{"id":3265,"date":"2018-02-21T15:25:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T20:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3265"},"modified":"2018-02-21T16:00:42","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T21:00:42","slug":"house-majority-leader-daryl-cowles-moves-to-censure-freshman-history-teacher-delegate-over-pay-raise-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3265","title":{"rendered":"House Majority Leader Daryl Cowles Moves to Censure Freshman History Teacher Delegate Over Pay Raise Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">House Majority Leader Daryl Cowles (R-Morgan) moved yesterday to have Robert Thompson (D-Wayne), a history teacher at Wayne High School, censured for remarks made during an impassioned speech on the House floor in opposition to a Senate four percent pay raise proposal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FWVWorkingFamilies%2Fvideos%2F2184693354936811%2F&amp;show_text=0&amp;width=560\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Speaker of the House, Tim Armstead (R-Kanawha) refused to censure Thompson, but instead warned all House members.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Delegate Mike Caputo (D-Marion) said today that he thinks the move to censure Thompson was \u201cinsane.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tensions were running high in the West Virginia House of Delegates yesterday when Thompson took to the floor of the House.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">West Virginia teachers announced earlier in the week that they will go on strike Thursday and Friday because the legislature failed to pass an adequate pay raise.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last week, the House voted for a five percent pay raise (two percent the first year, then one percent raises in years two, three and four &#8212; known as a 2,1,1,1).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yesterday, the House took under consideration the Senate\u2019s proposal, a four percent raise (2,1,1).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe Senate must think we are stupid,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cI\u2019m not talking about the people sitting in this room. I\u2019m talking about the teachers and service personnel of this state. We passed a pay raise bill from this House that was a two percent increase for the first year, followed by one percent for the following three years. That\u2019s five percent. And virtually everybody in here got up and said &#8212; that\u2019s not enough. We scratched and we clawed to raise it to three, three and three for our teachers, service personnel and state troopers. Couldn\u2019t get it done.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cSo we passed out a pay raise bill that was five percent for teachers over five years. Now the Senate has caved and dropped the pay raise to two percent for the first year, followed by one percent for two years. That\u2019s four percent. That\u2019s elementary school math. That is less than what we passed out of this House and we said &#8212; that\u2019s not enough.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cDo you honestly think that passing this new, even more inadequate pay raise is going to stop thousands of teachers and service personnel from showing up on your doorstep Thursday and Friday of this week &#8212; and potentially longer?\u201d Thompson asked. \u201cI know it won\u2019t. And I look forward to seeing them. I\u2019m going to be up there in the rotunda shaking hands and talking to them, because I work with a lot of them. A lot of people in this chamber will be hiding, in here, in their offices, somewhere else in the capitol. Teachers are some of our most highly educated people in this state. They know when they are getting the shaft.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAnd I cannot support this nonsense. Five percent over four years wasn\u2019t enough. Four percent over three years is ridiculous. This is elementary school math. Two, one, one is not enough for teachers, service personnel or troopers. So I urge you to vote no and come back when you are smarter than a fifth grader.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cowles then stood up to challenge Thompson.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cMr. Speaker, under House Rule Numbers 35 and 36, words of a member could be taken down for words spoken in debate,\u201d Cowles said. \u201cMr. Speaker, my colleagues words should be taken down at the clerk\u2019s desk. And he should be subject to admonishment and censureship (sic) for violations of these rules if the Speaker so choose.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At that point, the Republican leadership huddled for more than five minutes to see whether Thompson would be censured.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After breaking out of their huddle, Armstead took the microphone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019m going to say this to all 100 of us,\u201d Armstead said. \u201cWe are sent here to debate issues. Obviously there is passion related to these issues. But we are also sent here to do it under the rules of this House, and to do it as ladies and gentlemen. And to do it in a way that hopefully, when we walk out that door, we\u2019ll still be friends with one another. I expect that of every member of this House, every one of us. And I will call it down if I think it is getting beyond that.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019m hopeful from this point on in this discussion we can have a discussion on whether we will concur in the Senate amendment and keep our remarks to that rather than discussing each other and each other\u2019s intelligence or each other\u2019s motives or bills that were done in the past or remarks that were made last week.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe should be able to have a debate as ladies and gentlemen all of whom have the best interests of the state at heart and be able to do that in a way that respects each other. And that\u2019s my job as speaker &#8212; to make that happen. And I\u2019m going to make that happen. If there are transgressions, I will continue to make points of order and to rule on those. I hope we will have no more of that tonight. Let\u2019s have a discussion about that amendment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While there was no formal ruling, Cowles motion to censure Thompson was effectively shot down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The House passed the Senate pay raise bill by a vote of 59 to 37. Thompson was one of those voting against. Cowles voted in the majority for the bill.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thompson was surprised by the Cowles motion for censure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis is my first term in office,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cI\u2019ve heard worse on the floor myself. Everybody\u2019s tensions were really high. I was speaking from the heart. That had more to do with it than anything else. There was a heightened state of tension. Several people said they were really surprised by it. It\u2019s water under the bridge. I have never had any ill will at all. No hard feelings on my part. I will continue to work with the Majority Leader.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thompson is author of a number of history books, including most recently <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lulu.com\/shop\/robert-thompson\/uphill-both-ways\/paperback\/product-22867881.html\">Uphill Both Ways: A Short History of Wayne County Schools.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ryan Frankenberry, state director of the West Virginia Working Families Party, was watching the debate on the floor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cBeing a friend and fan of Robert, I was paying attention to his speech,\u201d Frankenberry said. \u201cI thought it was great. He got the point across in language that people at home would understand. Then I heard the Majority Leader call him out, I couldn\u2019t believe it. Robert didn\u2019t understand what was going on. Daryl Cowles is trying to censure a teacher on the floor of the House. I was in disbelief. I watched the scrum at the podium in disbelief for several minutes. I could not imagine that Speaker Armstead would go along with that ridiculous idea. Luckily, he didn\u2019t. I didn\u2019t think that Robert said anything inflammatory directed at any individual. It was an incredibly poor decision by the Majority Leader to single out a teacher to censure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was the second incident in two weeks where the House leadership sought to shut down speeches from the floor of the House.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last week, <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3245\">Lissa Lucas of Ritchie County was forcibly removed<\/a> from the House floor after she began reading the list of fossil fuel contributors to members of the House Judiciary Committee.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPeople are getting dragged out of the House for saying things that offend the chairman,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/wvmetronews.com\/podcast\/talkline\/\">Delegate Mike Caputo (D-Marion) told Hoppy Kercheval on Talkline this morning.<\/a> \u201cThey are getting dragged out of the galleries for coughing too loud. The Senate shuts down an entire day because they don\u2019t want to deal with so many teachers and school service personnel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis is the people\u2019s House,\u201d Caputo said. \u201cWe can\u2019t lose sight of that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe had a big speech by Daryl Cowles the other day using the word union bosses,\u201d Caputo said. \u201cI\u2019ve been around the labor movement for a long time. This movement is from the bottom up. It is not from the top down. Teachers have not had a pay raise since 2014. And to throw some crumbs around at these folks is insulting. They think they are being disrespected down here. And I agree with them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u201cThere has been a lot of disrespect going on under this dome,\u201d Caputo said. \u201cThere was a freshman delegate (Thompson) who had a point of order called on him yesterday. And the Majority Leader wanted to censure him. He\u2019s a freshman delegate and a teacher.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThat\u2019s insane. Because he made a comment &#8212; we are acting like fifth graders?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cDo you know how many times I would have been censured over the years for comments I made on that House floor?\u201d Caputo asked. \u201cPicking on him, a school teacher at that, is insane.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>House Majority Leader Daryl Cowles (R-Morgan) moved yesterday to have Robert Thompson (D-Wayne), a history teacher at Wayne High School, censured for remarks made during an impassioned speech on the House floor in opposition to a Senate four percent pay &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3265\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3265"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3267,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265\/revisions\/3267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}