As the clock wound down on the 2025 legislative session, West Virginia lawmakers weren’t frantically trying to pass bills to address economic stagnation, some of the worst quality-of-life metrics in the nation or the state’s crumbling infrastructure. Instead, they were busy forcing a bill across the line to ban any state-funded program that had diversity, equity or inclusion in its title.
These misplaced priorities are nothing new. After the Republicans gained control of the House of Delegates and Senate in 2014, and garnered a supermajority in 2020, national culture-war issues have taken up more and more of state lawmakers’ time. In this case, the DEI ban lines up with an executive order Gov. Patrick Morrisey issued during his first days in office, and federal efforts along similar lines.
Earlier this month, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon (who ran the Small Business Administration during President Donald Trump’s first term but is primarily familiar with helping run a pro wrestling media empire) issued an order for schools to eliminate DEI initiatives within 10 days or face the loss of federal funding. The Trump administration tried this in February, as well, giving schools two weeks to fall in line, although that effort seemed to fizzle out.
DEI has become a right-wing buzzword for a shadowy boogeyman that takes jobs from white people while offering unfair advantages to unqualified minorities to hit some sort of diversity quota or fulfill a leftist agenda. In reality, these programs exist to level the playing field for everyone, as certain minority communities have been historically shut out of equal opportunities or even access to resources because of discrimination.
What’s worse is that the bill to rid West Virginia of state-funded equality initiatives and programs got its own special treatment to squeak through on the last day of the session.
According to a story reported by West Virginia Watch, after the bill passed the House, the Senate used a rarely deployed suspension of normal rules pertaining to amendments so that 13 proposed changes to the bill wouldn’t have to be considered. However, because of a technical error, the motion to suspend rules was retracted, but then made again as the bill was voted on a second time, passing 31-2. The two votes against the bill came from the only two senate Democrats, Joey Garcia, D-Marion, and Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell. Both had procedural concerns about how the bill was handled. Their microphones were deliberately cut so they couldn’t raise objections, according to West Virginia Watch.
The entire process was sketchy and disgraceful. Even with a Republican supermajority, legislative policies have faced resistance. So, legislators have severely bent — if not broken — rules to get what they want. Former Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, twice adopted the tactic of circumventing the committee process and suspending rules on reading bills three times — a stipulation usually invoked in case of an emergency — on the first day of the session, to ram unpopular bills through with no debate or public input.
His successor, Sen. Randy Smith, R-Preston, said he didn’t know if Saturday’s shenanigans were legal, shifting the focus to the Senate parliamentarian, whom, Smith said, “knows the rules very well.†Smith said Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, who invoked the rare suspension of rules to ignore the amendments, also knows the rules. That’s apparently good enough for him.
“As far as I’m concerned, as the procedure and the rules, everything was in order,†Smith said.
That is far from a satisfactory answer, especially considering the Senate reportedly silenced two of its own members who had concerns about the procedure. All this to make sure a bill that is nothing more than a political punishment aimed at one of the smallest minority populations in the United States could pass before midnight.
