Justice signs 15 bills as deadline for his action approaches next Wednesday

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)

Bills to close West Virginia’s marital rape loophole, prohibit smoking in cars with minors and protect teachers who discuss “scientific theories” in classrooms were signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice on Friday, making them officially part of state code.

Those bills were among 15 signed by Justice on Friday, bringing the total number of bills from the 2024 session with his signature to 88.

The signing of Senate Bill 378 , which makes it illegal for adults to smoke in cars with children under the age of 16, completes more than 10 years of work by various state lawmakers in West Virginia. The law will go into effect on June 5. It creates a secondary offense in the form of a $25 fine for anyone who is found to be smoking in their cars with children after being cited for a different offense.

Lawmakers who sponsored and supported the bills — namely Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha — shared during the session that they hoped the measure would discourage parents and guardians from exposing their children to dangerous secondhand smoke while starting conversations and awareness around those risks.

The signage of SB 190 — which removes marriage as a defense for sexual abuse against a spouse in state code — is also the end of decades of work by state lawmakers. That bill was introduced by Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, who said he continuously supported it to carry on the legacy of a former state lawmaker, Judith Herndon, who represented Ohio County in the Senate. In 1976, Herndon — one of only eight Republicans in the body at the time and the only woman, Weld said — championed a law to end the marital exemption for the sexual assault portion of state code.

SB 190 takes that work further, ending the exception for all types of sexual abuse and assault. It will go into effect on June 6.

Justice also signed a bill that would protect teachers who discuss “scientific theories ,” including intelligent design with students in public schools. The bill was brought to lawmakers by two Putnam County high school students who said that their science teachers feared teaching about intelligent design in their classrooms.

SB 280 would prevent public school boards or administrators from prohibiting a teacher “from discussing or answering questions from students about scientific theories of how the universe and/or life came to exist.” It doesn’t mention intelligent design by name, though several bill supporters said it would protect those who mention it classrooms.

In 2005, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled that it was unconstitutional to present intelligent design as an alternative to evolution because it advanced a Christian viewpoint.

The bill was one of the only key education measures to make it to the governor’s desk.

Several Republican-backed education bills failed to pass in the final hours of the Legislative Session due to discord between the House and Senate.

So far, Justice has vetoed one bill, HB 5014 , from the regular session. That bill 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.

The governor has until March 27 to act on — by signing or vetoing — 190 more bills that are heading to his desk or already pending his action. Anything not signed by that day will become law without a signature.

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