(Reporter's Notebook by Steven Allen Adams - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Starting with my first regular legislative session back as a reporter for this newspaper in 2019 (my first session back was the special session on impeachment of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in the summer of 2018), I would title my columns “Week x at the Legislature.”

I haven’t done that this session. Because honestly, this session has not been worth writing about in my weekly “Reporter’s Notebook” column except in a couple instances (the governor’s State of the State address, the bill lifting criminal liability protections from librarians).

This has been one of the most lackluster legislative sessions I’ve been witness to, and this would be the 14th legislative session I’ve monitored closely as either a reporter, legislative staffer or executive branch staffer. I’ve seen a lot of sessions. I’ve even seen some low-key sessions during election years. But this one takes the cake.

Don’t take my word for it. Two people who are likely opposed on nearly every major issue — House Minority Whip Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, and Republican political operative Greg Thomas — agreed about the pace and content of the session on separate radio interviews last week.

“This legislative session is probably the slowest and dumbest legislative session, the bills coming out of here,” Fluharty said to WV MetroNews Talkline host Hoppy Kercheval.

“I’m not trying to be critical of them overall; I’m being critical of the session,” Thomas said on the Dave Allen Show on 580 WCHS Radio in Charleston. “I think they’ve done a great job in passing the most conservative legislative agenda over the last seven years. I think this session, though, there’s a little bit of complacency.”

Thomas, who has worked over the years to elect many of the individuals in the state Senate and House of Delegates, pointed to a number of factors affecting this session: the election year, a lame-duck governor (Jim Justice) who is more focused on running for U.S. Senate and therefore kept his legislative agenda to a minimum, key leaders of the House and Senate judiciary committees running for higher offices (Moore Capito stepped down from the House to run for governor; Charles Trump remains in the Senate, but looks to be the next justice of the state Supreme Court), and high turnover in the House.

I’ve said that this session was going to go one of two ways: it was either going to be a quiet session with lawmakers doing easy, non-controversial legislation in order to not rock the boat during an election year; or we were going to see a whole bunch of bills aimed at Republican primary voters so that elected lawmakers can fend off primary challenges by candidates to their political right.

It turns out the Legislature was able to do it both ways.

At this point, nearly three dozen bills have passed both the House and Senate. Thirteen of those bills have been signed by Justice. All will impact your life in various ways; I leave it up to you to look and see and determine which bills you think might be important. I always say every bill is important to at least one person, even if that person is just the lead sponsor of the bill.

As you read this, we’re just two days away from Crossover Day, when each chamber must pass its remaining bills and send them to the opposite chamber for consideration. But as I sit here, the only major piece of legislation outstanding is the budget bill, which isn’t subject to those limitations.

I think the only thing the governor will be able to hang his hat on is the bill to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits, but even that has been changed to a three-year phase out. And while it is good to phase this out, it only really affects 50,000 senior households with income above $50,000 for single filers and $100,000 for joint filers. I’m sure those taxpayers are excited and I’m sure the AARP is excited, but what reason does anyone else have to be excited?

And so much time has been spent on bills to deal with perceived social conservative problems in a pretty solid conservative state where the issues being addressed likely are only happening in urban areas where the politics there are more moderate or even left of where most West Virginians stand. Passage of these bills will provide certain Republican lawmakers facing primaries from their right flank some cover, but I still don’t know what problems are being solved.

Even Thomas — a social conservative — said during his radio appearance that he would have to vote against many of these bills if he were a lawmaker due to just how poorly these bills have been drafted, in many cases not being looked at by constitutional attorneys or being vetted in any real way.

Quite frankly, this has been one of the most mentally draining sessions I have ever covered and I’m counting down the days until it is over.

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