Legislative Updates

Week 9 They are done! The legislature adjourned Sine Die Thursday night after passing the transportation, capital, and operating budgets!  We reported previously that the legislature approved $100m to address the Coronavirus and yesterday they...

The week started out on Monday with a briefing from the Secretary of the Department of Health on the Corona virus to the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Although the use of hand sanitizer has greatly increased and hand shaking decreased, work in...

Week seven The budgets are out! Both the House and Senate released and heard their budgets on Monday, Feb. 24, and they have passed out of their respective fiscal committees. The Senate passed their budget off the floor on Feb. 27. The House is...

Week six Wednesday, Feb. 19th was a big day in Olympia! The revenue forecast came out, and it was the cut-off day for bills to be out of their original house.   The revenue forecast was quite positive, with an increase (from what had been...

Week five Yesterday was a good day for child welfare and early learning bills with a number of them getting out of the House, including HB2525, the Family Connections Program bill, and HB2456, a bill focused on child care for people experiencing...

Week four   Today, Friday, February 7, is cut off number one; the last day that bills can get out of their original (policy) committee. Bills that do not get out today are basically dead...at least, for the most part! Bills that don't make it...

Week three   The weeks are flying by! We have only one more to go before the cut-off deadline (February 7th) for bills to be out of policy committees. Then, the House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to meet on Saturday, February 8th (likely...

Week two, of course, was busy; many new bills introduced and many voted on in the policy committees. Compared with last week, there were fewer work sessions and more jam packed hearings.   And speaking of packed hearings, the comprehensive House...

Week one:  We are making it through a very busy and, for some, snowy first week of the 2020 legislative session.  As is often the case, the session started out with hearings in the fiscal committees on the Governor’s budget, work sessions, lobby...

As most of you know, Washington state's 2020 legislative session starts today, January 13, 2020. As mandated by law, the session begins annually on the second Monday in January. During odd-numbered years, such as 2019, the state biennial budget is...