Good: SB 159 — “prohibiting smoking in vehicle when minor 16 or under is present.” This bill passed the Senate and was sent to House Finance.
It is an indisputable fact that secondhand smoke is dangerous. That’s why smoking is now prohibited in a variety of spaces — especially indoor ones — even though smoking itself is still legal for adults. An adult can make an informed choice to use cigarettes despite knowing the risks — a child locked in the car with said adult doesn’t have the choice to not inhale the smoke, especially if the windows are rolled up.
This law will (hopefully) help protect kids from being trapped in an unhealthy situation not of their choosing. The only real flaw of this bill is that it makes smoking in a vehicle with kids a secondary offense, which means the car must be pulled over for something else first.
Bad: HB 5159 — “to eliminate the requirement that 14- or 15-year-old obtain a work permit.” Children between 14 and 16 years old would only need a parent or guardian’s written permission instead of a full work permit, and instead of getting approvals or verifications from the State Superintendent of Schools (because kids that age should be in school), employers would only need age verification from the State Commissioner of Labor.
This bill is part of an effort — led in large part by pro-business and pro-homeschool conservatives — to roll back child labor protections instituted in the 1930s. Those original protections were meant to get kids out of dangerous workplaces and back into schools — to give them the chance to have an education and a childhood.
Do we really want a return to the days when the eldest children never completed school because they had to support the family? When higher education and life-path choices were a luxury reserved the youngest siblings or the wealthiest kids?
Child labor laws were put in place for a reason: to stop kids from being exploited with long hours, physically demanding, sometimes hazardous work and suppressed wages. Passing this law would be just the first step in West Virginia joining other red states in rolling child labor laws all the way to the 1930s.
Stupid turned Bad: HB 4313 — “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which says, “The liberty of a parent to direct the upbringing, education, and care, including medical care, of the parent’s child is a fundamental right.” This bill was just “stupid,” until it was amended — read: rewritten — into something “bad.” The amended version passed its first committee and is now in House Judiciary.
There’s a special emphasis in this bill on parents’ rights to determine their children’s education and health care. It expressly gives parents the right to choose alternative, non-public schooling for their children. It’s less specific language regarding health care is probably meant to open the door to refuse mandatory childhood vaccinations. The amended version also contains language that Republicans have repeatedly sought that could force schools to “out” closeted LGBTQ+ kids to their parents if that child is out at school.
The amended version of the bill removed language that would have allowed exceptions to the law if the action was “long recognized in the history and traditions of this state.” That language could have preserved mandatory school-age vaccines, since mandatory vaccines have a long history in West Virginia. The language was replaced with “reasonable and necessary to achieve a compelling state interest.” We would think protecting vulnerable kids from deadly and debilitating diseases would be a compelling state interest, but a shocking number of legislators disagree.
The amendment also changed that a parent’s “right to make health care decisions for his or her minor child” to “unless otherwise prohibited by law.” We had thought that parents’ right to direct their children’s health care could present an opening to challenge gender-affirming care bans. Unfortunately, someone must have seen the same possible loopholes we did and made sure to close them.
