West Virginia Senate President Craig Blair talks 'interesting' legislative year, special session plans

➤ Significant Legislation: Despite the focus on social issues, impactful legislation, such as beginning to phase out the state tax on Social Security benefits for all residents who receive it, was passed.

➤ Upcoming Special Session: Governor plans a special session to address budget adjustments and other priorities, including departmental restructuring and financial management improvements.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WV News) — This year’s regular session of the West Virginia Legislature saw lawmakers devote time to debating a number of what Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, calls “social bills.”

Members of the Senate and House of Delegates introduced a number of pieces of potential legislation aimed at addressing conservative cultural issues — such as a bill that would have allowed some teachers to carry concealed firearms or another that would have allowed librarians to be prosecuted over distributing “obscene” material to minors.

Neither of these two bills passed both chambers, but lawmakers still spent some of the 60-day session’s limited amount of time on them and on others like them.

“Look, it’s an election year. There’s a lot of turmoil nationally on different issues. And there was a lot of social bills that was out there also this year,” Blair said during a phone interview with WV News. “People were campaigning with them and saying ‘Well I introduced this or did that.’ It was an interesting year from my standpoint, of being able to manage it.”

What’s important are the bills that ultimately complete the legislative process, Blair said.

“People put in all kinds off stuff,” he said. “It’s what gets passed and the value of what gets passed.”

These social bills grabbed headlines and the public’s attention during the session, overshadowing the substantive bills that were passed. One of the most impactful bills passed will start the process of phasing out state tax collections on Social Security benefits.

The press is “attracted like a moth to light” to coverage of the more controversial measures, Blair said.

“That good stuff doesn’t get reported the same way, it’s not all that attractive,” he said. “I can assure you though that the seniors in the state of West Virginia should be absolutely excited that Social Security (taxes) are going to phased out over the next three years.”

Gov. Jim Justice has said he plans to call a special legislative session before the end of the current fiscal year. The session will ask lawmakers to reconsider a number of the governor’s policy priorities that weren’t passed during the regular session and to make amendments to the state’s annual budget bill.

“It’s my hopes and belief that it should be May,” Blair said. “And there’s a multitude of reasons for it.”

The governor has cited addressing budgetary changes related to federal waiver programs through the state Department of Human Services as the primary objective for the special session.

“We’re going through a break up of the DHHR (the former West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources) and so it’s three different agencies now,” Blair said. “We also broke down where the IDD (Intellectual Delay and Disability) waiver was into the budget so we could actually see where the money is going and how it’s being managed.”

The changes are an attempt to produce “better outcomes for all the people in West Virginia” who rely on the services of the agencies that used to comprise the DHHR, Blair said.

“We’re working on that,” he said. “But the way the ‘machine’ is over there — that’s what I call that agency is the ‘machine’ — they’re pushing out propaganda that’s just not accurate. The funding is there that will cover them all the way to May of 2025 — more than enough funding for that — and that gives us time enough to be able to squeeze them and find efficiencies and look at how to make that system work better.”

Other issues he would like to take up during the special session include reconsideration of the elementary school discipline bill that stalled out in the final hours of the regular session, Blair said.

Additionally, he would like to change an upcoming transfer of funds into the state’s rainy day fund, Blair said.

“There’s no need to transfer money into the rainy day fund,” he said. “We’d be better off utilizing that for other things that can have a return on investment for the people of West Virginia.”

Lawmakers also need to address the upcoming trigger contained within the personal income tax reduction package signed into law last March, Blair said.

“How we set that trigger up was a mistake,” he said. “It needs to be adjusted so it’s one year out. Not so that it saves the state any money, that’s not it. It’s being able to have long term budgets.”