SB 139 West Virginia Senate · 2025 Regular Session

Relating to filling of vacancies in Legislature

This bill changes how West Virginia fills vacancies in the state Senate or House of Delegates. It requires political parties to submit a list of three qualified candidates to the Governor, following their state executive committee's rules, rather than allowing other party members to propose names. It also adds a new requirement that any appointed official must have resided within the district they will represent for at least one year before appointment. The Governor must appoint from the submitted list within five days, with strict deadlines for submission (15 days after vacancy). This affects the Governor, political parties, and potential appointees by standardizing the vacancy process.
Bill status passed 3 of 5 stages cleared
Introduction
Feb 2025
Committee Review
Feb 2025
Senate Passage
Feb 2025
House of Delegates Passage
Governor
Introduced Feb 12, 2025 Last action Feb 24, 2025
Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

Introduced Version Committee Substitute · 3 edits
MINOR
The bill was amended from an introduced version to a committee substitute version, adding co-sponsors and updating the bill's purpose to require political party lists to follow state executive committee rules. The core substantive text regarding vacancy filling procedures and residency requirements remains unchanged.
Scope change
The bill's scope remains the same, covering vacancy filling procedures for West Virginia state legislators, but the committee substitute adds a requirement that political party lists must follow state executive committee rules.
REQUIREMENT

Added requirement that the process to compose and submit lists of qualified persons must be governed by the rules of the state executive committee of the political party.

TECHNICAL

Updated bill metadata including co-sponsors (Senators Woelfel and Morris added), report date (February 17, 2025), and bill title to reflect the new state executive committee requirement.

Removed introductory text and formatting elements from the introduced version that were replaced with committee substitute formatting and additional legislative metadata.

Floor votes · Senate Feb 21, 2025

How they voted

310
Passed · 2 other
Total votes 33
Feb 21, 2025
D Democratic2
2 Yea
100% Yea
R Republican31
29 Yea 2
93% Yea
Vote distribution
All Yea All Nay Mixed No data
Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions
16
Key actions
2
Committee
4
Feb 24, 2025
Committee
To House Judiciary
lower
Feb 24, 2025
Committee
To Judiciary
lower
Feb 24, 2025
Introduced
Introduced in House
lower
Feb 21, 2025
Upper · Passed
Passed Senate (Roll No. 16)
upper
Feb 18, 2025
Upper · Passed
Committee substitute reported
upper
Feb 12, 2025
Introduced
Introduced in Senate
upper
Feb 12, 2025
Committee
To Judiciary
upper
0 primary · 3 co-sponsors

Sponsors

No sponsor information available.