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West Virginia lawmakers tout progress at session’s midpoint

Senate President Mitch Carmichael talks Thursday about the business and inventory tax during the Legislative Breakfast sponsored by the West Virginia Press Association. To the right are House Speaker Roger Hanshaw and House Democratic Minority Leader Tim Miley. (Photo by Jess Mancini)

CHARLESTON — Thursday marked the halfway point of the 2020 legislative session, and leaders of both the Senate and House of Delegates Thursday briefed reporters, editors and publishers of the state’s daily and weekly newspapers.

The West Virginia Press Association held its annual Legislative Breakfast at the Cultural Center in Charleston. Attendees heard from Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson; House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay; House Minority Leader Tim Miley, D-Harrison; and state Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone.

So far, nine bills have passed both the House and Senate, with two of those bills being signed Wednesday by Gov. Jim Justice. Carmichael said the focus for his chamber in the remaining 30 days was passing legislation to lift West Virginia out of the outlier category.

“We live in a state that is on the rebound. We are doing better, but there is so much more we can do,” Carmichael said. “Our efforts are to put West Virginia in the mainstream. We want to allow our people to compete for jobs and opportunity on a level playing field. When we’re out of step with the rest of America, we need to get in line.”

One of those efforts is Senate Joint Resolution 8, phasing out the business and inventory tax on manufacturing machinery and equipment. The resolution would phase out the tax over four years and eliminate $100 million in tax revenue that goes to provide funding for county governments and school systems. That funding would have to be replaced by the governor through the general revenue fund.

“We have to realize when we put this tax on our entities that want to create jobs, growth, and manufacturing…we’re hurting our own people,” Carmichael said. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at a map and see that West Virginia is an incredible outlier with this tax. We’re working hard to find ways to eliminate that tax. It’s not easy, otherwise it would be done.”

The resolution requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the Legislature, and a vote by the public in a special election. It remains in the Senate Judiciary Committee, though Carmichael said he expects the committee to take up the resolution. Stollings, a Democratic candidate for governor in the May 12 primary, said Senate Democrats remain concerned about keeping county budgets whole.

“The fear of a lot of Senate Democrats, and I suspect House Democrats, is that if we cut or did away with the business and inventory tax, that’s a $100 million dollar hole in the local county and school system budget. If we can find a replacement, then we can find a way to get rid of this regressive tax.”

Another focus for Carmichael is Senate Bill 275, creating an intermediate court of appeals. SB 275 would create a northern and southern district court between the circuit courts and the Supreme Court to hear appeals. The new court would hear appeals of circuit court civil cases, guardianships and conservatorships, family court cases and decisions made by administrative law judges, the Health Care Authority and Workers’ Compensation Commission.

“It’s essential, we believe, for West Virginia,” Carmichael said. “We’re the largest state in America that doesn’t have an intermediate court of appeals.”

Hanshaw said he took inspiration from Wednesday meeting of the bipartisan Tech Caucus and a discussion with West Virginia native and retired Cisco CEO John Chambers for how he plans to approach the next 30 days.

“We either have to be disruptive or we have to be disrupted,” Hanshaw said. “The question is how do we be disruptive?”

Hanshaw said House committees are focused on job creation and dealing with issues that plague the state, such as criminal justice reform, changes to the state’s bond and bail requirements and helping West Virginians convicted of crimes get back on payrolls and be productive citizens.

“We know that the county jail bills are plaguing all of our counties in West Virginia,” Hanshaw said. “It’s even a problem for individuals, because we know that when individuals spend their time in incarceration, they’re not being productive members of our society, they’re not accruing skills that make them marketable in their communities and they’re not providing for their families and building a life here in West Virginia as we want them to do.”

The House is still working on foster care reform bills, occupational licensing reform to help more people get into the workforce, changing how driver’s licenses are revoked to ensure people can get to work and a funding formula for higher education to provide more certainty to their budgets.

For Miley, Thursday’s breakfast would be his last time addressing members of the press. The former House speaker will retire this year and is not seeking another term. Miley encouraged the state to be honest about its condition and what it needs to do to change for the better.

“We do ourselves a tremendous disservice, as the media and as the press, by not being honest about where we are and where we need to go,” Miley said. “I think there is too much risk for us not to be honest about where we are. We need to identify a goal, we need to identify where we are, and then we need to identify the processes we need to met our goal.”

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.

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