It’s over: 2018 session of the Washington State Legislature adjourned Sine Die

The Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture is going home.

Hav­ing spent six­ty days work­ing to craft three bud­gets and pass a long list of pol­i­cy bills (many lib­er­at­ed from the Repub­li­cans’ grave­yard of progress), law­mak­ers in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled House and Sen­ate jubi­lant­ly vot­ed to adjourn Sine Die tonight at around 10:13 PM, bring­ing the 2018 reg­u­lar ses­sion to an end.

The two cham­bers’ last order of busi­ness was adop­tion of Sen­ate Con­cur­rent Res­o­lu­tion 8409, which con­sists of a sin­gle passage:

BE IT RESOLVED, By the Sen­ate of the State of Wash­ing­ton, the
House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives con­cur­ring, That the 2018 Reg­u­lar Ses­sion of the Six­ty-fifth Leg­is­la­ture adjourn SINE DIE.

Sine Die is Latin for “with­out day”, and refers to the notion of adjourn­ing with­out assign­ing a day for a fur­ther meet­ing or hearing.

When the Leg­is­la­ture adjourns Sine Die in an even num­bered year, it typ­i­cal­ly does not expect to meet again, unless called into spe­cial ses­sion by the Governor.

The next reg­u­lar ses­sion of the Leg­is­la­ture will con­vene in Jan­u­ary 2019.

“I am so proud of what we have accom­plished on behalf of the peo­ple of this state,” said Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Sharon Nel­son in a news release.

“We put peo­ple first and fol­lowed through on an agen­da that every Wash­ing­ton­ian can be proud of,” Nel­son added. “We hit the ground run­ning in 2018 and nev­er looked back. When we look back at what was accom­plished this year, it’s hard to believe all of this hap­pened in just six­ty days.”

“When Sen­ate Democ­rats took over the major­i­ty last fall, we want­ed to show how the Leg­is­la­ture can func­tion when gov­ern­ment isn’t divid­ed,” said Sen­a­tor. Kevin Van De Wege, D‑24th Dis­trict (Sequim). “Our pri­or­i­ty the first two weeks was to pass the cap­i­tal con­struc­tion bud­get and resolve the Hirst water issues left over from last year, and from there we just kept our feet on the gas pedal.”

Here is the Sen­ate Democ­rats’ list of 2018 pol­i­cy victories:

• Expand­ed access to Democ­ra­cy on sev­er­al fronts by passing: 
  • The DISCLOSE Act to expose hid­den mon­ey in elec­tions (SB 5991);
  • Same-day vot­er reg­is­tra­tion (SB 6021),
  • Auto­mat­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion (HB 2595),
  • Vot­er pre-reg­is­tra­tion (HB 1513);
  • The Wash­ing­ton Vot­ing Rights Act (SB 6002)
• Pas­sage of the long-delayed 2017 cap­i­tal con­struc­tion bud­get that pro­vides the largest-ever invest­ment in K‑12 school con­struc­tion, 19,000 jobs and bad­ly need­ed infra­struc­ture projects across the state. (SB 6090)
• A bud­get that invests in edu­ca­tion, men­tal health and jobs as well as the final piece of fund­ing to sat­is­fy McCleary, the state’s con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion to amply fund K‑12 edu­ca­tion. The bud­get includes a $2.4 bil­lion reserve, the largest in state his­to­ry, as a hedge against an eco­nom­ic reces­sion. (SB 6032)
• A statewide prop­er­ty tax cut, effec­tive in 2019, to give house­holds relief from the Repub­li­can Prop­er­ty Tax of 2017. (SB 6614)
• A ban on bump stocks, the device used in the Las Vegas mas­sacre to give a semi-auto­mat­ic rifle the rapid-fire capa­bil­i­ty of a machine gun. (SB 5992)
• Adding domes­tic vio­lence harass­ment to the list of con­di­tions that pre­vent peo­ple from being able to buy a firearm. (SB 6298)
• Leg­is­la­tion to allow any­one strug­gling with men­tal ill­ness to place them­selves on a firearms do-not-pur­chase list. (SB 5553)
• Equal pay leg­is­la­tion to help close the wage gap between men and women in our state by offer­ing pro­tec­tions for work­ers who are paid less, or are offered less­er career advance­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties on the basis of gen­der. (HB 1506)
• A pair of bills that strength­en pro­tec­tions against sex­u­al harass­ment in the work­place (SB 5996, SB 6471)
• First state in the nation to pass state-lev­el Net Neu­tral­i­ty pol­i­cy (HB 2282)
• Con­sumer pro­tec­tion from unfair fees charged by finan­cial insti­tu­tions to freeze and unfreeze cred­it accounts when infor­ma­tion is breached as in the noto­ri­ous Equifax (SB 6018)
• The Repro­duc­tive Par­i­ty Act to make sure women have the option of choos­ing the health­care choic­es that are best for them and their fam­i­lies. (SB 6219)
• Sep­a­rate bills requir­ing health care providers to cov­er the cost of 3‑D mam­mo­grams (SB 5912) and requir­ing doc­tors to inform and assist patients who have high breast den­si­ty, to bet­ter detect ear­ly signs of breast can­cer. (SB 5084)
• A require­ment that all health plans sold in Wash­ing­ton state cov­er the same pre­ven­tive ser­vices required by fed­er­al law in the Afford­able Care Act, such as dis­ease screen­ing and con­tra­cep­tion (HB 1523)
• The Stu­dent Loan Bill of Rights, to pro­tect col­lege stu­dents from fraud­u­lent and preda­to­ry prac­tices by lenders that sad­dle stu­dents with spi­ral­ing debt. (SB 6029)
• A ban on con­ver­sion ther­a­py, the prac­tice of apply­ing phys­i­cal and men­tal dis­com­fort to try to force LGBTQ minors to con­form to a gen­der iden­ti­ty oth­er than which feels appro­pri­ate for who they are. (SB 5722)
• Expan­sion of Break­fast after the Bell, a pro­gram that has been shown to improve stu­dent per­for­mance by mak­ing sure kids start the school day able to con­cen­trate on their class­es instead of grum­bling stom­achs. (HB 1508)
• The phas­ing out of Atlantic salmon net pen farms that threat­en the health of our water and native fish pop­u­la­tions. (HB 2957)
• The Dream Act 2.0, to expand access to high­er edu­ca­tion for stu­dents who are DACA recip­i­ents. (SB 5074)
• Stand­ing up for work­ers made sick because of con­di­tions at Han­ford (HB 1723)
• Efforts to reform juve­nile jus­tice that include reduc­ing recidi­vism and racial dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty (SB 6160); and expand­ing juve­nile court juris­dic­tion (SB 6550)
• Com­bat­ting home­less­ness by rais­ing the doc­u­ment record­ing fee from $40 to $62. (HB 1570)
• Pro­hibit­ing hous­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion by stop­ping land­lords from turn­ing away poten­tial ten­ants who rely on Sec­tion 8 vouch­ers, Social Secu­ri­ty or vet­er­ans ben­e­fits. (HB 2578)
• The Fair Chance Act. Ban the box leg­is­la­tion to ensure that every­one has an equal oppor­tu­ni­ty for employ­ment (HB 1298)

NPI con­grat­u­lates the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture on a pro­duc­tive ses­sion. Many pri­or­i­ties unfor­tu­nate­ly did­n’t make it, but there will anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to advance them next year, per­haps with a more pro­gres­sive Leg­is­la­ture in place.