West Virginia’s almost entirely Republican state Senate passed a bill in late January that would require schools in the state to display “In God We Trust” signs—in every single classroom. When the state’s House Education Committee took up the bill, it was initially amended to require signage in a single prominent area of each school facility. But on Thursday, when the House Judiciary Committee reviewed it, Republican Del. Geoff Foster amended the bill’s language to once again require each classroom to display the signage.
Since there is no plan for how to pay for the signs, West Virginia’s cash-strapped educational institutions would likely be forced to foot the bill.
Senate Bill 152 reads: “A public elementary or secondary school or a state institution of higher education must display in a conspicuous place in each classroom of the school or institution a durable poster or framed copy of the United States national motto, “In God We Trust.”
Travis Mollohan, the associate vice president of government relations for West Virginia University, testified that his campus alone has more than 700 classrooms. West Virginia University announced in September that it would be cutting 143 faculty jobs as well as 28 majors due to a $45 million budget deficit—but hey, find the money to create and produce 700 “patriotic” signs!.
Meanwhile, according to the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, the state’s conservative-backed school voucher program, called the “Hope Scholarship,” is already bleeding money out of public schools that would pay for actual educational services:
Statewide, the loss of funding from the public education system to the Hope Scholarship is expected to total over $21.6 million in the 2024-25 school year, meaning school districts across West Virginia will lose the state aid funding for an estimated 364 staff, including approximately 301 professional educators and 63 school service personnel.
Democratic Del. Shawn Fluharty pointed out both the costs as well as the potential First Amendment implications of forcing students to see “In God We Trust” everywhere they go in school.
“Maybe we can have an amendment where members of this body can read the Constitution a lot more often because it just made this bill null in its effect,” Fluharty said.
Republican state Sen. Mike Azinger, who authored the bill, is best known for showing up to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and blaming all of the violence that day on “Antifa,” He also wrote an angry letter to his local paper attacking LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations in the Mountain State.
Azinger successfully passed this frivolous bill through the state Senate last year. However, the House didn’t take up the bill that time around, so it died on the vine. We can only hope the House will do the same this time around and leave this insecure bit of religious “patriotism” under a pile of more worthwhile legislation.
The first downballot primaries of 2024 are here! We’re previewing some of Tuesday’s biggest races on this week’s episode of “The Downballot” with Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer. Singer highlights major elections in four states, including the battle for second place in California’s Senate contest; whether Democrats will avoid a lockout in a critical California House district; if the worst Republican election fraudster in recent years will successfully stage a comeback in North Carolina; and how Alabama’s new map will affect not one but two House races.
