The senator has become a lightning rod in his party and a major obstacle to President Biden’s agenda. In his home state, his stubborn belief in bipartisanship is recognized as the core of his being.
On Monday afternoon, White House press secretary Jen Psaki made that rare assertion on which Democrats and Republicans can both agree. “West Virginia doesn’t usually get this much attention,” she said. The state has a breathtaking new national park, New River Gorge, but she didn’t mean that, either. The press secretary was also not referring to Babydog, Gov. Jim Justice’s jowly canine, who recently became the unofficial mascot of the state’s.
With the deadline approaching, Democratic leaders were trying to line up the votes to pass their bill. But they had a problem: Joe Manchin had put his foot down.
The year was 1983, the setting was West Virginia’s statehouse in Charleston, and the deadline was the end of the legislative session at midnight. Democratic leaders wanted to pass a bill creating a board that could cap rates charged by hospitals in the state. Manchin, a 35-year-old first-term state representative, had opposed the proposal.
Dave Lieber, who was then a reporter for the Charleston Gazette, has written about what he saw happen that night. As the House of Delegates Manchin’s chamber was taking a series of votes, Manchin was “over in the Senate, he was kneeling at the desk of the Senate clerk, a really in-your-face move,” Lieber told Vox. Manchin, who had been elected just four months ago, was negotiating.
The Week in W.Va. History
West Virginia Encyclopedia
CHARLESTON – The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history. To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
April 4, 1980: Musician Red Sovine died in Nashville. Sovine, born Woodrow Wilson Sovine in Charleston, gained country music fame for his recitations, especially those incorporating sentimental truck driver themes.
April 5, 1856: Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Virginia. In 1865, he moved with his family to Malden to join his stepfather, who had escaped from slavery during the war.
April 5, 2010: An explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County killed 29 workers. Only two men escaped from the mine alive. It was the country’s worst coal mining disaster since November 20, 1968, when the Consol No. 9 Mine at Farmington, West Virginia, exploded, killing 78 workers.