An even smaller number will end up passing the other body and be signed by the governor into law.
This morning’s Judiciary Committee held a eulogy of sorts for Senate Bill 700. The bill was meant to help crack down on child pornography—an issue Manchin mentioned as a priority in his State-of-the-State address.
But the bill died on Wednesday in the Judiciary committee, partly because it would have allowed state troopers to issue administrative subpoenas, which worried some that citizens’ Constitutional rights could have been violated.
Sen. Evan Jenkins (D-Cabell) was on the sub-committee working on the bill. He questioned Judiciary chairman Jeff Kessler (D-Marshall) about his motives for killing the legislation.
“I guess I’m still searching for the reason of why 700 got pulled,” Jenkins said. “We’re going to study this for a year, and counsel says we’re going to study the need for issuing an administrative subpoena. Candidly, I think the need is clear. I don’t think I need to study more of whether or not there’s a need for an administrative subpoena.”
“I think it’s a valuable piece of legislation,” Kessler responded. “It needs to be pursued. I promise and pledge that we’ll work with the State police to make sure every iota of child pornography and every legal tool that we can employ will be used to eradicate it in this state.
“There was just some real concern when you’re talking about bypassing the traditional subpoena process, both in the civil libertarian community and the Internet service provider community, that I didn’t know I had adequate time and knew about it enough personally myself to address it if questions were posed on the floor.”
Kessler added that he wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar bill on the Governor’s call for a special session expected later this spring.
Sen. Bill Laird (D-Fayette) chaired the sub-committee discussing Senate Bill 700. A former sheriff, he spoke about some of the difficulties facing law enforcement when dealing with child pornography.
“Obviously our jurisprudence and criminal justice system is predicated a lot in a world that hasn’t come current, with respect to a lot of the technologies that are out there and pretty much becoming part of crimes every day,” he said.
“I think this is an incredibly important toll for the eventual use in ferreting out persons engaging in what is clearly very despicable and criminal behavior.”
Sen. Clark Barnes (R-Randolph) had some concerns with the original bill because it would mark the first time administrative subpoenas were extended to law enforcement to regulate the general public.
“But that certainly does give us pause to reflect and understand that we have, with the Patriot Act and some of the other things that we have experienced in the few years, we certainly have given up some of our liberty and traded it for our safety,” he said.
“And certainly as we look forward, when we do that, as we do look at giving away possibly some of our rights under the Constitution, we also have to look at protecting our children as well.”
Another bill that won’t see the light of day this session is Senate Bill 655, which would have prohibited future underground coal slurry injection permits. Energy, Industry and Mining chairman Mike Green (D-Raleigh) says the bill was introduced relatively late in the process—last week—and there wasn’t time to sufficiently consider it.
Also, there’s already a temporary moratorium on the process.
“The coal slurry injection, last year through a senate resolution at the request of the DEP, they put a two year moratorium on any new coal slurry injection,” Green said.
“That was one thing that was working against that bill. And another thing this is, along with Sen. Kessler and I, we’re working on an interim study to find ways that we can help incentivize the industry to look at alternative ways to handle that slurry in what is called a dry press method.”
Some bills die not for ideological reasons, but procedural ones. Senate Education Chairman Bob Plymale (D-Wayne) didn’t release a bill from his committee increasing the penalties for overtaking stopped school buses. This, he says, wasn’t because it was a bad bill, but because the House was working on a similar measure.
House Bill 4485 passed the House yesterday, and Plymale says it’s a much meatier bill than it’s Senate counterpart.
In the next week and a half, the Senate will be considering the nearly 140 bills the House has passed so far this session.