Sine Die” – To adjourn without setting a date to come back into session.
……At midnight tonight the bell rings and the West Virginia Legislature adjourns “sine die.”.
…..The end of the session will probably be quite orderly and calm. Since the Republicans took control they have tended to have their business completed early and they moved up the hour conferences committees had to report out a bill. As I look over today’s agenda, there are very few bills to be taken up tonite.
……Wasn’t that way when I was there from 1990 to 2000. That’s when terms like “a fat possum travels at night’ and “midnight run” were a reality. To add to the drama of passing bills at the stroke of midnight, the delegates from down in the southern coalfields always brought their homemade “hooch” which I am told could make you drunk very fast if it didn’t eat the lining of your stomach out first. Those delegates were discreet of course, knowing that beginning at 7 p.m. WV Public TV was televising us. Those delegates who were imbibing all had paper cups, you know like the ones many of them used as portable spittoons.
………The introduction of alcohol into the mix made for some interesting situations. It was before my time, but I heard stories of how the leadership locked one Brooke County delegate into the speaker’s office the last hour of the session to maintain a semblance of order.
…….The last couple hours were log jammed with bills as legislators scurried to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Actually, a bill fondly named “the puppy bill” was one of those anomalies that you never see coming. It was a bill to limit the number of dogs a breeder could have. I voted for it. I’m an animal lover and I sure wouldn’t want to breed over and over. I heard a sharp intake of breath from my fellow delegate and consummate hunter, the late Sam Love, when Del. Randy Schoonover arose to speak on the bill. I recall his remarks going something like this “Y’all gonna make them coon dog breeders mad. Do you have any idea how many coon dogs us hunters have? Why I have 12 coon dogs myself. I’m warning y’all…don’t do it.”
We did it And, they unleashed the dogs on us. By Monday we were back in session to bring that bill back up and vote it down. I learned a lesson that day. Don’t mess with coon hunters.
……The rule of the house was that one chamber needed to be in physical possession of the bill passed by the other chamber before they could act on it. Time was of the essence on the last night and to add to the chaos, the chamber doors would fly open and someone would yell, “runner coming through” and a teenage boy would go running across the chamber into the next chamber. That was a system ripe for misdeeds. One of the famous stories about how bills disappeared in the rotunda involved the late Sen. Bill Sharpe motioned him over; told the boy he’d deliver the bill for him; offered him fifty bucks; took the bill and put it in his pocket. The bill was never to be seen again.
……….I have two bills I was watching. One bill divided the racetrack video lottery 1% that went to municipalities in Hancock Counties into three equal parts. The bill started out distributing the money per-capita, but that was amended out. The bill has passed and is on its way to the Gov.
…..The other bill I was glad to see die was the bill to loosen up exemptions for vaccines. The bill died in the House, but Sen. Laura Wakim Chapman, chair of Health in the Senate, made an attempt to resurrect it by amending the bill into another. The amended bill passed the Health Committee, but died on the floor of the Senate. Thank Goodnesss
……I’m not alone when I say I think this was one of the worst Legislative Sessions I’ve seen. While we have many economic problems in the State, the Legislators focused on social issues designed to further their conservative agenda.
