| ANALYSIS: Legislature 'surprisingly unproductive'
Analyst cites economy, dwindling momentum as Manchin starts new term
By Jake Stump
Daily Mail Capitol Reporter
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CHARLESTON - The 2009 regular legislative session ended with lawmakers either killing or gutting key proposals and passing few measures of major significance.
Even the headline-grabbing issue of ensuring that schoolchildren receive 180 days of instruction every year couldn't acquire a consensus.
So what did a majority of 134 legislators agree on?
They passed an unemployment compensation bill aimed at preventing the state jobless benefit fund from going broke.
They capped the PROMISE scholarship at $4,750 a student.
And that's about it for major issues.
Political scientist Robert Rupp called it, "a part-time Legislature that obviously did part-time business."
"Anything proposed that caught public interest was either watered down or did not pass," said Rupp, professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
"In the old days, they said beware of a Legislature that has money and time to do something. But this time, it was a surprisingly unproductive Legislature."
Even lawmakers seemed tired of it all as the clock was winding down on the final day of the session Saturday.
Sen. Erik Wells, D-Kanawha, said the last night used to seem like a party, evident by the hustle-and-bustle, crowded hallways and TV cameras.
Not this year, as Wells and fellow Sen. Corey Palumbo, D-Kanawha, gazed tiredly up into the gallery around 9 p.m., noting the benches were unusually empty.
Droopy-eyed lawmakers kept checking their watches and puttered around the Capitol like zombies.
Many just wanted to go home. Some opted to stay out later for a post-session party at Appalachian Power Park, although there was no home run to celebrate.
Rupp insists the lackluster session may be a result of "second-term phenomenon," since it marked Manchin's first session since being reelected.
The last West Virginia governor elected to a second term was Gaston Caperton, who served from 1989 to 1997.
Newly elected governors typically launch a fresh, aggressive agenda to coincide with their first legislative session.
When elected to office in November 2004, Manchin didn't wait for the regular 60-day session to come around. Just one week after taking office, he convened a successful six-day special session that tackled everything from pension fund shortfalls to privatizing Workers' Compensation.
After doing so much in his first term, the momentum could be dwindling.
Rupp also points at the obvious: the economy.
In his State of the State Address, Manchin said he couldn't afford to give public employees and teachers raises this year due to the plummeting economy. A few weeks later, he asked lawmakers to cut spending, and now they're waiting until late May to head back to the Capitol before figuring out the budget bill.
They first want to absorb the actual revenue figures for April, a good month for personal income and corporate tax collections.
With the governor preaching fiscal restraint, the Legislature avoided proposing initiatives that would tear chunks out of the budget.
As dull as the session might have appeared from the get-go, it didn't jump the shark until March 3. That's when Delegate Jeff Eldridge, D-Lincoln, introduced a bill that would have banned the sale of Barbies and other similar dolls in West Virginia.
The bill, naturally, went nowhere fast, except right into the monologues of late-night comics. Even the Kardashians and Heidi Klum felt compelled to comment on the Barbie
ban through celebrity tabloid sites.
Eldridge later apologized in a heartfelt floor speech and indicated he had meant no harm.
While Eldridge's intent was in the right place, many observers say the 2009 session will be best remembered as the year of Statehouse Barbie.
"I know he was sorry, but what an embarrassment for the state," said Vic Sprouse, who spent several years as Senate minority leader and is now a consultant. "When people think back, they'll think about the Barbie bill.
"Too bad you can't suspend people from introducing bills after that. He should be put on a three-year probation from introducing bills."
Sprouse also suggested the governor's lackluster agenda paved the way for the uninteresting, as well as the absurd.
Other newsmakers from the Capitol include the calorie-posting bill, a serious health reform measure championed by respected, no-nonsense Sen. Dan Foster, D-Kanawha.
It didn't take long for other members of the Legislature to make a mockery of that, too.
The bill's intent was to tackle the obesity epidemic in West Virginia by requiring restaurants to post the calorie content of their potentially artery-clogging menu items.
The Senate inserted what came to be known as the "Oshel Craigo amendment," a change that would have saved Craigo, a former state senator, a significant chunk of cash.
Craigo owns the Tudor's Biscuit World and Gino's pizza chains, which were exempted from the calorie-posting requirement under the amendment.
But it was the House that took the last bite out of the bill.
While debating it in a House Government Organization Committee meeting last week, delegates stuffed their faces with Tudor's biscuit sandwiches and Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
The calorie-posting bill was officially gobbled up and regurgitated when the committee killed it 16-7.
The goodies were furnished by Delegate Mike Ross, D-Randolph, who outspent Republican Clark Barnes by more than $200,000 last year in a battle over state Senate seat.
Ross lost but was later appointed by the governor to fill a vacant House seat.
Another measure that drew almost as much attention as Barbie would have randomly drug-tested recipients of government benefit programs.
That proposal's sponsor, Delegate Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, made the rounds on Fox News and other national news outlets to promote drug-testing applicants for food stamps and unemployment benefits.
Critics - consisting of nearly every Democrat and even some Republicans under the gold dome - decried the legislation as offensive to folks who had fallen on hard times because it insinuated they were dopers and meth-heads.
Despite widespread public interest and a fierce campaign by Blair, House Judiciary Chairwoman Carrie Webster, D-Kanawha, chose not to place the measure on her committee's agenda.
Contact writer Jake Stump at jakest...@dailymail.com or 304-348-4842.
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