One sheet of paper packs enough clout to revolutionize the way government is run in West Virginia.

What Delegate John Overington has in mind is a one-page bill that would substitute Virginia’s code for West Virginia’s, except for some minor alterations.

“We would just adopt Virginia’s statutes,” Overington, R-Berkeley, said. “By adopting Virginia’s laws, we would get capital punishment, right to work, tort reform — a whole raft of issues.”

Overington and some other members of the Republican caucus tried that tack a couple of years ago, prompting a humorous rejoinder from new Speaker Rick Thompson.

“We can pass that and go home,” Thompson, D-Wayne, quipped.

Overington, however, is serious, and intends to offer it again in the upcoming session.

“We would make adjustments in some areas where we’re not going to adopt their state flag, their state bird or their state tree or that type of thing,” he said.

Given the slim-and-none chance such legislation has of seeing the light of day, Overington is offering some backup bills, one at a time, that would make West Virginia the 23rd state with a right-to-work law and revive capital punishment in a limited form.

“When you talk to business consultants, they tell you that a lot of companies won’t even look at a state that doesn’t have right-to-work,” he said.

In the last gubernatorial race, Gov. Joe Manchin said no one had ever inquired about right-to-work and whether it was a factor in making decisions to locate a business here.

Overington says more than half of the business firms have done their research before reaching any such decisions and won’t consider West Virginia over its lack of such a law.

Allowed under the Taft-Hartley Act, right-to-work laws are on the books in largely southern and western states. Basically, they provide that employees cannot be coerced into joining a union or paying dues as a condition for holding a job.

Each side puts up hefty arguments when such a proposed law is before a legislature.

Employers invariably point to the Constitution as legal grounds, saying everyone enjoys the right of association and cannot be forced to join something against one’s will.

On the other hand, labor organizations argue the non-union employee is a “free rider” and enjoys the same benefits they have secured for their rank-and-file in the work place through often intense negotiations.

“Neighboring Virginia has a more favorable business climate and a more favorable labor climate,” Overington maintains.

“A lot of companies go there rather than looking at West Virginia.”

Overington has never got to first base on the proposal and his batting average is equally dismal on another pet project — restoring the death penalty to some degree.

West Virginia outlawed the practice back in 1965 and the Legislature has smothered a number of efforts in the ensuing four decades to revive it.

Yet Overington persists, arguing that the wishes of society are overwhelmingly on his side.

“I think a vast majority of West Virginians support it when guilt is not in question and when it’s such a heinous crime. It puzzles me, when all of our neighboring states have capital punishment, why we have not been able to get it passed.

“Legislatively, I guess, the leadership has a different perspective.”

Under his proposal, capital punishment wouldn’t be ordered if there was even a scintilla of doubt about the accuser’s guilt.

Just recently, he pointed out, an illegal alien was captured on videotape murdering his employer.

“That would be the case where the guilt or innocence is not in question,” he said.

“In cases where it’s a heinous crime, that’s where we should have that option on the table.”

— E-mail: mannix

@register-herald.com