At the risk of being redundant

West Virginia's Democratic Party Vice-Chair penned an interesting piece a couple of days ago. If you follow Chris Regan on Facebook, you've no doubt seen it. If you don't, well, you should.

And you should also read this analysis of the shenanigans going on in Charleston these days:

Legalizing crime in West Virginia 

Early in the Legislature's 2015 session, the Republican majority took aim at wages. Bills on prevailing wage, right to work and the wage payment act would all serve to drive the wages of working West Virginia families downward. Those pushing that agenda would say that lowering the wages of working people would somehow make West Virginia more “competitive,” but there is no concealing the fact that the primary effect of these bills would be smaller paychecks. Public hearings and resistance from leaders in the Democratic Party, including an appearance from U.S. Senator Joe Manchin last week, have exposed the harm these bills would do to West Virginians who work. 

But as the session continues, a new theme is emerging from the Republican House and Senate: legalizing crime. A host of bills being moved by Senate President Bill Cole and Speaker Tim Armstead identify bad (and formerly illegal) behavior and make that behavior more difficult to police, reduce the punishment for it, or outright legalize it. Every West Virginian, from children riding to school in their parents' car, to workers on our roads or in coal mines, to our elderly in nursing homes, stand to lose if the laws that protect them are weakened or repealed. 

Example: the Senate's bill to end implied warranties for automobile sales will get a lot of attention, because of the transparent self-interest demonstrated by a new Senate President who sells cars pushing a bill to give his own company immunity for wronging its customers. As the Charleston Gazette reported this past weekend, the Republican lemon-law bill would take away a remedy for car buyers even if they unwittingly buy a vehicle that isn't safe to drive. A working single mother who buys a car, even if she buys it from Senator Cole, ought to be able to count on it being basically sound and safe enough to drive her children to school. Repealing the law that gives her that right not only legalizes a crime, it encourages a tragedy. [This bill has since passed.]

That's not all. One of the real scandals ongoing in West Virginia is the care our seniors receive in nursing homes. Too many nurses and aides are overworked and underpaid, leading to poor care in nursing homes. The results include bad hygiene, bedsores and even deaths from malnutrition and dehydration. Republican bills respond to this crisis by seeking to help the companies avoid any punishment for preventable deaths. One bill stated that even if a company intentionally neglects a patient and causes their death and even if there is overwhelming proof (“clear and convincing evidence”) that this has occurred, the punishment should be lessened from existing law. Shouldn't we be increasing the penalties, until companies stop neglecting our seniors? 

Once again, pressure and amendments from Democrats stopped the Republican bill from totally ending punishment for deliberate neglect of our seniors. But why are Republicans seeking to protect lawbreakers from accountability? Where are the bills to raise standards, to protect working families and to protect seniors? Not one bill so far proposed has a positive effect on accountability for nursing home companies, for the quality of products like cars that we buy or for the safety of our workers. 

Of course the most destructive and shocking bills advanced by the Republican majority deal with worker safety. Both the ill-named “Coal Jobs and Safety Act” (it has no provisions that create jobs) and the “deliberate intent” bill are bills designed to legalize crime. The deliberate intent law currently provides that when a company intentionally breaks the rules and a worker or miner is injured or killed, the right to a day in court is preserved. Keep in mind, under current law, negligence or carelessness is not enough – the company has to break the rules on purpose or you can't go to court. A Republican bill sought to totally abolish the right of victims of the worst type of corporate crime – the kind that gets men and women killed on the job. 

The so-called coal safety act is even worse. It is a law that takes away safety rules West Virginia established after mining disasters and deaths – the hardest and most costly lessons our state has learned. Note how taking away West Virginia's safety rules works in concert with weakening the deliberate intent law: when the rules no longer exist, companies will say there are no rules for them to “intentionally” violate. Heads they win, tails you lose. 

Spinning these bills, Republicans say they are meant to hurt trial lawyers. Not likely. First of all, lawyers rarely go down in the mines and they are almost never killed on the job. These laws don't hurt lawyers, they hurt people – they hurt the victims of all these forms of crime the Republicans are legalizing. If a certain kind of case can no longer proceed in court, those cases simply won't be filed or pursued. The loser is not the lawyer, who moves on to whatever work the law allows him or her to do, but the working family that loses a breadwinner, the senior citizen neglected in the nursing home, or the child hurt in an unsafe vehicle. 

West Virginians should be asking why protecting those who intentionally harm our citizens has become such a priority for Republicans. Who is pushing them to take these reckless and radical steps to reduce accountability and punishment for the very worst kind of wrongdoers? Sure the lemon-law will has an easy answer when the Senate President is a used car dealer, but what about the rest of it: who is writing these bills and pushing them to the top of an agenda that was supposed to be about jobs? Who would want to legalize a crime, except someone who planned to commit one?

West Virginia needs livable wages

Chairing West Virginia's Democratic Party during this legislative session – the first with a Republican majority in more than 80 years – is a daunting task. Belinda Biafore is no stranger to heavy lifting, however, having spent the past 30 years working with and for Democrats. It's been said that if you need something done, ask the busiest person you know. Belinda fits both categories: She's the hardest-working woman in West Virginia, and she will get the job done.

Belinda Biafore

She won't get it done by herself, though. She doesn't want to and doesn't expect to. One of Belinda's many strengths is coalition building – she knows a lot of West Virginians, including current and former lawmakers, union members, WVFDW members, business and industry leaders, and working men and women from the Eastern Panhandle to the southern coalfields. The team at party headquarters is in place and has hit the ground running.

Her priorities – and ours and, we hope, yours – are clear: The Republican agenda is wrong for West Virginia and we must make that fact clear to voters. In case you missed Belinda's most recent message to WV Democrats, we're reprinting it here. Click here to add yourself to the party's mailing list.

It's no secret that the GOP puts corporations and large private companies over hardworking West Virginians, and it's no secret that the GOP puts big money over workers' safety. New Republican leadership's extreme radical agenda is crippling the ability of workers and their unions to fight for livable wages so that private companies can pay their employees less.

All we heard before they took office was "jobs, jobs, jobs." I have not seen one jobs bill. Instead, I've seen an attack on hardworking West Virginians and the jobs they already have! Not only are they breaking promises they made to voters, but they are gutting the workforce that is already in place. What good is a leadership that doesn't care about workers and the ability to provide for their families or to come home to their families safely after a hard day of work? No good!

We need to maintain a high standard of living in West Virginia, not pass legislation resulting in low-paying jobs for companies that only care about making a profit.

As Democrats, we stand with the hardworking families that have built this state, and we stand with their families and their children to ensure that they are able to have a good quality of life in West Virginia. We stand with you, and put people over profit, not profit over people. We will continue to fight for West Virginia families. This fight for hardworking West Virginia families is our fight, and we're not going anywhere.

Belinda Biafore, Chair

And now, a few words from Chris Regan

From time to time, we want others to share their voices here at Blue with a View. And having a firsthand account of yesterday's rally at the Capitol from Democratic Party Vice-Chair Christopher Regan is one of those times:

#StandWithWV Lets Republicans Know
Working Families Reject their Agenda

Braving a major snowstorm to make their voices heard, two thousand working West Virginians came to the Capitol Monday to rally against the anti-worker, anti-wage agenda being advanced by the Republican majority. At a time when politics leaves so many Americans disaffected and apathetic, the radical proposals in Charleston activated traditional Democrats, independents and even Republicans who have come to learn that the promises this new majority campaigned on are going unfulfilled.

Courtesy Elizabeth Opyoke

Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler called the rally, but it became a joint project of the House and Senate Democrats, labor leaders, water conservationists, and consumer advocates as well. The packed Capitol steps provided a powerful scene as thousands of workers in Carhartt bibs or hunting gear listened to an array of pro-working family messages from West Virginia's leaders. Senator Kessler, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, AFL-CIO President Kenny Perdue, Delegate Mike Caputo, Senator Bob Beach, Delegate Shawn Fluharty and Senator Doug Facemire all spoke to loud and sometimes raucous cheering.

Courtesy Jeff Kessler

The rally revealed that ordinary West Virginians see through the big-money campaign to buy the state off for corporate interests. Signs carried around pointed out how so-called right to work laws hurt good wage-paying union jobs, how prevailing wage laws protect our construction workers and businesses and how laws to weaken drinking water protections are radical and wrong. Perdue reminded everyone present that promises of jobs bills and economic improvement were going unfulfilled, while Republicans paid off their friends in industry. Tennant, as one would expect, made sure to discuss the importance of registering more voters so the next election more accurately reflects the will of the people.

Courtesy Lynette Maselli

As predictions of bad weather came out on Sunday night, Republicans had taken to social media to mock the workers rally and suggest that no one would show up. As it happened, turnout would have been considered substantial on a nice summer day – under the circumstances, it was simply an amazing showing by the folks who are being directly hurt by the Republicans' policies. The thousands who were in Charleston will take back to their counties key information and motivation to make sure that the next time we vote, we get it right.

The platform

Parties have platforms, and platforms have planks. So do decks and loading docks, for that matter, but today we're going to talk about parties. Specifically ours.

Members of the West Virginia Federation of Democratic Women support the West Virginia Democratic Party platform. We are bound to through our bylaws and, frankly, we wouldn't be Democrats if we thought their (and by "their" we mean Republicans') ideas would result in a better life for all, without regard to race, creed, color or the size of your bank account.

One plank of the platform that is especially near and dear to us is F-8: Women's Health. We are women, after all, and we like to think that our health is important. (Interestingly, there is no plank for Men's Health, but one has been designated for "Health." In general.)

Here's what we Democrats agreed to at our last party convention, in 2012:

That last bullet point is important enough that it bears repeating:

• all health decisions, including reproductive health, are made privately without interference by the government, insurance companies, or employers.

HB 2568, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is up for its third reading before the full House of Delegates today. Otherwise known as the abortion bill, some iteration of it appears perennially in the legislature and – as written – is unconstitutional. Last year's version passed through both chambers and was vetoed by the Governor. Because Democrats held a majority in both chambers in 2014, the veto was upheld.

Screeeeeech. Wait a minute. The Democratic party platform says women's reproductive health decisions are made without government interference. Says so. Right there in blue and white. If Democrats held a majority last year, in both chambers, then at least some Democrats must have voted FOR it. Begging the question: How did the bill ever make it to the Governor's desk?

Well, last year if you'll recall – and, really, how could you forget? – we held elections. And while the Democratic platform gives women the benefit of the doubt about their ability to take care of their bodies, their selves, privately and without interference, Democratic voters in West Virginia tend to disagree. Democratic lawmakers who support 20-week abortion bans, no matter what state, want to be re-elected.

We Democrats think having a "D" after your name is better than any other letter, especially if you represent us. We make phone calls and fire off angry e-mails, but in the end, for the most part, we forgive and forget.

But we can also be somewhat passive-aggressive. Staying home on Election Day is the ultimate act of passive-aggression and in 2014 it came back to bite us.

HB 2568 will be read today and voted on soon, and it will pass. It will pass with no exceptions for rape or incest. Which, one would hope, would not be a major issue. Most pregnancies resulting from rape or incest are terminated long before the 20-week threshold.

So why would a woman suddenly, after FIVE MONTHS, choose to terminate? The fact is, they don't, unless there is something horribly, dreadfully wrong with the fetus. Or the mother. So in those few cases – fewer than a dozen each year here in West Virginia – the law doesn't impede those women from making the most difficult and painful decision of their lives, right?

Well … wrong. A floor amendment making an exception for the health of the mother was voted down yesterday.

In the end, it doesn't matter what we of the Democratic Party or we of the WVFDW or we of the female gender wish or think or believe. In the end, a minority of registered West Virginia voters elected a majority of Republican legislators. And in the end, it's not just a handful of pregnant West Virginia women who will have to figure out a way to risk their lives to save their lives.

Because we stayed home last November, all West Virginians are going to feel the pinch of gut-and-cut politics in Charleston.

In the end.

Moving forward

Our first order of business here, and one we've already done in a more timely manner on Facebook and Twitter, is to congratulate the new Chair and Vice-Chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party. The election was held Saturday, February 7, where elected members of the State Democratic Executive Committee moved Belinda Biafore from Vice-Chair to Chair and elected Christopher Regan as the new Vice-Chair.

Belinda Biafore
Chair, West Virginia Democratic Party

Chris Regan
Vice-Chair, West Virginia Democratic Party

What does this mean for the party? Blending Biafore's relationship-building skills and 30 years of experience with Regan's skills and commitment was – in the Executive Committee's judgment – the best way to build for the future.

Time will tell, of course, and we are looking forward to being a part of that effort. Belinda is a past president of the Federation and truly moved us toward a more progressive agenda. We're looking forward to watching Chris bring younger West Virginians who perhaps haven't committed to a party into the fold.

We Democrats like to say we are a big tent. Belinda and Chris have a big job ahead of them bringing Independents and lapsed Democrats back to the fold. We, of course, support them and will assist in any way we can.