The Legislature, Day 14

This month's deadly apartment building fire in Huntington has spurred state Fire Marshal Sterling Lewis to lobby the Legislature to mandate sprinklers in certain buildings.

Lawmakers are also considering a measure to require drug testing of high school athletes. Such testing would focus mainly on football, baseball, wrestling, track and field, and swimming (cross country appears a glaring oversight).

The House Judiciary Committee could weigh changing how West Virginia enforces child support orders after learning Monday that past-due support exceeds $700 million (another take on this topic is here).

An Eastern Panhandle delegate, meanwhile, wants West Virginia to adopt an Old Dominion law that limits handgun sales to one per month. The city of Charleston enacted a similar ordinance in the 1990s to great controversy.

As legislators begin to craft a new state budget, the agency that runs the Cultural Center (home of Mountain Stage, the state archives and the still-closed state museum) wants nearly $2.6 million to upgrade fire protection measures there.

And though not as numerous as teachers, the state's corrections officers have also begun to press lawmakers for raises larger than what Gov. Joe Manchin has proposed. A group of them picketed in Moundsville on Monday, and a larger contingent is expected to lobby at the Capitol on Jan. 29.