Senate passes bill for permanent home rule program
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CHARLESTON -- After a committee in the House of Delegates this week tabled a bill making municipal home rule permanent in West Virginia, the Senate Friday amended and passed a similar bill.
Senate Bill 4 making the Municipal Home Rule Pilot Program a permanent program passed 30-3. It now goes to the House where a similar bill was tabled Wednesday by the House Government Organization Committee.
The bill was previously moved to third reading in the Senate with the right to amend. An amendment from Sen. Corey Palumbo, R-Kanawha, would remove a provision requiring a referendum process for removing unpopular ordinances, resolutions, rules, regulations and amendments to existing ordinances.
The bill would have allowed 30 percent of municipal voters who cast ballots in the most recent election to submit a petition within 45 days of the new or updated ordinance calling for an election to approve the ordinance. Palumbo’s amendment would make it a decision of the city whether to allow for a referendum process in their charters.
“I think this would be done at great expense to the city, or great delay to the city,” Palumbo said. “They would either have to have a special election, or they’d have to wait until the next election. This is a requirement we don’t put on the state.”
Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, encouraged the Senate to support the amendment from the minority.
“I agree with (Palumbo) when he says we don’t have that policy here,” Weld said. “For 30 percent to be able to overturn an ordinance that is duly enacted by...the city council, I just can’t understand the reasoning behind it.”
“I kind of now see why that normally bills aren’t amendable on third reading,” Sen. Mark Maynard, R-Mercer, who was opposed to the amendment, said. “There’s just too much information to digest.”
An amendment co-sponsored by Weld and Sen. Glenn Jeffries, D-Putnam, would remove a provision requiring any bond paid for with sales and use tax revenue be ratified by voters.
By making the Municipal Home Rule Program permanent, SB 4 would open up program participation to cities with more than 50,000 residents to as little as 2,000 residents. It would also allow the Municipal Home Rule Board to approve four applications annually for cities and towns with less than 2,000 residents.
The House Government Organization Wednesday tabled House Bill 2728, which would also make the Municipal Home Rule Pilot Program permanent. Committee Vice-Chairman Jeffrey Pack, R-Raleigh, made the motion after an amendment from House Minority Whip Mike Caputo, D-Marion, and Delegate Tony Paynter, R-Wyoming, stripped language from the bill preventing municipalities from enacting rules or ordinances contrary to the state Workplace Freedom Act and Labor-Management Relations Act.
Sen. Mike Romano, D-Harrison, also tried to amend the Senate bill to remove the Workplace Freedom Act provision, though the amendment failed on a voice vote.
“The question is whether we’re going to hand municipalities the ability to make decisions,” Romano said. “Whether we’re going to give local governments the ability to make decisions and whether we’re going to give voters in those municipalities the right to reject or accept the decisions of their local government. We’re going to make the decision for them by restricting them on this issue.”
Voting against SB 4 were Sens. Maynard, Rollan Roberts, R-Raleigh, and Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson.
(Adams can be contacted at sadams@newsandsentinel.com)