Life is getting busy, so I haven’t stayed on top of the West Virginia Legislature the way I did in February. Unfortunately, since the legislative session is basically a 60-day sprint, if you miss a couple days, you fall way behind. So I spent most of my writing time today just trying to figure out what I missed — which means today’s post won’t be as detailed as others. That said, I’d still like to highlight a few bills:
Thumbs-up: HB 3499 — prohibiting the homeschooling of children in certain circumstances. I’ve been waiting for this one to come up; it’s this year’s iteration of Raylee’s Law. I hope to do a more detailed blog on Raylee Browning and what happened to her, but for now it’s enough to know that Raylee was being abused, her teachers noticed and reported it, so her father pulled her out of school. While being “homeschooled,” Raylee was tortured, neglected, and eventually died from sepsis the day after Christmas in 2018. HB 3499 simply says that a child cannot be homeschooled if they parent/guardian doing the homeschooling is credibly suspected or convicted of child abuse/neglect or domestic violence. This should be a no-brainer. However, Raylee’s Law has been introduced every year since 2019, and every year Republican lawmakers kill it.
Thumbs-down: SB 460 — creating religious and philosophical exemptions to West Virginia’s childhood vaccine requirements. SB 460 had disappeared from the calendar for a few days, but it’s back and moving again. It’s up for consideration in the House of Delegates’ Committee on Health and Human Resources. As opposition to SB 460 continues, watch out for movement on its companion bills: HB 2004 is nearly identical, and the newly introduced HB 3489 expands who can provide a medical exemption to include physicians assistants and nurse practitioners, as well as specifies that vaccine requirements only apply to public schools.
Face-palm: HB 2129 — the “Parents’ Bill of Rights.” The same bill failed last year, but apparently West Virginia Legislators would rather spend their limited time reviving the same failed culture war bills over and over again instead of working on any kind of meaningful legislation. The “Parents’ Bill of Rights” gets a face-palm not only because of its zombie status, but because of the hypocrisy: The government cannot infringe upon the rights of a parent to raise their child however they want — unless the parent wants to take their kid to a drag queen story time, or their kid is LGBTQ+ or questioning, or anything else that is “woke” in the eyes of right-wing lawmakers.
One of the things that bothers me most about HB 2129 and several other bills is the unlimited access it gives parents to all of their children’s records (medical, educational, etc.) and to make all medical decisions for them or at least be notified (like SB 719). On the one hand, that seems like it should be given: That’s my kid and I need to know what’s going on with them. On the other hand, not every child trusts their parents and some parents can be abusive (verbal or physical). I’d like to believe the best about West Virginia’s parents, but our overrun foster care system reminds me that too many parents do not or cannot act in their kids’ best interest. Therefore, I’m worried about any law that gives parents an almost authoritarian control over their child’s entire life.
J. Nelson - Writer 