Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen... Eisenhower

Agenda and Issues...

1... Informed consent for women

seeking abortion providing for a 24-hour advance notice of who will be performing the abortion, information on risks and alternatives as developed by DHHR. (S.B. 283) 3/08/02 RC#250 (75-25).

2... Offering license plates

displaying patriotic themes, volunteer firefighters, judges and "PRO LIFE" plates. (H.B. 2910) 1/30/02 RC# 15 (78-20).

3... Restricting locations of businesses offering exotic entertainment

by broadening the county commissions' power to regulate exotic dancing locations in certain instances. (S.B. 104) 2/12/02 RC#33 (95-0).

4... Amendment eliminating the mandate in the bill that all counties have pre-kindergarten program

for four-year olds within a decade at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. This mandate/jobs program for WVEA was to offset loss of teachers as the state continues to lose thousands of students. Head Start and other federally funded programs would be replaced by state dollars and state teachers. Four-year old children would be placed on buses with kids two and three times older. Teachers with BA's and MA's will be taking care of kids with naps and play time. Resources for K-12 would be siphoned away including funds for additional pay raises. Growth counties would have problems keeping up the demand for new schools. (S.B. 247) 3/09/02 RC#270 (23-75).

5... Restricting Public Hearing Requests

- Changing House of Delegates Rule 84 so that public hearing would only be required for bills "on the official agenda" of the committee rather than "pending before" the committee. This raised questions how much advance notice would be provided for a bill being added to the agenda by the committee chairman so that the public in turn would have advance notice and to be able to plan to attend and participate. Other concerns dealt with public hearing calling attention to a problem that needed to be addressed but the chairman not putting the bill on the agenda and thus no public hearing. Since no one expressed any problem with the status quo, the question was raised why this needed to be "fixed". Opponents felt this could restrict the ability to have public hearings, that more debate, discussion and public involvement would benefit the process. (HR 6) 1/24/02 RC#6 (69-29).

6... Adding sexual orientation to Hate Crime Statute

thereby giving special treatment to homosexuals (and those with disabilities). This bill treated some individuals more equally than others by having different penalties for the same type of crime. The bill gets into the thought behind the criminal action rather than the severity of the crime, providing vastly different penalties for similar acts of violence. Many pastors also believe this legislation to be an attempt to silence them from preaching against homosexuality in their churches. (HB 4464) 2/26/02 House Judiciary motion to postpone indefinitely, thereby killing the bill (14-10)