Trepidation seems to be the best word to describe the resumption of this slog of a special session, although the word insanity could also apply, as in the quote attributed to Einstein, i.e., the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
If all has gone according to plan as of my way early deadline for this column, the Senate at this point will have passed and sent a tobacco tax increase bill to the House of Delegates.
Twice before, House Democrats have joined with no-tax Tea Party Republicans to defeat tobacco tax increases, and the atmosphere in the House going into the third vote will be toxic, with many Republicans convinced the Democrats hung them out to dry by voting en masse against a 45-cent increase, in part, on the assumption that the longer the impasse goes on, the angrier voters will be with legislative leadership in particular and the GOP in general.
Meanwhile, observers note that the new leadership has done itself no favors, particularly in the House, by continuing to operate under a mindset that they are still the minority party: Goading, finger-pointing, making accusations against Democrats, instead of trying to reach out and build consensus. The lengthy floor debate on the tobacco tax, for instance, frequently degenerated into a readdress of grievances against Democrats from when they were in power.
Similarly, some observers say any chance that Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin might have signed the budget bill into law, perhaps with some line-item vetoes, evaporated when Delegate Patrick Lane, R-Kanawha, vowed in the waning moments of the June 2 session that if the governor was so "irresponsible" as to veto the budget, the Legislature would come back and override him. (Apparently, Lane forgot that overrides of vetoes of appropriations bills require two-thirds majority votes.)
If the tobacco tax is defeated for a third time in the House, the dreaded shutdown of state government goes from hypothetical to potentially unavoidable.
n n n
Assuming the House does not buckle under to the pressure of the deadline of a July 1 government shutdown, I understand the governor's office is researching ways to keep government operating after that date.
Obviously, something has to be done. It's inconceivable to shutter the State Police, discharge all patients in state hospitals, or send corrections officers home.
One possibility under consideration would be for the governor to declare a state of emergency.
State Code (15-5-6) broadly defines an emergency as "a natural or man-made disaster of major proportions," to the extent "that the safety and welfare of the inhabitants of the state require an invocation of the provisions of this section."
Once a state of emergency is declared, the governor has some pretty broad powers, including the ability to obtain "services of necessary personnel," to be compensated short-term through the governor's civil contingency fund.
He also has authority to "use available resources of the state and of its subdivisions that are reasonably necessary to cope with the emergency."
(The circa 1953 law also gives the governor power to, "Suspend or limit the sale, dispensing or transportation of alcoholic beverages, explosives and combustibles," but let's hope the budget crisis doesn't reach that point...)
The legal issue would be whether a shutdown of state government operations constitutes an emergency until the law.
In 1986, the state Supreme Court ruled that then-Gov. Arch Moore could not declare a state of emergency over prison overcrowding in order to allow the Division of Corrections to refuse to accept newly convicted inmates into the prison system, but current circumstances seem to have much broader consequences.
n n n
Legislators from both houses and both sides of the aisle have been critical that Tomblin's style of governing has not served him well in resolving the budget impasse.
There's been much contrasting of Tomblin's style with his predecessor, Joe Manchin, who would pull out all the stops as governor to get bills he wanted passed. Manchin had no qualms about inviting himself into caucuses of both parties, calling legislators to his office or to dinner in the governor's mansion dining room to hash out deals, or even using his lifetime Junior Rules privileges to go into the inner sanctum of the Senate members' lounge.
(Manchin is the only governor I've seen come into the Capitol Press Room, the equivalent of a socialite walking into the sleaziest dive bar imaginable...)
While Tomblin has been known to do some cajoling - he had Senate Democrats to breakfast at the mansion following the House's rejection of the 45-cent tobacco tax, for instance - he tends to be more hands off, abiding by the old school dictum, "The governor proposes, the Legislature disposes."
n n n
Finally, one of the more peculiar events of last week was the Legislature's failure Monday to get the budget bill enrolled and sent to Tomblin.
(Each bill has to be signed by six people before it goes to the governor: The chairpersons of the House and Senate Enrolled Bills committees, the speaker of the House and the Senate president, and the clerks of the House and Senate.)
Shortly before 5 p.m., five of six signatures had been collected, but Senate Clerk Clark Barnes could not be found, even though he had been on campus during the day.
Barnes has been coy about what happened, saying for the record only that, "It just wasn't time to sign it yet."
The day's delay pushed the deadline for Tomblin to act on the bill from Saturday, June 11, to Monday, June 13, a day after legislators were originally scheduled to reconvene the session.
The only conceivable advantage is that it would have given Tomblin the option to wait until legislators were back in Charleston before vetoing the budget, although I'm still not quite clear as to how that would have benefited the Legislature.
Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.