House Resolution 35

By All Members of the House of Delegates

[ Unanimously Adopted March 11, 2006]



"On the Occasion of Concluding 18 Years of Service as a Member of the House of Delegates and Concluding a Decade of Service as Speaker of the House, the Honorable Robert S. Kiss."

Whereas, When the Session of 2006 comes to its Constitutional end at Midnight today, March 11, 2006, the Gentleman from the 27^th District, the Honorable Robert S. Kiss, will have served the people of his chosen County of Raleigh and the people of the State of West Virginia, with as much service as any member of the House heretofore elected to the Office of Speaker.

Bob Kiss came to West Virginia as a young attorney, seeking a rural environment in which to practice his chosen profession. Urged by his innate sense of public service, he ran for and was first elected to the House of Delegates in 1988, and has been reelected every biennium for the last nine terms, making his total legislative career span 18 years, the 69^th through the 77^th Legislatures.

Upon his matriculation into the legislative arena, the young Bob Kiss soon began work in what would become his most favored legislative area, the Finance Committee. In his second term in the House, he was appointed Vice Chair of the House Finance Committee, and at the beginning of the 71^st Legislature in 1993, and again in the 72^nd Legislature in 1995, he was appointed Chairman of the House Finance Committee. It was in the Finance Committee structure that he began to develop a keen sense of respect for the legislative process, much due to the tutelage of former Chairman George Farley, whose life and service the House recently commemorated.

The young to-become Speaker served as Vice Chair of House Finance in 1991 and worked arduously on the Budget that year. His first Budget as Chair of Finance in 1993 totaled $5.4 billion. Upon the completion of this term of his service, the Budget will represent approximately $10 billion.
At the beginning of his first term, the Governor called an Extraordinary Session to convene at 12:30 P. M., January 29, 1989. This was the first occasion in the history of the State that the Legislature had been called into an Extraordinary Session prior to the convening of the Regular Session after a new Legislature had been constitutionally seated. That was truly an Extraordinary Session, for the Legislature was faced with almost insurmountable State debt and a myriad of other problems. In quick response, the House and Senate took up and passed a comprehensive Governmental Ethics Act, a monumental Fiscal Responsibility Act, an enormous tax package, and an overhaul of the Executive Branch of State Government. Bob Kiss was an active player in the enactment of these statutes, now recorded for posterity in the legislative archives. It is also noteworthy that his last term in the House began with an Extraordinary Session called prior to the Regular Session, the second time in State history such an event has occurred.

Robert S. Kiss, Chair of House Finance, became Robert S. Kiss, Speaker of the House, with his first election as Speaker on January 8, 1997, at the beginning of the 73^rd Legislature, and has continued in that position with successive elections on January 13, 1999 (74^th Legislature), January 10, 2001 (75^th Legislature), January 8, 2003 (76^th Legislature) and on January 12, 2005, the beginning of the 77^th Legislature. His legislative career as Speaker has included leading the House through 10 Regular Sessions and 23 Extraordinary Sessions, during which a total of 12,310 bills have been introduced in the House and of which a total of 2,649 House and Senate Bills were enacted.

Speaker Kiss has developed, demonstrated and maintained an adherence to the Rules of the House and has continually looked to the precedents to guide the House through difficult and sometimes stormy decisions. He has a keen appreciation for and application of the organic development of parliamentary law, based soundly on a system of principles which have developed over a long period of time as individual questions were determined upon the best reasoning of legislative bodies, their presiding officers and the courts. The Speaker has a deep appreciation for the "common law" of the House as found in its precedents, and in looking to the precedents to resolve a point of order or other procedural question, he has applied them in a way analogous to that known in the courts as "stare decisis" or "let the prior decision stand".

As Speaker Kiss has made his own decision relative to his legislative career, he has again applied the principle of "stare decisis" when coaxed by colleagues and friends to stay. He leaves a House which is better than when he came, and he returns to a home which is also better than when he came here, with his wife Melinda and his twin sons Cameron and Carter eagerly awaiting.

It is with gratitude that we bid you Godspeed; therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Delegates of the 77^th Legislature:

That this House of Delegates hereby publicly and formally takes note of the long and productive career of a colleague and friend, public servant, former Finance Chair and able Speaker of the House, the Honorable Robert S. Kiss, acknowledges his innumerable contributions to the betterment of the State and her people, and enrolls this Resolution of Appreciation in the Official Journal of the House.