Instead, it stemmed from the frequent bouts of bickering that erupt when lawmakers in that chamber try to add or subtract their names as sponsors of particular pieces of legislation.
"There is so much time and attention spent on deciding who's going to be on a bill and who wants to be taken off a bill," said House Minority Leader Charles Trump, R-Morgan. "It distracts attention and focus from the substance of the bill."
So, Trump and House Speaker Bob Kiss drafted a resolution Tuesday that would strip all sponsors' names from future bills. Each printed copy would bear only a number to identify it.
"They need to stop this eighth-grade mentality of ‘You can't be on my bill,' " said Kiss, D-Raleigh.
The kvetching underscores a fact perhaps little-known by the general public: the sponsors of bills often have little or nothing to do with writing them.
The first name listed usually denotes the delegate who came up with the idea or sketched its general outline. Bills also can reflect requests from constituents, and are usually noted as such. Both the House and Senate have staff, including lawyers, devoted to turning concepts into properly formatted bills.
But additional names on bills may reflect delegates who agree with its intent, believe it will benefit their districts, or want their names associated with popular or successful legislation.
The authors of bills are frequently the staff of a committee, guided by its chair or its members.
But lobbyists also write bills: though it bore the names of 10 delegates, including the speaker's, the table games bill sent into legislative limbo last week was crafted by the state's racetracks.
In such cases, special interests and their lobbyists typically sign up sponsors to give a bill weight. These delegates don't necessarily read the actual legislation beforehand.
"What you try to do is get leadership, and ideological and bipartisan balance. You try to impress people with the sponsors," said Steve Haid, a veteran lobbyist. "But the flip side is, good bills don't get considered for the opposite reason."
Haid sees benefits from making bills nameless.
"Instead of judging the content of the bill, people look at who the sponsors are," he said. "They could actually reduce the number of bills. There are a number of bills introduced simply to please some constituent."
More than 1,900 bills have been introduced during the 60-day Legislative session, including 1,274 in the House. About half of those were carried over from last year's session.
Delegates face a Friday deadline for introducing most kinds of bills; the Senate deadline is Monday.
On average, each of the 100 delegates has put his or her name on 49 bills so far this session. As chairwoman of the Committee on Rule Making and Review, Delegate Virginia Mahan, D-Summers, has her name on 176 bills this session. The most of any lawmaker, her bills largely reflect the myriad regulations her committee must approve each year for state agencies and boards.
Delegate Joe Ferrell, meanwhile, has sponsored only one bill, a carry-over from last year. By all accounts, the Logan County Democrat has yet to attend the session, which hits Day 41 today. He has reported chronic back problems to House leadership. He also is considered a coconspirator by federal prosecutors in their ongoing election fraud probe. He did not file for re-election this year.
If stripped from the printed bills, House Clerk Gregory M. Gray said names would still be recorded by his office. But after shaving nearly $100,000 from his office's printing budget over the last several years, Gray cited the cost of repeatedly reprinting bills to reflect changes in their sponsor rosters.
The price of printing bills varies with the circumstances. One single-page bill cost $64 to print, Gray said. A 21-page bill addressing end-of-life care topped $550, partly because its list of sponsors changed.
The bickering over bills first became public last year, when Delegate Cindy Frich, R-Monongalia, sought to add her name to a bill relating to her district. The rest of the county's delegation, its original sponsors, opposed the move. Frich, a two-term delegate, has clashed with other members of the delegation previously and is its sole Republican.
"I personally have been in some awkward situations with other delegates in my district who didn't want me on their bills," Frich said.
House leaders sought to defuse that dispute by expanding the possible number of sponsors from seven to 11 to reflect the chamber's largest delegation, Kanawha County's. The Senate, meanwhile, allows unlimited sponsors on bills.
"But even at 11, we still have problems with members who want to be on a bill and there not being enough room for them," Gray said.
Gray said he's watched sponsor lists grow from just two when he started at the Legislature more than 30 years ago. But what Kiss and Trump have proposed is not unprecedented, he said.
"If you look at the early acts of the Legislature, there are no sponsors listed," Gray said.
The California Assembly and the New Mexico Senate do not print names on bills, while the Texas Senate lists only the chief sponsor, according to a 1990s survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Kiss and Trump's resolution may not go to a vote this session, but both hope delegates have gotten the message. In its absence, they may object to future, unwarranted efforts to change sponsors of a bill.
"There are good, solid reasons to keep the names on bills," Gray said. "As long as we stick within the parameters of the House rules, we'll be fine."