The new year is a time for reflection, resolutions, and commitments to self-improvement. It’s also the start of another West Virginia legislative session. What a great time for legislative leaders to commit to responsible governance.
There is already speculation state lawmakers will prioritize more harmful, discriminatory, and anti-science agendas this session: prohibiting evidence-based best medical practices for transgender youth, creating a license to discriminate, banning diversity and anti-racism education, and, of course, a cadre of forced birth bills.
True believers will drive these efforts, but outnumbering them are those legislators who know these bills are wrong but support them anyway because of fear and/or politics.
These bills will run because the believers are louder and more insistent than those who know better. They’ll run because of a perception that it’s good politics in an election year. They’ll run because, in a state that voted for Donald Trump by a nearly 40% margin, there’s a belief that legislators can hide behind popular will.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Read the full piece in today's Charleston Gazette Mail here.