CHARLESTON — The last day of the 60-day legislative session got off to a cantankerous start with the death of the medical cannabis bill. Things warmed up, though, when the last tweaks to the foster care bill drew praises from both sides of the aisle.
Some were looking forward to the passage Saturday of SB 752, the updates to the
medical cannabis program. It had a long list of amendments pending on Thursday that were to be considered Saturday on third reading, some of
them viewed by supporters as bill-killers. But it got pulled from the agenda in the Rules Committee before the floor session started.
The bill would have allowed the Medical Cannabis Advisory Board to recommend to the commissioner of the Bureau of Public Health to add to or subtract from the current list of means to deliver medical cannabis. So dry leaf and smoking could be added at a later date. It also allowed the advisory board to recommend updates to the list of conditions that could be certified for treatment.
Current law allows terminal cancer patients to obtain medical cannabis from other states with compatible laws. This is called reciprocity, and the bill expanded reciprocity to all medical cannabis patients.
The death of the bill angered many Democrats, and Delegate Mick Bates, D-Raleigh, voiced his anger by objecting to a daily routine occurrence: The dispensing with the reading of the journal. That’s usually done by unanimous consent as a formality, but Bates’s objection forced a roll-call vote on a motion to dispense, which passed with a
majority.
Delegate Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, then questioned the speaker’s call on the motion’s passage, saying House rules call for a two-thirds
supermajority.
That led to further arcane discussion of the rules, a quote from Thomas Jefferson and Fluharty eventually conceded.
The bill’s death also prompted an angry press release from the Democrats.
“This bill deserves a fair hearing before the full body of the House of Delegates,” Delegate Mike Caputo, D-Marion, said in the release. “But the program keeps getting killed in backroom committee meetings before it comes to the floor.”
SB 752 passed the Senate Feb. 26 but wasn’t taken up by House Judiciary until Thursday and came to the floor without a committee recommendation.
“The longer it takes for West Virginia’s medical cannabis program to get off the ground,” Bates said in the release, “the longer West Virginia’s patients will be denied access to this medication that has proven results in terms of non-opioid pain management and other ailments.”
And Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said, “It’s disappointing and frustrating that the Republican members of this body chose to, once again, throw cancer patients under the bus, people suffering from MS under the bus, and children who suffer from seizures under the bus. The Medical Cannabis Act was passed in 2017 with overwhelming bipartisan support yet not a single patient has had access to this treatment and not a single dollar of revenue has come in. I blame that on obstructionist Republican politicians.”
Foster care bill
HB 4092 is the foster care bill. The House received the heavily amended Senate version. The House and stakeholders were displeased by some of the changes, but with the governor’s announcement of more available funding on Friday, the Senate restored money it had cut.
Now, the bill keeps all the House funding — $16.8 million — but doesn’t specify how it’s allocated. It preserves the Department of Health and Human Resources’ tiered system that provides more funding for children with higher-level needs.
In order to keep children in their homes or kinship settings, it offers additional services to children and families, and kinship placement resources, such as access to training for certification. It increases payments to noncertified kinship placements, from $284 per month to match Maryland at $306.
The Senate altered the Foster Parent Bill of Rights to remove some redundancies and offer additional protections to protect foster parents from varying department interpretations.
The foster care ombudsman will report annually on complaints so the Legislature can consider updates to both bills of rights — the foster children’s and the foster
parents’.
The bill received praise from both sides of the aisle.
Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said the bill is the most important piece of legislation this session, and he’s pleased the Senate preserved the rate increases for foster parents.
Delegate John Hardy, R-Berkeley, said he was adopted, and he was able to become a productive part of society. “I want all of these children to understand you can be part of something bigger than yourself.”
The House planned to concur the Senate changes with some additional technical amendment. But at about 12:40 p.m., Speaker Roger Hanshaw announced the amendment was flawed and counsel needed to fix it — so they couldn’t vote on it. That led to a one-hour recess and some further delay while it was repaired. The House then adopted the amendment, re-passed the bill 98-1 and sent it back to the Senate.
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