By Steven Allen Adams
steven@westvirginiawatchdog.org
With just over 24 hours to spare, Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, acting as governor, vetoed the redistricting plan passed by the West Virginia House of Delegates and issued an official proclamation, calling the Legislature back into special session to start all over again.
The second special session will start at noon Thursday, focusing solely on a new House redistricting plan, as well as appropriating money to pay for the the special session, which could cost as much as $30,000 per day according to the House Communications office.
H.B. 106, which passed the House and the Legislature Aug. 5, was vetoed by Tomblin either last night or this morning according to the Acting Governor’s office. During the course of proofing the bill last week several technical errors were found, including duplicated voting precincts. Last week Tomblin issued a statement, expecting to veto the bill and call another special session.
The final plan, first released Aug. 1 shortly before a public hearing scheduled with four hours notice, created 68 districts – 10 more districts than there are currently. House leadership plans to use a corrected version of H.B. 106, which creates 11 new single-member districts, bringing the total number to 47 single-member districts.
In the proposed plan, the number of three-member districts remain at six, the number of four-member districts decrease from three to two, and Monongalia County districts were combined into a five-member district. In one of the three amendments to the bill during the first special session, the seven-member 30th House District in Kanawha County was split into one three-member and one four-member district.
House Republicans plan to push once again for a plan creating 100 single-member districts. They also plan to push for a recess so delegates can go back to their districts and get public comment. House leadership plans to pass the corrected version. Depending on the amount of debate the special session could be no less than three days long, as the House typically does not suspend their rules to allow a bill to be read three times in one day.
