Legislative forecasters predict a special session of the Legislature will be called when lawmakers meet for committee interims Aug. 6-8. The current direction of Gov. Jim Justice’s winds — sorry, whims — suggests the special session will be to push surplus funds toward highways, but the low pressure system — pardon, low employment situation — hovering over West Virginia’s correctional system could cause a shift in focus.
Since predicting what politicians will do is a lot like predicting the weather, we couldn’t resist some bad weather puns. Analogies aside, there is a good possibility that when legislators meet in August for their scheduled committee interims, Justice will call for a special session. What that special session will focus on — highway funding or jail staffing — is a little harder to forecast.
The proposition of a special session is a double-edged sword for us. We stand by our statement earlier this year that we do not support a special session. The Legislature had 60 days during the regular session to address West Virginia’s roads and to work on a solution for low employment in the state’s prisons. Lawmakers chose to put their time and energy and our taxpayer dollars toward useless culture war bills and tax cuts that we still believe the state will regret in the future.
We don’t believe legislators should get the bonus pay that comes with a special session for doing the work now — however greatly needed — that they should have been doing January through March. However, roads always need attention, and the jail staffing crisis should be addressed sooner rather than later, before the situation goes from worrisome to downright dangerous.
So if Justice is going to call a special session — which he most likely is — then it should be to address the jail staffing crisis instead of talking about more money for highways.
Don’t get us wrong, highway repair and maintenance are important. Even better for politicians, roadwork is very visual (you see it happening, or not happening) and immediately gratifying (instantaneous relief for you and your car). It’s also a “promise kept” for many politicians that they can take on the campaign trail.
However, the extremely low employment levels in the state’s jails and prisons is a far more immediate problem, so that’s the one legislators should focus on. Unfortunately, it’s not as visible as roadwork and it has less impact on the everyday West Virginian, which doesn’t make it great campaign fodder. But it’s still necessary.
Justice has said he won’t call a special session for the jail staffing crisis until he receives indication that his office, the House of Delegates and the Senate are all on the same page. So perhaps Justice should approach the special session like a parent encouraging children to eat their veggies: No special session for designating surplus funds for highways (dessert) until there’s a viable solution for the jails (vegetables). Fix the crisis, then you can have your campaign material.
