LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF WASHINGTON: Legislative Newsletter (Mar. 6, 2022)
Editor’s Note: The League of Women Voters (LWV) of Washington sent this legislative newsletter on Mar. 6, 2022. Our mission at the Voter Interests Project is to monitor elected officials and ballot measures; we generally do not report on the activities of non-profit organizations. However, the LWV Whidbey Island chapter conducts candidate forums during most election cycles, and are therefore of particular interest to voters. The LWV of Washington’s website states, “The League is a Nonpartisan Source You Can Trust”; however, the LWV does take positions on public policy. Our observation is that their policy positions inform their management of voter forums. Therefore, we believe it to be of interest to our readers to know the positions for which the LWV advocates.
Action Alerts
Click on the links below to learn more about bills currently being reviewed in the state legislature. You can “take action” on these most pressing bills by sending a suggested, editable email to legislators, encouraging them to vote to promote the League issue in question.
No action alerts this week – see the issue reports below for other actions you can take.
Final Week of Session
This second session of the biennium, called the “short” session because it is only 60 days, ends next week on March 10. Whatever one thinks about the decisions made by this legislature, one thing is for sure. Our legislators have worked very, very hard, with long hours and no breaks for the last few weeks. Washington State can be proud of its legislature and the efforts they make.
Today, as this newsletter is being prepared, is the deadline for bills that originated in the opposite chamber to pass the full body. House bills must pass the Senate and Senate bills must pass the House by late today or they are dead. Unfortunately, by the time of submittals for this newsletter, the issue chairs won’t know all of the outcomes of the bills they are following, though they will be aware of most.
Next week the session is dedicated to reconciling differences between bills that passed both houses with different text because of amendments made in the second chamber; and for the final budgets to be reconciled and passed. In all of those cases, the final bills must be passed by both chambers in identical form, with a yes/no vote by the end of the day on March 10.
Because of that negotiation process all week, there is little remaining that we can do to influence outcomes. The legislature has already heard from us every step along the way. So this week’s newsletter has no formal Action Alerts. Some of the issue chairs’ weekly updates may have a few requests for letting your legislators know you want them to support certain elements in the final bills. Those will be minimal because of the uncertainty about the status of bills over the weekend and of negotiations going into next week.
The next newsletter will be the final one, and it will come out later than usual. There will not be one next Sunday, but there will be one the following week giving a summary of the session and how League issues fared overall.
The Lobby Team thanks each of you for taking action throughout this session. We are grateful for your attention and support each week. You make a difference! Our Current Actions page may help you pick out which bills are particularly important to you.
LWVWA Legislative Issues From the 2022 Washington State Legislative Session
Click on an issue to learn more about session results on bills the League supported and “This Week’s Updates” to read the issue chair’s report on this past week.
Democracy
Elections | This week‘s updates
Money in Politics | No update this week
Education | This week’s updates
Redistricting | This week’s updates
Natural Resources and Climate Change
Climate and Energy | This week’s updates
Growth Management | This week’s updates
Transportation | This week’s updates
Social and Economic Policy
Housing and Homelessness | This week’s updates
Health and Behavioral Health | This week’s updates
Calendar
- No events this week.
Other Ways to Follow the State Legislature
- Washington State Legislature website, leg.wa.gov.
- Washington State’s public affairs TV network, TVW.org.
