They’re wasting valuable time: Clock ticking on regular legislative session as lawmakers ignore many issues at our peril

Time is not just flying in the Legislature.
It’s leaving contrails that increasingly look like they will eventually spell out: “Time’s up.”
Today marks the 37th day of this year’s 60-day regular legislative session and an issue that wasn’t even on the radar is still dominating the sky.
Yes, SB 451 is still up in the air and may not ever be perfected to Senate and House members’ satisfaction, never mind the teachers unions and the rest of us.
And if it ever does land on the governor’s desk it’s probably not going to fly far from there, either.
Meanwhile, the issues that we thought were ready to take flight in this session appear hopelessly grounded.
Take the critical need to reform the Public Employees Insurance Agency.
What recommendations did emerge from the task force the governor appointed last year have yet to gain any traction in the Legislature.
Even more disconcerting, that bill to add $150 million of surplus money to PEIA for hard times is not moving.
Also, who can forget “Jim’s Dream,” another initiative to go head-to-head with that pesky opiod epidemic, which still plagues thousands of state residents.
We are unsure whether this proposal for rehabilitation and job training will make a difference. Yet, this drug scourge demands our attention.
Then there’s “Randy’s Dream,” too. That’s Sen. Randy Smith’s (R-Tucker) unabashed demands to fix the darn roads, as he so adamantly put it.
Many of the rest of us feel that way too, but are not nearly as polite about our demands to maintain and repair our crumbly, pothole-ridden roads.
Other issues like rural broadband access, free tuition for community colleges and technical schools and launching medical marijuana’s availability, etc. also appear to be in some kind of holding pattern.
It’s true, most of us like to think time passes slowly here in the mountains, or it cures what politics and some reason may not.
But we need not look far to see the more time that passes without addressing these and other issues, the more aggravated and complicated they become.
On March 9, the Legislature will adjourn again at midnight for another year, barring the governor’s call for a special session later.
We bring all of this up now because there is still time to look beyond SB 451 and accomplish things the overwhelming majority of state residents want to see done.
Most legislators are probably not clock watchers, but they should be made aware that the next 23 days are not just simply days on the calendar.
Indeed, they may be our best chance this year for things to actually start looking up in West Virginia.