Earlier this year, the West Virginia legislature adopted House Joint Resolution 28 during the 2024 regular legislative session. The purpose of the joint resolution was to propose a constitutional amendment that would prohibit “medically assisted suicide or euthanasia” in West Virginia. Physician-Assisted suicide is already prohibited under West Virginia state law; however, this amendment was proposed to ensure that the West Virginia Legislature is incapable of legalizing physician-assisted suicide in the future.
Proposed constitutional amendments must be approved by voters; however, proposed amendments must first be approved by two-thirds of voting members in both chambers of the legislature. Thus meaning, two-thirds of the members of the House of Delegates and two-thirds of the members of the State Senate must vote to adopt an amendment for it to pass the legislature. The West Virginia Legislature is currently under the control of a Republican supermajority. At the time of the passage of House Joint Resolution 28, the House of Delegates consisted of 89 Republicans and 11 Democrats. The makeup of the State Senate was even more lopsided, with 31 Republicans, and 3 Democrats.
Makeup of the West Virginia House of Delegates in the 86th West Virginia Legislature
On February 15th, 2024, House Joint Resolution 28 was passed by the House of Delegates by a vote of 88 yeas, 9 nays, and 3 abstentions. On March 9th, 2024, House Joint Resolution 28 was adopted by the West Virginia Senate by a vote of 28 yeas, 4 nays, and 2 abstentions. The Senate adopted an amendment to the joint resolution that would include the final language of the proposed amendment. The House of Delegates passed the Senate version of the joint resolution by a vote of 88 yeas, 10 nays, and 2 abstentions.
The constitutional amendment was not heavily campaigned on, and West Virginians were ignorant of the amendment because of this. Many West Virginia voters expressed confusion over the language of the amendment as it was written on the ballot. In years past, West Virginians tended to fail constitutional amendments that they did not understand due to voter confusion. In 2022, some West Virginia voters expressed their opposition to the amendments that were proposed by the West Virginia Legislature that year because they believed that the amendments would change the language of the Bill of Rights. However, most West Virginian voters expressed their opposition to the amendments because they disagreed with the purpose of the amendments.
This was not the case in 2024. Despite rampant voter confusion and ignorance of the existence of the ballot measure, the proposed constitutional amendment to ban physician-assisted suicide in West Virginia was passed by the voters. However, the amendment’s passage was not as lopsided as House Joint Resolution 28. 336,039 voters (or 50.44% of voters) voted for the passage of the amendment, while 330,236 voters (or 49.56% of voters) voted against the passage of the amendment. Despite the amendment passing by a razor-thin margin, it will now be adopted into the West Virginia state constitution.
The joint resolution was introduced by Delegates Roger Hanshaw, Trenton Barnhart, Chris Pritt, Pat McGeehan, Gino Chiarelli, Joe Ellington, Chris Phillips, George Street, Dean Jeffries, Laura Kimble, and Matthew Rohrbach. Notably, every sponsor, except for Gino Chiarelli, holds a leadership role or serves as a committee chair or vice chair in the House of Delegates. Roger Hanshaw is the Speaker of the House and Chair of the Rules Committee, while Trenton Barnhart chairs the Banking Committee. Chris Pritt is a Deputy Majority Whip and Vice Chair of Pensions and Retirement, and Pat McGeehan serves as Vice Chair of the Government Organization Committee. Joe Ellington leads the Education Committee, and Chris Phillips chairs the Government Organization committee. George Street acts as an Assistant Majority Whip, while Dean Jeffries is an Assistant Majority Leader and Chair of Enrolled Bills. Laura Kimble is an Assistant Majority Leader, and Matthew Rohrbach is the Deputy Speaker and Chair of the Substance Abuse Committee.
The supermajority in the West Virginia Legislature made it much easier to pass the joint resolution. The joint resolution being sponsored by the leadership of the House of Delegates and the House Republican conference ensured that the joint resolution would pass. Standing in opposition to legislation that is being proposed entirely by members of the leadership would be political suicide for any Delegates wishing to climb the latter of leadership themselves or for those who wish to remain as members of the House of Delegates. Although Republican Delegates were unlikely to challenge the joint resolution because of the sponsorship consisting of House leadership, the likelihood of Republican Delegates opposing the legislation was also quite low since the proposed amendment was supported by WV for Life, a powerful PAC in West Virginia Republican Politics.
Terry Whitlock // Nov 20, 2024 at 2:52 pm
They should be ashamed they wrote the bill the way they did to cause confusion. I would almost bet each of the people who wrote the bill are in deep with the pharmaceutical companies or the hospitals trying to bilk every dollar they can. I thought we were wanting quality of life not length. Making people who are in excruciating pain suffer needlessly for years if not a decade or two is inhumane in the extreme.