Legislative Updates

Welcome to Week 8 of the 2013 Legislative Session! Since Monday, most of the activity has been on the floor of the House and Senate. The Rules committees have also been busy --- pulling bills out of Rules and onto the floor calendars... a necessary...

Welcome to Week 7 of the Legislative Session! Last Friday was the cut-off for bills to be out of the policy committees in their house of origin.  Today is the cut-off for bills to be out of the fiscal committees.  The House and Senate fiscal...

In August of 2011, the United States Congress formed the “super committee” – a bipartisan group of twelve legislators tasked with finding a way to reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion. When the super committee was formed, they agreed that if...

Welcome to Week 5 of the 2013 Legislative Session!  Today, February 22nd, is the cut-off for bills to get passed out of their policy committee of origin.  This cut-off provides the opportunity to take stock in what is still alive, what isn’t, and...

Welcome to Week 5 of the 2013 Legislative Session!   This is the point in session where the policy committees generally combine hearings on new bills with executive sessions on bills that have already been heard.  Spending too much time hearing a...

Welcome to Week 4 of the 2013 Legislative Session!  As we move closer to cut off, more committees are scheduling bills for executive action (the committee vote on the bill) and there are fewer and fewer briefings/work sessions.  Next week is...

Welcome to Week 3 of the 2013 Legislative Session!  Bills continue to be introduced (upwards of 1,000 bills have already been introduced over the past 3 weeks), hearings and work sessions continue to take place, and some floor action has occurred. ...

Welcome to Week 2 of the 2013 Legislative Session!  The week was full of hearings and work sessions.  Many of the committees are taking time to learn about issues such as the Affordable Care Act, TANF, medical assistance, substance abuse treatment...

Welcome to Week 1 of the 2013 Legislative Session!    It has been quite a week: Governor Gregoire gave her final State of the State address Governor Inslee was sworn in and gave his inaugural address (and of course had a big inaugural ball!) The...

Partners for Our Children introduces our new bill tracker for the 2013 Washington State Legislative Session. This Bill Tracker will follow all bills introduced at the legislature that are relevant to child welfare and related issues.