One of the most passion fueled bills of the legislative session never got to a passage vote.
“Raylee’s Law” is named for an 8-year-old girl who died of abuse and neglect in 2018 after she was withdrawn from school, eliminating contact with educators under mandatory reporting requirements. That bill has been introduced since 2019, but has never passed.
Raylee Browning’s father and two other adults were sentenced in 2023 to prison time in her death. The adults were accused of mistreating her and then ignoring her symptoms when she got sick before dying the day after Christmas in 2018. The cause of death was sepsis caused by a bacterial pneumonia infection.
The bill is a proposal to place a hold on removing students from public schools to homeschool environments if there is a pending child abuse or neglect investigation.
COMMENTARY by T.J. MEADOWS: Raylee’s Law protects kids
A version this year, House Bill 5669, came up late on a House Education Committee agenda and advanced earlier this week.
Bills typically have to be considered by the full House of Delegates on three consecutive days. Today would have been the first of those. But bills faced a deadline today to cross from one chamber to another. So a last-ditch option was to seek a vote to suspend rules and do all three readings today.
Delegate Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, sought that request this morning.
The motion needed more than a simple majority. It needed the support of 80 of the House’s 100 members.
The vote fell far short. The motion did receive a majority, 52-40, but that was way below the required count.
“This is another year where Raylee’s Law advances but doesn’t get across the finish line, and I find it truly pathetic,” Fluharty said later.
“We have the votes to pass it on an up and down vote on its merits. It passed out of committee, yet we waited too long to run it through committee and as a result we had to make a procedural motion that requires 80 votes, and that procedural motion did not get to the qualifying 80, yet it still had the majority of House members supporting it.”
He concluded, “Clearly the support is there for Raylee’s Law, and it’s bipartisan support. Yet it’s not important enough for the supermajority to make it a priority and get it through the process knowing damn well the timelines we’re on here when it comes to getting bills through the House before crossover day.”
Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady, R-Mason, has been a supporter of the legislation. She has expressed regret that a version of the bill has not made it to the Senate floor this year.
“I am a supporter of that bill,” Grady said this week on MetroNews Talkline. “And I think the notion that bill is anti-homeschool is entirely wrong. This is protecting children against abuse.”