In a back room at the West Virginia Legislature, a Republican lawmaker offered up this idea: “If we could just invent some kind of round device, we could attach a couple of them to a cart and make it much easier to pull. We need a committee to explore this idea. I’ll have my staff draft the bill.”
That didn’t really happen, of course, but the way the Republican super-majority is dragging the state backward, revisiting the invention of the wheel doesn’t seem all that far-fetched. I checked in on our esteemed lawmakers this week to see what they've been up to and sadly, I was not amused by what I found.
Intelligent design
The Senate has passed a bill that would allow intelligent design to be discussed as a “scientific theory” in West Virginia public schools. Under Senate Bill 280, classroom teachers will be free to discuss various scientific theories about how the universe came to exist, including that well-known scientific theory called the Book of Genesis. Proponents believe that intelligent design is a scientific theory based on undefined “evidence” they say can be found in the biological world. Actual scientists who are not religious zealots call it “pseudo-scientific” and say intelligent design is “not testable” through recognized scientific methods.
In God We Trust
If that’s not theocratic enough for you, the Senate has also passed SB 152, requiring that framed signs or posters bearing the motto “In God We Trust” be prominently displayed in all classrooms in every public school or higher learning institution in the state. Similar laws have been passed in states such as Louisiana and Texas, which of course should be used as models for our great state.
Never mind that the U.S. Constitution expressly forbids such obvious examples of state sponsored religion, or that this bill, if passed, will never stand up to the inevitable court challenge. Just know that the Legislature thinks it has sidestepped the Constitution by specifying that these signs must be provided or purchased from private donations. Good luck with that one, your holinesses.
(For the record, Senator Mike Caputo, D-Marion, one of only three Democrats in the 34-member Senate, asked how many classrooms would be involved, noting, “That’s gotta be thousands.” He didn’t get an answer.)
Baby Olivia
On the anti-abortion front, the Senate Education Committee has advanced a bill that will require schools to show students in eighth and tenth grades a three-minute video called “Meet Baby Olivia,” produced by an anti-abortion organization, which begins with an animation of sperm fertilizing an egg as a narrator says, “This is the moment that life begins.” To implement this requirement, Senate Bill 468 has identified a new course it calls “human growth and development” that must be added to the public and charter school curriculums beginning next year.
SB 468 would also require students to view a “high-definition ultrasound video, at least three minutes in duration, showing the development of the brain, heart, sex organs and other vital organs in early fetal development.” If that’s not frightening enough for you, an early version of the bill had suggested that students view the videos as early as third grade.
School choice
New programs related to “school choice” would require the state to spend millions more in the coming year while directing money away from public schools where it is needed and into private education. The state treasurer’s office estimated that an additional $27 million will be necessary for the Hope Scholarship program, which provides financial support for students pursuing their education outside the public school system, because more students are lining up for the program than estimates had indicated. (Hey, it’s free money. Why not get in the line?)
And Governor Jim Justice has advocated for another $5 million in seed money to help start new charter schools. A charter school receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It operates outside the established rules for accountability, but is considered a public school because it could lose its charter if it fails to produce results.
Patricia Rucker, chairwoman of the Senate’s School Choice Committee, said the Hope Scholarship is needed because “public school students for some reason are not getting what they need from the public schools so they are withdrawing and getting education somewhere else. The state funding follows them wherever they go.” (She failed to mention that in 2023, more than $300,000 in Hope Scholarship money followed students to private schools or homeschools located in other states that border West Virginia.)
The Hope Scholarship, launched in 2021, pays out roughly $4,400 per student in taxpayer money for private education that would otherwise go to public schools. Last year, more than 2,300 students were awarded the scholarship funds.
Coal tax credit
Moving on, in keeping with their policy of raping the state’s budget, legislators have approved a bill that would allow coal companies to claim tax credits that will reduce their severance tax liability, which is important to keep coal alive here in the nation’s Extraction State. In some twisted way that defies understanding, the House of Delegates Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has managed to disguise this tax break for the coal industry by linking it to some kind of roadway projects approved by the Department of Transportation. See if you can figure that one out. I don’t think I can.
Windmill tax
At the same time, the Senate’s energy committee has approved a bill to change tax policy for wind power projects, effectively discouraging wind-related investments in the state. I mean, we can’t give tax breaks to the coal barons without sticking it to those windmill-loving Libs, now can we?
Senate Bill 231would increase taxable property valuations and property tax assessments for wind power projects while stripping away their taxable designation as “pollution control facilities.” If the bill becomes law, every tower with a wind turbine attached will be considered real property as long as the tower is “affixed to the ground.” Apparently, it won’t apply to wind turbines that are floating freely in space.
For the record, the Republicans hold a 31-3 advantage in the Senate and an 89-11 majority in the House, so any chance of blocking these bills seems to border on impossible. And please note, these are just bills that came to my attention this week. I have no idea what other evil these Trumpaloons are cooking up.
Gee, Mr. Peabody. Why would these people want to do these things?
Because they can, Sherman. Simply because they can.
