The legislature adjourned sine die at midnight on March 9th. In the end, several bills that had been moving through the process and that were of concern to social justice advocates did not pass. Several of these did not get out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Senator Charles Trump, a Republican from Berkeley Springs, was the committee chair.
The most important of these were:
HB 4299 : Permit teachers in K-12 schools be authorized to carry concealed firearms as a designated school protection officer. This bill passed the House but died in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
HB 4654: Removing bona fide schools, public libraries, and museums from the list of exemptions from criminal liability relating to distribution and display to minor of obscene matter. This bill passed the House of Delegates but died in the Senate Judiciary Committee. A last-minute attempt to amend it into another bill failed. Thanks to the West Virginia Coalition for Truth in History, West Virginia Library Association, and West Virginia Association of Museums for their efforts to stop this bill.
HB 4313: Creating the Parents’ Bill of Rights passed the House of Delegates but died in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was similar to other bills that also did not move.
SB 448: Requiring age-appropriate instruction on Holocaust in public schools – in the Senate. This died in the Senate Rules Committee.
SB 870: Restoring Sanity Act. This bill died in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
HB 5297: Relating to prohibiting pubertal modulation and hormonal therapy when provided to assist in a gender transition , where it died in the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee. Senator Mike Maroney, a physician and Republican from Glen Dale, was the chair of this committee.
HB 5243: Relating to Women's Bill of Rights. This died in the Senate Judiciary Committee.