LEGISLATURE 2023-24: First Legislative Cutoff is Tomorrow. What does that mean? (The Republican Observer)
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Republican Observer is a Republican precinct committee officer in Washington state and a close observer of events in Olympia. She writes legislative updates for her mailing list, and is generously allowing us to post them here.
First cutoff is tomorrow – what’s that mean?
Most people know that the Legislature is in session, and there are bills being heard and passed that will affect every part of your life. But few know about the process. We are a little over a third of the way through the Legislative Session. Tomorrow is our first cutoff. What does that mean?
We are only in session for 105 days this year, and there are over 1500 bills that have been introduced in the past few weeks. They each have to go through a process. For example, a senate bill has to be heard in a senate committee that consists of just a few senators. If the bill is voted on by the majority of those few senators, it will pass out of committee, go through a rules committee with a few other Senators, and then it may end up going to the floor to be voted on by all of the Senators. Only a very few bills make it through that process, and then it has to go over to the House and go through the entire process again with the representative. Finally, the Governor signs it into law (or vetoes it).
Tomorrow is the first cutoff. That means that every senate bill must have had a hearing and be voted out of committee by tomorrow evening, or it is likely dead. Every house bill must have had a hearing in a house committee and have been passed out by tomorrow evening, or the bill is likely dead. In other words the first step in the long process to pass a bill must be complete by tomorrow evening. There are exceptions. If the bill is “fiscal” or has to do with money, the cutoff for that bill is next week. And even with all the cutoffs, there are procedural things that can happen to get a bill passed later. But that is very rare.
This cutoff can be great news or it can be terrible news. There are many bills that a large number of people disagree with that might pass and still be alive by tomorrow evening, and there are many good policies that will never see a vote on the floor of either the House or the Senate. All of the decisions of what bills are heard and which ones pass out of committee are made by the committee chair, which is always a member of the majority party. That means that this year, all committees are chaired by Democrats. They make the decision of whether a bill is heard, whether they will allow it to pass out of committee, or whether it will die at cutoff tomorrow.
Just wanted you to know a little of the process of what goes on in Olympia. I can’t speak about any specific bill, but I think it’s good for people to understand the flow.
