'They don’t want to hear people': How the WV GOP supermajority limits public input

Toward the back, a couple of delegates were talking amongst themselves. Smith asked if they had a question. “This isn’t the time for questions,” said Delegate Joe Ellington, R-Mercer County, who chairs the committee. Three times, Smith started to speak, but Ellington cut him off within seconds. “You have two minutes left, use them or lose them.”

Before Smith had a chance to finish the point he’d sat for hours on a bench to make, Ellington told him to sit.

“You’re dismissed,” Ellington said.

House Bill 3452 would move courses for adults — to get jobs as nurses, truck drivers and electricians — from county school boards to community colleges. Smith said the current setup is working.

Worried that lawmakers didn’t know what the change would do, Smith came to the Capitol to tell them. It was his first time. He’s one of the few regular folks to make the trip this year and get to speak.

“They don’t want to hear what people have to say,” he said.

In an interview, Ellington defended his actions.

“That’s my venue up there, and he has to play by our rules.”

GOP changed the rules for public input

This session, the Republicans, who control all the levers of power in West Virginia state government, changed those rules.

After decades of Democratic control, the GOP won enough seats in 2014 to control the Legislature. In the decade since then, they have built an even stronger majority. They now hold 91 of 100 House seats.

Republican delegates can block recorded votes on important steps in the legislative process. They can skip reading bills on three consecutive days. They have tight control over committee agendas.

And this year, House Republicans used their muscle to eliminate public hearings.

For decades, any West Virginian could ask for a public hearing on a bill. The committee would give a two-day notice of a hearing, typically held in the morning inside the House Chambers.

People from around the state would come and speak their mind to the bill. Last year, a bill that could’ve resulted in librarians going to jail, drew a crowd of supporters and critics. That hearing ended up on the comedian John Oliver’s show when he aired a portion of the hearing in which a woman repeatedly read into the record a vulgarity for female genitalia.

The bill ultimately failed.

Under the new process, committees must consider a bill on two separate days. Previously, legislation could be rushed through committee with only one meeting.

Now, on the first day, sponsors explain bills and take questions. The first meeting includes “taking testimony” from experts — and the public — at the discretion of the committee chair. On the second day, lawmakers make any changes and vote on it.

House leaders said the changes were an improvement.

“The public has all the opportunity it had to engage before, plus more,” House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said in an interview before the session. The new process would allow citizens to “come before the body that’s actually making the decision at the time the decision’s being made.”

Who speaks, mostly, at committee hearings?

Two-thirds of the way through the legislative session, more than half of those who spoke to committees about specific bills or broad issues have been paid lobbyists, representatives of associations or business executives, not regular citizens, according to a Mountain State Spotlight review of publicly available committee minutes.

Separately, state and local officials spoke often about how potential laws would affect them, or needs in their budgets. Under the old rules, lawmakers regularly called up these types of people.

House spokesperson Ann Ali declined to comment on the effectiveness of the new system. She noted that the old system didn’t include “a blanket call to the room for anyone who was there to testify to step up to the podium and do so.”

On Feb. 10, just a few days before the House eliminated the hearings, environmental, criminal justice and civil rights organizations held a press conference outside the House Chamber, urging lawmakers not to do so.

One by one, the speakers stepped up to a lectern, next to a sign on an easel reading, “Let the People Speak!” Deputy House Speaker David Kelly stood to the side, taking the scene in.

When the press conference was over, Kelly spoke to reporters, telling them the new system would preserve public input and could even solicit more.

“Let’s give this process a chance to work,” said Kelly, a Republican from Tyler County.

Thirty-nine days later, Kelly acknowledged there hasn’t been an increase of average West Virginians coming to the Capitol to speak out.

“We are hearing from stakeholders, we are hearing from experts, you’re right on that,” Kelly said. “But there have been instances where people have spoken, maybe not as much as you had envisioned.”

On its website, the House added a button on the pages for individual bills that allows people to submit comments. Kelly said he’s seeing a lot more input from citizens here.

“It’s been beneficial to me during a committee meeting to be able to go to those comments and see what people are saying,” Kelly said.

Obstacles to the public?

In order to show up and ask to speak, citizens need to know what bills committees are contemplating.

On March 4, the House Energy and Public Works committee took up legislation that could allow companies to pollute more into West Virginia rivers and streams. The change was not on the agenda.

In the first meeting, the committee took testimony. This was the only opportunity for the public to tell lawmakers what they thought about the bill.

Two people spoke — a lawyer for the state’s manufacturers, who proposed the bill, and the director of the West Virginia Rivers group. A few days later, the committee held their second meeting. It was time to vote.

Two Capitol Police officers stood by the doors as a committee lawyer explained the bill and took a few questions from lawmakers.

From a bench along the wall, Jeff Seager, a South Charleston resident, asked to ask a question.

“We don’t take questions from the public at this time,” said committee chair Delegate Bill Anderson, R-Wood.

“Will there be public comment?” the man asked twice, interrupted by a delegate shouting “objection.”

“There will be no more comments,” Anderson said.

As delegates prepared to vote, Seager stood silently and raised his hand in the air. The room paused. One of the police officers walked over and told him that public comment was not allowed. Seager sat down.

Later, Seager said, “They seem to be obfuscating and disallowing public comment as much as they can.”

In the face of the new rules, the public won’t shut up.

On St. Patrick’s Day, students, activists and volunteers from across the state came to the Capitol to speak out against bills that would allow more pollution into state rivers and streams.

On the top of their agenda was a bill that would weaken regulations governing aboveground storage of dangerous chemicals put into place following the 2014 Elk River disaster.

It’s the type of bill ripe for a public hearing. Last year, 18 people spoke about a bill that would’ve weakened community air monitoring programs. Almost all were against it.

During the lunch hour, advocates held a “People’s Public Hearing” in front of the House Chamber.

“I had showered in contaminated water. I was sick for a couple of days,” said Honey May, who was a single mother with two young children at the time of the spill.

Few delegates stopped to listen to her story and others.

And in a large room down the hall, the West Virginia Coal Association had brought in food from Panera. At a lectern, its director addressed a couple dozen delegates as they ate.