Justice acts on slew of bills as midnight deadline approaches

Gov. Jim Justice signs bills into law at the West Virginia Capitol in Charleston, W.Va. on March 20, 2024. (Office of the Gov. Jim Justice | Courtesy photo)

With a midnight deadline looming for his action, Gov. Jim Justice on Wednesday afternoon signed dozens of bills into law, including controversial legislation to move oversight for West Virginia Public Broadcasting to the state and a bill to prohibit people from using “nonbinary” on their birth certificates, among others.

As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, Justice had acted on all 279 bills passed by legislators during the 2024 regular session, according to a news release . Check West Virginia Watch on Thursday for more information on some of those bills.

Senate Bill 844 changes the name of the Educational Broadcasting Authority, a board that oversees West Virginia Public Broadcasting, to the Educational Broadcasting Commission. The bill also gives authority to the Cabinet Secretary of the Department of Arts, Culture, and History to hire the executive director of Public Broadcasting.

The number of board members for the commission will be reduced from 11 to 9 under the bill.

The bill raised concerns with Friends of Public Broadcasting, a nonprofit organization that solicits annual memberships for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Chairman Elliot Hicks said the legislation “gives the governor a more direct hand in what happens and who is running this organization.”

House Bill 4233 makes it illegal for parents to put “nonbinary” on their child’s birth certificates despite lawmakers admitting through the legislative process that there was no evidence anyone in the state has ever done so before.

The bill was one of several introduced this session targeting LGBTQ people and, following the failure of the “Women’s Bill of Rights” and HB 5297 , which would have further prohibited at-risk children in the state from accessing medically sound gender-affirming care, it is the only one to have become law.

Currently, birth certificates issued in West Virginia already report the sex of the child as male or female. HB 4233 will restrict future options.

The bill was opposed by the state’s American Civil Liberties Union chapter and Fairness West Virginia, an LGBTQ civil rights nonprofit.

Other laws signed by Justice Wednesday include one to include fentanyl and substance use disorder education for middle and high schoolers in the state as well as a law to prohibit the doxxing of health care workers and their families.

HB 5540 — referred to as “Laken’s Law” after a 24-year-old who died from an accidental fentanyl overdose — requires public schools in the state to provide annual research-based education on fentanyl abuse and prevention to students in grades 6-12.

That education includes guidance on administering opioid reversal drugs, like Narcan, as well as resources to prevent substance use disorder from developing among children.

Laken Morgan, who the law is named after, died in Beckley in 2021 from an accidental fentanyl overdose. Lawmakers who supported the bill — which passed both the House and Senate unanimously — said they believed incorporating the education into schools will help prevent more accidental overdoses as fentanyl and other powerful synthetics are becoming more common in the black market drug supply.

The new education initiatives will begin for students in the 2024-25 school year.

With the signage of SB 477 , it will be illegal starting June 4 for anyone to publicly publish online any identifying information — including addresses, phone numbers and photos, among other things — for several types of health care workers with the intent to “threaten, intimidate, or incite” violence against them.

Those who violate the law could be fined up to $500 and jailed for six months on a first offense. On a subsequent offense, penalties would increase up to $1,000 and a year in jail.

The proposed law also allows health care workers to request that government entities remove any identifying information about them from the internet. Those requests must be accompanied by a written and notarized statement showing the worker has reason to believe they could be in danger if their information remains public, as well as proof that they are a health care worker.

By publication time Wednesday, Justice had issued at least three vetoes on bills from the 2024 legislative session.

HB 5014 would have used a supplemental appropriation of $2 million from the state’s 2024 budget to fund research for Alzheimer’s disease and addiction at the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute. It also would have provided $4 million in research funding to several hospitals throughout the state.

His most recent veto came Tuesday, against HB 5528 , a bipartisan bill that would have removed the sunset provision on a state program meant to promote increased use of renewable energy in the state. Justice initially approved and implemented that program in 2020, and — with his veto — it will now expire in 2025.

His most notable veto came late Wednesday afternoon on HB 5105 , which would have allowed parochial and private schools in the state to set their own vaccination policies.

Hundreds of health care workers from several organizations called on Justice in recent days to veto the legislation over concerns that they would open the door for weakening the state’s strong immunization policies.

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