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Lawmaker Express roars into town
West Virginians deserve better than railroading legislators
The rumble of trains has long been part of the heartbeat of West Virginia. While the less frequent but still there coal trains continue to wind their way through the valleys, passenger train service has become even less frequent. Three days a week, though, the historic C&O-built Charleston station has passengers loading and unloading a passenger train. A sliver of how things once were is again as Amtrak’s Cardinal slides under the Southside Bridge and does its duty as a stopover between Chicago, Washington, D.C. and New York City. Then all is quiet on the Kanawha riverfront until the next train.
Two miles up river this past weekend there was a railroading of a different sort going on: A Sunday evening special session of the legislature, officially announced by Governor Jim Justice 30 minutes prior from his Greenbrier golf course, teed up 44 items for express lawmaking. With super majorities, the West Virginia Senate suspended the rules and plowed through the list with a speed and efficiency that would make Amtrak jealous. The House, after a speed-reading of the proclamation for the extraordinary session that would make a professional auctioneer need closed captioning, broke the work up over the forthcoming days.
