MORGANTOWN — An attempt to revive the CROWN Act by plugging it into a different bill fizzled Wednesday evening in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The bill up for consideration was HB 5232, and update to the 2018 Business Liability and Protection Act, which was nicknamed the Parking Lot Gun Bill because it prohibited private or public sector employers from preventing an employee, customer or invitee from keeping a firearm properly locked out of sight inside the vehicle from parking in the parking lot.
Portions of that bill were struck down in court and, in response, this bill is aimed at protecting employees from getting fired for having a gun securely locked inside their vehicle.
Committee chair Charles Trump, R-Morgan, has been an advocate of the CROWN act and attempted to amend a scaled-down version of it into this bill. It aimed to prohibit discrimination based on race – under the state Human Rights Act – that includes discrimination based on hair textures and protective hairstyles commonly or historically associated with a particular race, where the term “protective hairstyles” includes braids, locks, and twists.
The CROWN Act previously barely passed out of Judiciary and was killed on the Senate floor under the reasoning it would cost the state more money through increased lawsuits.
It met with strenuous objection and long debate again on Wednesday, and Sen. Patrick Martin, R-Lewis, managed to kill it again by suggesting the act wasn’t germane to a gun bill – which was sustained by the Senate clerk.
Trump expressed disappointment, saying he felt the addition was germane because both aspects – the guns and the hair – prohibit discrimination against employees. But he supported the scaled-down version the committee approved. “I’m not a sour grapes guy.”
Other bills
The committee took HB 4320, concerning parental access to a child’s medical records, and amended into it a bill to prohibit medically assisted suicide and euthanasia. It essentially became a completely new bill and will have a new title.
Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, supported the new measure but regretted losing the medical records portion that came from the House. Trump said he also would like to see that revived and will look for another bill to amend it into.
The committee also originated and approved a resolution for an interim study of the cost, need and viability of reinstating capital punishment in the state, which was abolished in 1965.
Before the session began, Senate President Craig Blair said he wanted to co-sponsor a bill to provide for capital punishment for the illicit manufacture, sale and distribution of fentanyl. That plan never went anywhere.
The resolution will get a number on the Senate floor.
Email: dbeard@dominionpost.com
