2013 Legislative News #2

Delegate Larry D. Kump, District #59 (Berkeley-Morgan Counties), makes it a point to consider the principles of economic freedom, individual liberty, and personal accountability as the basis of all his legislative proposals and votes.

He went on to further outline how these principles apply to education reform, substance abuse, the criminal justice system, and taxing the elderly.

Pointing out that elected county boards of education are the only school officials who are directly accountable to the voters, the Falling Waters Delegate proposes that West Virginia's highly centralized, overstaffed, and underperforming education system be revamped. He wants to give much more initiative and authority to local county school boards and to give teachers much more flexibility and say in the classroom. According to Kump, the proposal by some wags to create regional school authorities to determine salaries and other issues only would amount to another "Rube Goldberg" layer of ineffective bureaucracy. He also believes that voters will be much more involved with local school boards if their non-partisan election is moved from Primary to General elections, when more voters participate.

In regard to the growing Mountaineer substance abuse epidemic, Kump says that, in addition to substance abuse and drug addiction treatment programs as alternatives to prison sentences, state lawmakers also need to look at decriminalizing some offenses.

He said, "Why should taxpayers, and also state and local governments, be squeezed and squeezed and squeezed to provide lock-up welfare for prison inmates when there are much better ways to deal with these problems?".

Kump also is proposing legislation that would allow individuals, who have turned their lives around after a past drug related conviction, to have their criminal records expunged if they remain drug free for a period of time.

On the issue of taxation, Delegate Kump notes that thirty-six other states exempt social security benefits and all pensions from state taxes, and the time is long overdue for West Virginia to go and do likewise.