March 01, 2019

What a week

Is it over yet? I'm kind of over this session of the WV legislature.

It hasn't all been bad. Ending the lifetime ban on SNAP was a great win that will help thousands of people. Some other promising criminal justice stuff may be in the pipeline.

The good guys won a huge fight this week in defeating a bill that would impose Medicaid work requirements, really a way of taking away health care from as many as 46,000 people.

Teachers, school service workers and allies helped defeat the ominous omnibus education bill, which would have been bad news for public education.

But there's also stuff like this, as if the image of the state hasn't been tarnished enough already by stuff like this.

As if all that wasn't enough, the house passed a bill that would allow firearms on campus. What could possibly go wrong?  At the same time, the senate passed  a bill raising the age to purchase tobacco products to 21 at about the same time.

Several commentators have pointed out that, if both these bills go through, 18 year olds will be able to bring guns to class but couldn't buy cigarettes.

As I've often said, it's time to change the state motto from "Mountaineers are always free" to "You can't make this **** up."

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