The Republican-controlled Legislature failed again this year to strengthen ethical rules that would have prevented elected officials from using their positions for their own gain.
During the Legislative Session, lawmakers rejected most attempts to tighten regulations on data center developers in the state. After the end of the session, media outlets reported Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, is an attorney for developers in two controversial data center projects.
That arrangement, first reported by Country Roads News, drew criticism from ethics experts. But the state’s ethics rules don’t require him to abstain from votes about data centers, and don’t even force lawyer-legislators like him to identify their clients to voters.
And lawmakers did not advance any bills that could add more transparency and accountability for lawmakers.
Del. Henry Dillon, R-Wayne, introduced a bill that would have illuminated conflicts of interest in the House, where lawmakers work in a variety of professions when not serving in Charleston.
Fifty years ago, members of the House of Delegates approved Rule 49, which mandated that lawmakers announce a personal or private interest in a bill and refrain from voting on it. Two years later, the Democrat-controlled body watered it down.
Instead, members could vote as long as the legislation affected them as part of a class of people, not directly as an individual.
For instance, if a delegate is a teacher and they’re voting on a pay raise for teachers, that vote would affect a class of people, even though they’re voting for their own raise. But if a delegate owns the only widget factory in all of West Virginia, and the legislation deals only with widgets, they would not be able to vote on that.
In 2017, three years after the House fell into Republican hands, lawmakers defined a class as five or more similarly situated people.
How this plays out on the floor varies.
When a bill comes up, a delegate may ask the Speaker to be recognized and ask for a Rule 49 decision. The speaker could exempt them from the vote or say the delegate falls into a class greater than five and advise them to vote.
But when multiple delegates ask for a ruling on the same bill, the speaker can ask for the delegates to use their voting machines to show who needs one. The electronic board behind the speaker would light green with those who need a ruling, then the speaker can rule en-masse they are a class greater than five and proceed to voting.
Finding out which Delegates requested a rule 49 can be tricky. Unlike votes, which are displayed on the Legislative website, Rule 49 rulings are not readily available. They are recorded in the House Journal. Someone looking for them would have to search the journal for the day the bill was voted on and look for the specific bill.
Dillon’s bill sought to record every time delegates identified themselves as needing a Rule 49 on a bill with their voting machine and have that recorded like any other vote.
He said there have been multiple bills in the past couple of sessions in which a substantial number of delegates, sometimes over half, have indicated a financial interest before voting.
“This bill would have made those votes public,” Dillon wrote in an email.
But Dillon’s bill went to the House Judiciary Committee, where chair Del. JB Akers, R-Kanawha, didn’t put it on his agenda.
There were other ethics bills too.
One bill would’ve mandated a waiting period between when a lawmaker leaves office and when they can become a lobbyist at the Legislature. Another would’ve forbidden candidates from running for office if they owed back taxes.
The late Del. Larry Kump, R-Berkeley, once again submitted his “Say No to Good Ole Boys in Governance” bill, which cracks down on nepotism by preventing any elected official from appointing a relative to any state or local office.
Akers said about 400 bills were sent to his committee during the 60-day session and not all can be brought up to a vote. He said during his two years as chair of the committee, he has steered its focus on the state’s legal system that deals with child abuse and neglect.
“I, frankly, just consider that to be, if not, the most pressing issue, one of the top pressing issues in the state,” he said. “I’m not saying ethics issues aren’t important. They are. But if you asked me to compare one individual’s ethical perception, whether it’s real or perceived, versus the overall structure and systemic challenges of abuse and neglect, abuse and neglect is the bigger issue.”
But Akers did concede the public doesn’t always trust politicians to do the right thing — but he said when that does arise, it needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis.
“There are obviously plenty of examples where politicians have done things that were unethical and sometimes even illegal,” Akers said. “But if you’re talking about broader systemic issues, I don’t think you see a systemic problem with members of the House who are exhibiting unethical behavior.”
Last year, lawmakers blocked a change to ethics laws.
Then-State Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, introduced a bill to overhaul the state’s rules regarding lobbying, by mandating that lobbyists disclose how much they are paid by clients, file more disclosures and refrain from making campaign contributions.
Stuart’s bill passed the Judiciary Committee, which he chaired at the time, and made it to the floor. However, senators moved it into the rules committee to kill it.
Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, tried to revive it by taking Stuart’s dead bill and bundling it into another piece of legislation. With Stuart gone to work at the Trump Administration, only Pushkin remained this year.
Pushkin said there were no bills he could have put Stuart’s proposal into, and introducing one would’ve been fruitless.
“I could have introduced it, but it would not have made it to an agenda,” Pushkin said. It is something he wants to continue to work on.
“And not just that bill, but always just shining more of a light on who’s supporting our elected officials and PACs and political parties,” he said.
This year the Legislature went the other direction rolling back transparency in campaign finance law as well.
