[Music] from west virginia public broadcasting support for the legislature today is provided by marshall university with more than 100 degree programs offered in four locations and online more about the marshall family at marshall.edu west virginia university a land-grant space grant r1 research institution learn more at wvu.edu segra providing fiber-based communication solutions segra freedom to grow more information at segra.com [Music] good evening on this 52nd day of the 2021 legislative session i'm dave mystich we passed crossover day this week the cutoff day for most bills to make it out of their house of origin on the legislature today an update on a major criminal code bill and two important healthcare bills but first a focus on pending proposals to eliminate the state's personal income tax which in turn are driving the spending cuts in the house and senate proposed budget plans the lower chamber passed its version of the personal income tax repeal on monday with house bill 3300. on tuesday the senate finance committee took up the measure and unveiled a strike and insert amendment tonight we begin with a look at the proposal's evolution and what might be to come with wednesday's crossover day deadline looming house bill 3300 became in a sense a placeholder for the personal income tax reduction under that version of the plan spearheaded by house finance chair eric householder of berkeley county the personal income tax would be reduced each year incrementally by 150 million dollars until fully eliminated the house finance committee's plan offers no mechanism to recoup revenue despite those lingering questions regarding revenue losses chairman householder while speaking to the measure monday ahead of its passage call the bill beneficial for all west virginians this is a new green deal for west virginia not the one that you're thinking of but a true green deal that puts money in your pocket democrats though called the house's personal income tax reduction proposal rushed and lacking foresight here's house minority leader doug scaff of kanawha county we all want to reduce the personal income tax but why do we have to do it today on day 48 let's kick this thing in the summer let's study it over interims put a bipartisan work group together let's do it right let's do it responsible since then the personal income tax reduction has moved at an accelerated pace both from a legislative perspective in a philosophical one just one day after house bill 3300 passage in the lower chamber the senate finance committee took up the measure and unveiled a strike and insert amendment the senate finance committee's plan calls for an initial 1.09 billion dollars in revenue losses that would be offset with 932 million dollars a year and other tax hikes including raising the state sales tax from six percent to eight and a half percent the senate plan would also reinstate the food tax at 2.5 percent additionally it would bring in about 45 million each year by taxing recreational cannabis under the condition that the federal government decriminalizes or legalizes it senate minority leader stephen baldwin of greenbrier county made note of the hypotheticals involved when i was reading this bill i was surprised that nearly the majority is about cannabis and senator william ehlenfeld a democrat from ohio county spoke up to take issue with an increase to the hotel tax if we were to adopt this bill we would have the at 18 or 19 percent the highest sales tax rate for hotel rooms in the country senate finance chair eric tara of putnam county says it will all even out and give west virginia an opportunity for growth we are in a critical time right now that of opportunity especially having seen the state's finances here over the past couple years with heading into a potential 300 million dollar surplus this year when we're used to having on average about 50 million dollars in surplus we are starting to see income grow for people that are coming here we see people who are wanting to move to places like west virginia from across this country even as the house and senate have moved forward with their own ideas governor justice continues to tout his own vision for reduction to the personal income tax in my plan you have to go big in my plan if you don't go big nobody's going to believe it nobody's going to move to west virginia on a whim they have to believe they have to believe it's going to happen so in other words you have to go significantly significant the senate's version of house bill 3300 is expected to be up for passage in the upper chamber early next week if it passes the measure would head back to the house for consideration but the question as to whether the two chambers can find some middle ground to get the proposal completed by day 60 at midnight remains and if so governor justice would have to get behind that final product as well to further discuss these pending fiscal policy changes and several joint resolutions that remain now that crossover day has passed i spoke yesterday with long-time state house reporters phil cabler of the charleston gazette mail and stephen allen adams of ogden newspapers thank you both for being here i want to start with the personal income tax reduction of course we've seen three proposals so far one from the governor one from the house and now one from the senate of course the house passed their version house bill 3300 on monday but now the senate is looking to do something yet again very different phil do you want to talk about the current version of the pit reduction moving through the senate sure uh i think as a road i said it's the uh house plan on steroids that the house had not not a conservative plan but it would do multiples of 150 a year a million a year to phase out the income tax where the senate came in swooped in and made the first year cut 1.09 billion dollars so it's even bigger than what justice was proposing and it has in both the justice plan and the senate plan have roughly about 900 million in new taxes predominantly through uh raising sales taxes but the senate plan again justice would have had a 7.9 sales tax up from 6 and the senate on steroids says we can do you one better we'll make it 8.5 so at this point as you say you've got these three plans that are really have no uh common ground so how it's as i was saying if you had one section you said well we've got 50 million here and you've got 70 million so let's call it 60. but these are so far apart i don't see how they rectify them here in the last few days maybe they'll pull something off but it just seems like we're we're almost looking at different animals as opposed to the the basic concept of rolling back income taxes right and what sort of response from the public are we hearing about these proposals uh generally i think there's a lot of criticism particularly the uh senate plan and the governor's plan over the the uh high tax increases that would be used to offset not the entire income tax cut but a good portion of it so i think there's a lot of criticism there particularly among groups that represent senior citizens and lower income households who as we know regressive taxes tend to hit those groups the hardest where a progressive tax like an income tax adjusts as you have more and more wealth so the in in the uh i'm not sure there's been a huge uproar although i guess there's going to be a protest here at the capitol tomorrow or on friday but uh i think they're i'm not sure people are familiar enough with the whole concept yet to really get an uproar about it but from what reaction there's been has been largely negative until you get up to some of the uh business people like governor justice brought together for his town hall who would uh be most likely to benefit from the income tax cuts as opposed to these other tax hikes right right steve i want to turn to you uh part of the senate's proposal calls for revenue to be made up from recreational cannabis that comes with the caveat of course if it is ever legalized by the federal government um but an amendment to the personal income tax reduction bill in the house would have had cannabis revenues act as a trigger in some way for income tax reduction i know this isn't exactly the same thing but there's sort of a fundamental underpinning here i'm curious is is cannabis going to be a sticking point at all when it comes to the personal income tax reduction well it just depends uh it's real interesting the fact that the senate included uh about if you happen to see the powerpoint presentation that they put together it was 30 pages the uh part dealing with uh recreational cannabis possible legalization uh was about nine pages long and made up a big bulk of the plan and obviously they're trying to prepare and in many ways kind of hand off the situation to the federal government obviously somebody thinks that at some point a biden administration may possibly try to legalize or decriminalize this in in some way and we are seeing more movement towards this new york state just legalized recreational marijuana uh and everybody says that if we would just do it it'd certainly bring in a lot of revenue and there's a lot of evidence for that as well the plan that the senate has put together obviously is set up in many ways it's great it takes a regulatory framework and tries to prepare for what might happen but the problem they're going to run into pretty quickly with that is depending on what the feds do we may have to come in and change that depending on what they allow for example how many grams they may allow to be sold and taxed and things of that nature so it's definitely going to involve the legislature coming back in to deal with that in some way but we're also seeing a little bit of i would call maybe easing of concerns with uh recreational cannabis for sure i know mike pushkin had an amendment to a criminal justice reform bill uh that came within four votes uh of actually decriminalizing small amounts of uh recreational cannabis for personal use so we might be possibly seeing something maybe not this session obviously but maybe in the next session where we might actually go forward and try to legalize recreational cannabis ourselves right right and pulling back on this personal income tax of course you know through all of this and as phil pointed out you know there's these three different plans they're all very different the governor has been touting his own plan to reduce the personal income tax i i guess the question i have for for either of you you guys can take your pick who wants to go first could we anticipate any sort of compromise on this issue ahead of day 60 at midnight or or is this shaping up to be a call on a call for a special session well personally from the governor's reactions and i think he uh gave some interviews uh on thursday reacting to uh the the senate proposal and wasn't very conciliat conciliatory toward what the senate has done and acted like he was put out because he hasn't been included in the negotiations which of course is a bad sign if you have uh parties who aren't talking to each other or not talking to each other uh sufficiently often that's a that's another uh formula for for a real disaster so the fact that you're not having open lines of communication is another thing that makes me wonder if if i certainly wonder if this is possible get done in the regular session uh let alone whether there's a possibility of cooler heads coming back in a special session and i talked to the governor last night just real real quickly uh for for a story i had in the paper this morning my sense from him is he would certainly like to bring everybody to the table obviously business groups have come out against his plan but have come out in favor of the house version we don't know where they stand on the senate version right now i imagine they're going to be against it because it has some of the same issues but the governor is open to bringing all these people together and it's even open to a special session but i think he thinks if it doesn't happen with between now and the end of session next saturday it's not going to happen at all and the window of opportunity is going to close right moving on a little bit here uh gentlemen uh phil i know you've been following along with some legislation dealing with gun rights and the second amendment there was you know senate joint resolution one which passed the upper chamber this week uh with its needed two-thirds majority tell us a little bit about that proposed constitutional amendment and its journey so far yeah and it seems like there's a heightened uh sense of need to pass these amendments and bills with the congress being in in democratic control and a democratic uh president in the white house in fact as uh brandon steele said in a committee the other day said you can either be with the second amendment folks in west virginia or you can be with what he called the bootlickers in congress so the resolution and it was toned down considerably from its original language but it would basically put into the constitution something we've had in state law now since 2014 that prohibits cities and counties from enacting any gun safety ordinances that are stricter than state law now it originally had language in in the bill that that delegate steele has sponsored that's now in senate judiciary that would basically prohibit state county municipal law enforcement officers from enforcing any gun safety federal gun safety laws that are stricter than state law so there's some question whether that's even constitutional and as a several law enforcement officers testified they could put their federal funding and also their ability to work with federal authorities like the uh atf in in doubt so there's a and of course this this legislature is in the legislature has long been gun friendly but there's some question about whether that proposal if it makes it through would would be uh constitutional right uh steve i wanna i wanna jump ahead here and and talk about you know some other proposed constitutional amendments uh namely as it relates to property taxes these are joint resolutions of course require two-thirds majority in each chamber and if adopted both by both the house and senate would land on the ballot for ratification by the general public you know there was senate joint resolution seven which was sent to the rules committee it didn't make it over the the cross every day deadline but house joint resolution three did make it uh could you tell us really quickly about that proposal if you would yeah uh house joint resolution three passed 84-16 so it passed uh with well more than the two thirds or 67 members needed to support it so now it's heading over to the state senate what it basically does is it will allow the west virginia legislature once it's approved by the voters to begin to either cut or phase out or make changes to uh property taxes in regards to business and inventory uh heavy machinery equipment things of that nature now that tax brings in about 400 million dollars according to eric householder the chairman of the house finance committee it appears to be the vehicle as you said uh sjr7 was moved to rules and is effectively dead so it looks like hjr3 is going to be the avenue used to try the push list it's long been an agenda item of republicans and the business community in the state all right gentlemen well that does it for us today i want to thank you both for the time and uh appreciate all the work you guys are doing over there at the capitol thanks the house of delegates passed this budget bill this afternoon which includes its personal income tax repeal plan house bill 3300 will be on the amendment stage monday on the senate floor also monday the governor is planning to convene a personal income tax summit to work out the differences amongst his plan and the house and senate versions earlier this week the house passed a bill that would extend medicaid coverage for women who just had a baby june lefler has this update and more house bill 2266 would extend medicaid coverage for women one year after giving birth current law covers women for 60 days after delivery republican delegate matthew rohrbach of capitol county vice chair of the house health and human resources committee is the lead sponsor of the bill he points to research that women are most often vulnerable to mental and physical health conditions several months after giving birth what we know from our statistics from our mortality a maternal mortality review committee that this state set up a few years ago that the period from 7 to 12 months postpartum is the deadliest period for these women because they lose access to their care a 2013 report from the state says of all maternal deaths from 2007 to 2012 in west virginia most occurred more than 60 days after delivery the bill would apply to women who make 185 of the federal poverty guideline that would include single moms making less than 33 000 a year if passed the coverage expansion would cost the state 1.4 million dollars each year according to a fiscal note matching federal funds would also help pay for costs the measure was approved 98 to 2 and now heads to the senate on the other side of the capitol senators this week voted to expand the use of medical marijuana senate bill 231 adds dozens of more health conditions that could be treated with cannabis including alzheimer's glaucoma migraines and any form of chronic pain the bill permits patients to consume cannabis in edible form or smoke it currently patients may only use pills oils and topical treatments senators voted in favor of the bill 29 to 5. both of these measures pass their respective chambers with bipartisan support just in time for crossover day another bill that made it through on crossover day was the 400 page house bill 2017 which would change the way judges sentence people for hundreds of crimes from computer hacking to larceny and robbery to homicide emily allen joins us now to break down that bill welcome emily uh we'll start with this new classification sentencing for people to jail in prison uh and for giving fines what exactly does this change yeah so right now in a criminal code most crimes come with a set range that judges have to impose we call that indeterminate sentences so it includes kind of the minimum amount of time that someone would have to serve before they're parallel eligible and then the maximum amount of time they would serve so this bill at the core of it it crosses out all these indeterminate sentences and replaces it with a sixth felony three misdemeanor system and all the crimes depending on their severity relate with these or correlate with these classifications and each classification comes with its own range that a judge can pick from so class one felony being the worst uh class three misdemeanor being the the least restrictive right and so when this bill passed out of committee it took more than five hours of discussion tell us a little bit about some of the objections that we saw sure um so it was in the house judiciary committee there wasn't a lot of testimony but we did hear from the west virginia prosecuting attorneys association they said that they you know as a group had not been consulted there are a few other stakeholders in the criminal justice world that uh you say they weren't involved um and they're the prosecuting attorneys association their biggest um concern was a vehicle that judges get through this bill to downsize somebody facing charges on a classics felony to a class one misdemeanor so that would mean less jail time and obviously a misdemeanor looks better on your record right um they just said that that would uh you know hinder a victim's ability or ability to easily predict stuff in the process and that could be pretty uncomfortable for them right right so this bill would also allow judges to drop certain felony charges to a misdemeanor as you just said uh if they deem fit why would that be a part of the bill sure so um this is a bill that you know we didn't get to speak to the lead sponsor on this legislation but in remarks to the house and in a q a they hosted he said that focusing on jail overcrowding was something that was present throughout this whole process they got to work on this bill i think around april 2020 um and i mean it's worth noting that even right now this week we have nearly 6 000 people sitting in regional jails against a capacity of 4265. so that was sort of a way that judges would get the discretion to downsize their jail populations however the prosecuting attorneys association pointed out that some of these classics felonies that judges would have the ability to downsize if they wished um it include you know abuse-related charges uh child porn related charges so um that that's just something that they're going to have to buy with okay the biggest question that's come up on the house floor and in committee is how this bill would affect the work of a sentencing commission um that the legislature created last year very important you know panel there how exactly does this work sure um so that's this kind of was one of the debated points because that's a point of confusion the bill's lead sponsor delegate brandon steele republican from raleigh county says this bill does not undercut their work um there are still chapters of state cairo dealing with uh you know the criminal procedure and obviously the uniform controlled drugs controlled substances act although this bill doesn't touch so uh you know it's pretty much the same that the commission could still consider um but a lot of people in the house that voted on this bill and looked at it wanted you know the the house to wait before passing an effort like this nobody fully agree like disagreed or agreed with the bill they just disagreed with not waiting so the sentencing commission it's a 13-member group involving you know law enforcement officials public defenders prosecutors you know representatives for the division of corrections and rehabilitation through the department of homeland security all these guys uh they're supposed to meet i think for the second time this year april 9th and they're supposed to have a report that would inform the legislature on sentencing recommendations next january um so we'll see what happens if this bill passes and how that changes their work right and you know we've got just a few days left in the session do do we see this bill gaining traction it's obviously going to go to committee over the senate you know what what do we expect to happen to it over there sure uh well i think it's been referred to the senate judiciary committee it passed pretty much along party lines in the house so you know say it spares some republicans i think one delegate on the democratic side had voted in its favor um so we'll see what that means great well emily allen with a recap of house bill 2017 a rewrite of the criminal code emily thanks so much for the update thank you and as we close this evening a reminder to listen to west virginia morning for daily legislative updates and go to our website for the latest news at wvpublic.org we stream the floor sessions daily on the west virginia channel and we'll be back next week for a final friday night wrap up of the session on the legislature today i'm dave mystic for everyone here at west virginia public broadcasting thanks for joining us and have a safe [Music] weekend [Music] support for the legislature today is provided by marshall university with more than 100 degree programs offered in four locations and online more about the marshall family at marshall.edu west virginia university a land grant space grant r1 research institution learn more at wvu.edu segre providing fiber-based communication solutions segra freedom to grow more information at cegra.com