W. Virginia Senate blows deadline to pass teaching race bill

Source: Associated Press

W. Virginia Senate blows deadline to pass teaching race bill

By LEAH WILLINGHAM
March 13, 2022

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The West Virginia Legislature’s Republican supermajority failed to pass a controversial bill restricting how race is taught in public schools because they missed a midnight deadline in the final moments of the 2022 session, a state Senate spokesperson confirmed early Sunday.

Lawmakers had spent weeks during the legislative session debating and advancing proposed bills similar to the “Anti-Racism Act of 2022.” It wasn’t immediately clear why Republicans waited until late Saturday to take the final vote. The act had passed the Senate and House overwhelmingly, and the late-night vote was merely to greenlight the House’s version.

“We took the vote, but essentially that didn’t matter because it didn’t make deadline,” Senate spokesperson Jacque Bland told The Associated Press in an email early Sunday. She said the education bill has no path forward to becoming law.

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GOP lawmakers appeared unhurried as the clock ticked down Saturday, spending about an hour passing resolutions honoring two outgoing senators.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/west-virginia-legislature-teaching-race-abortion-bills-7f1885a38a3620bef65d211ea4a4f2ba