Sifting through national commentaries lately, we’ve been struck by a sense of déjà vu. Syndicated columnists, editorial boards and less-frequent commentators are addressing many of the same political issues we’re seeing here in West Virginia: Bans on gender affirming care, drag shows, “critical race theory” and abortion, as well as pushes to crack down on nonexistent voter fraud and efforts to defund public education in the name of “school choice.”
The similarities between what’s happening here and what’s happening in (particularly southern and red) states across the country are uncanny. But that in itself is a stark reminder that so much of what’s happening in statehouses lately — including ours — isn’t being driven by local needs and wants, but by national organizations pushing radical agendas.
We’ve previously discussed form/model bills in the past: They’re pieces of legislation written by special interest groups and sent to lawmakers across the nation. Unfortunately, West Virginia’s lawmakers have been all too happy the last few years to let groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) write bills for them. Even the push for tax cuts is being led by the Tax Foundation, a national think tank. This isn’t the first time we’ve called out lazy legislating, and it probably won’t be the last.
It’s equal parts disappointing and frustrating to see how much effort legislators are putting into national culture war issues and how little effort they’re putting into local infrastructure and social services.
A number of bills died last week that would have addressed actual problems West Virginia faces: loopholes in our sexual assault and child protection laws, economic diversity, lack of affordable housing, food deserts and lack of affordable child care. If you search the West Virginia Legislature’s bill tracking website for legislation under the category “infrastructure,” exactly one result appears. If you keyword search “road,” you get a couple dozen bills, most of which died in committee. Only five bills come up for “broadband,” and the only one that passed was to revise the membership of the Broadband Enhancement Council.
Instead, the Legislature has focused its efforts on diverting tax dollars to private education; forcing college campuses to allow concealed carry even though it’s still not allowed on Capitol grounds; prioritizing “religious freedom,” which is to say, allowing discrimination on the basis of Christian beliefs; inserting religion into classrooms and obsessing over children’s genitals and gender expression.
Many of the lawmakers in Charleston today spent the last couple years campaigning on promises to fix West Virginia’s crumbling roads, to expand the state’s deficient broadband and to address the failures of certain government-run services. But as soon as they got to the Capitol, all their promises flew out the window. They opted to take on culture-war-themed model bills handed down from national special interest groups instead of rolling up their sleeves and doing the hard work of tackling the state’s actual problems.
West Virginians should expect better from their lawmakers than this kind of lazy legislating.
