to private school administrators if they want to enforce vaccine requirements.
Lawmakers did little to address the state’s environmental and energy struggles.
The Republican supermajority repeatedly targeted transgender and non-binary West Virginians, including a bill banning non-binary from birth certificates.
Amid West Virginia’s litany of education issues, lawmakers focused on making it easier to kick elementary school kids out of class.
Black West Virginians once again left the session with their needs unaddressed.
Early in the session officials talked big talk about West Virginia’s child care woes, but didn’t move any legislation to improve the situation.
Despite a stern warning from Gov. Justice to not "ruin" high school sports, legislators didn’t address a troublesome athlete transfer portal.
Read their full write-up here.
In particular, the vast majority of bills that were passed failed what I call, "The Legislative Litmus Test." Here it is, in a nutshell:
1) (Most importantly) Does this legislation benefit every citizen of WV, either directly or indirectly?
2) Is the solution this bill provides to the problem it intends to solve the best that it can possibly be? Is the stated problem really the problem.
3) If the only solution to the problem is punitive, is this bill written as narrowly as possible? In particular, does it really need to be punitive at all? Is there a companion bill that might make this bill, and its punishments, eventually obsolete?
Too idealistic? I don't think so. I think that when we apply punitive measures, we ought to make sure there really is no other way to address the problem. I think that tradeoffs in funding need to be thought through carefully. And, as I have stated elsewhere, I think we should always beware of false economies.