(Graphic Illustration/MetroCreative)
Well, recently’s unique session may be the most uncommon unique session I’ve seen in 13 years of being below the golden dome of the State Capitol Building.
I’ve never ever seen an unique session pronouncement launched offering legislators a simple thirty minutes to gavel in. Sure, legislators were already in Charleston for August legal interim conferences, however definitely not all of them.
There were just 4 interim committee conferences scheduled Sunday, many legislators were going to wait to come to Charleston Sunday night or very first thing Monday early morning. I’ve even heard inform of legislators going beyond the speed restricts to get to Charleston due to the fact that they were still on the roadway.
The pronouncement came out around 3:30 p.m. Sunday, calling the Legislature into unique session at 4 p.m. The House of Delegates didn’t gavel in up until after 5 p.m. and the state Senate didn’t gavel-in up until after 6 p.m. Luckily, I brought a match coat and tie — needed garments for male press reporters on the House and Senate floorings — in case a last-minute unique session pronouncement boiled down from Gov. Jim Justice.
I’m not exactly sure what the record is for variety of expenses on an unique session call, however I was not anticipating 44. That took some legislators by surprise also. Sure, most expected a bill to fix the vehicle tangible personal property tax issue or additional highway paving/maintenance funding. Many hoped there would be bills to deal with funding for volunteer fire departments after a bill to do that died on the last night of the 2023 regular session, as well as legislation to address the correctional crisis.
But 44 bills, most of which were supplemental appropriations, is a lot to stomach at once and with short notice. Legislative leadership might have been aware of what was going to be on the special session call, but most of the rank-and-file legislators had no clue. Even some members of key committee leadership, like finance committees, were blindsided.
The governor’s office swears up and down it only wanted a road funding bill and the rest of the bills were what the House and Senate leaders wanted on the call. If you talk to some in House leadership, the majority of of the bills were things the Senate wanted and the House could do without. I’m sure those in the Senate would say the opposite. It’s like that meme with the different Spider-Men pointing at each other.
All I know is when a governor calls a special session, he can put any bill on the call. The governor might consult lawmakers about what bills should be included, but he certainly doesn’t have to. And the Legislature can’t simply say no, we don’t want to meet in special session. They can either vote the bills up or down, but they can’t add to the bills on the call after the fact.
No doubt some of the bills were put on the call at the request of some members of the House and Senate. But other bills? Why would the Legislature want to willingly give the governor $210 million for the Governor’s Civil Contingency Fund? What about the $1 million that was going to go to GameChanger, Justice’s pet substance use prevention nonprofit chaired by political fixer Larry Puccio?
I just don’t buy what I’ve been told.
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Out of the 44 bills, only 35 passed the Legislature. One of those bills would have retroactively changed the formula used to determine how much end-of-fiscal-year tax revenue surplus to put into the state Rainy Day Fund. Instead of putting $231 million in the Rainy Day Fund by the 60-day deadline at the end of this month, the state would have only put in $87.5 million.
I spent Sunday evening like Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man” with numbers floating around my head trying to figure out how there were between $700 million and $800 million in supplemental appropriations when there was only about $451 million remaining of the $1.8 billion in surplus tax revenue the state ended the previous fiscal year with at the end of June.
Some of that money was freed by the state tweaking the revenue estimate for the current fiscal year by reducing some line items and increasing others, but a good chunk of it would have come from about $144 million in additional surplus dollars had the Legislature passed SB 2001 or HB 101. But while the Senate passed its version on day one on Sunday, the House Finance Committee voted Monday not to recommend their version for passage.
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One quick pet peeve: democracy is not dead simply because the House or Senate suspends state constitutional rules to skip having a costs read on three separate days. The state Constitution allows for this procedure; it’s been used by both parties, the motion itself is uncontroversial.
But where I do have a problem is we, in the public and the media, not being given at least a day to go through the expenses before they are considered. Special session proclamations only include broad descriptions of the expenses, and the bills can’t be made public until they are formally introduced.
With 44 bills on a special session call, that’s a lot of reading to do on brief notification and with deadlines. It’s also a really easy way to rush things through before the general public can absorb what is going on.
Steven Allen Adams can be reached at [email protected]
