On Jan. 11 I started off the 2010 West Virginia Legislative Session with a blog that went something like this:

I’ve heard it said that this year’s session could be a boring one, with the focus staying on budgeting issues. Then again, last year we had the Barbie Bill as well as a proposal to make Welfare recipients take drug tests. It is my experience as a outside observer that anything can happen during session.

West Virginia Watchdog – WatchBlog: W.Va. Legislative Session 2010 – Week One

Well, this year I got to be an inside observer (no thanks to The Charleston Gazette). Frankly what I saw annoyed me.

Instead of pushing through pension reforms and ways to curb our growing bond debt, we had debates between two different types of eye doctors.

Instead of updating ethics laws to hold lawmakers to account, we had endless arguments over whether to give an abortion seeker a Polaroid of what could have been. Keep in mind this was mostly Democrat versus Democrat – not a good thing to have happen on the lead up to primaries.

Instead of creating a charter school program, we had Republicans attempting to push through welfare drug testing and a marriage amendment; items that should not have been priorities.

For what was supposed to be a focused and light session, we had practically the same numbers of bills sponsored and almost the same number passed. In 2008, when times were better, 2134 bills were introduced and 246 were completed. When the session ended Saturday night 2079 bills were introduced and 217 were completed – that is a difference of 55 introduced and 29 completed from 2008.

They don’t need more time, they need to introduce fewer bills. Already two special sessions are being considered for education issues and the pension debt. Both of those items were being dealt with this session, but due to various excuses they fell by the wayside. Wanna save some money? Get your work done in the 60 days allotted and use the money that would have gone for special sessions for more important matters.

This session was a waste of time for the State of West Virginia and a waste of my time.

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