2020 Washington State Legislature adjourns Sine Die after upping COVID-19 response

That’s a wrap, folks!

Min­utes ago, the 2020 Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture adjourned Sine Die (mean­ing, with no expec­ta­tion of return­ing) in Olympia, hav­ing vot­ed out a slew of budget/fiscal bills and hon­ored more than a dozen law­mak­ers from both par­ties who are retir­ing from leg­isla­tive ser­vice after many years.

The House­’s final leg­isla­tive act was pas­sage of an amend­ed bill to dou­ble fund­ing for nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) response from $100 to $200 million.

“With the pas­sage of [Engrossed] House Bill 2965, a total of $175 mil­lion will be direct­ed to state and local pub­lic health agen­cies and the remain­ing $25 mil­lion will be trans­ferred into the new­ly cre­at­ed COVID-19 unem­ploy­ment account to help busi­ness­es and work­ers dis­rupt­ed by the pan­dem­ic,” the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus announced in an end-of-ses­sion press release.

“It’s cru­cial that the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton have the full sup­port of the Leg­is­la­ture behind them dur­ing these chal­leng­ing times,” said Sen­a­tor Chris­tine Rolfes (D‑23rd Dis­trict), Chair of the Sen­ate Ways & Means Committee.

“Even after we leave Olympia today, we will be col­lab­o­rat­ing close­ly with Gov­er­nor Inslee’s office to ensure they have the resources and author­i­ty they need.”

“I am so proud of the work we’ve done on behalf of the peo­ple of this state, but all of our thoughts right now are with the peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties across Wash­ing­ton impact­ed by the coro­n­avirus and with the pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als who are work­ing around the clock to stop its spread,” said Sen­a­tor Andy Billig.

“The bud­get we passed today address­es the needs we saw com­ing into ses­sion as well as those that unfold­ed in recent weeks,” added Bil­lig, who serves as Major­i­ty Leader. “The steps we have tak­en this year, and real­ly for the past three years, leaves our state in a strong posi­tion to com­bat this outbreak.”

EHB 2965 passed with­out any oppo­si­tion in both chambers.

The final Sen­ate roll was as follows:

Roll Call
EHB 2965
Coro­n­avirus response
3rd Read­ing & Final Pas­sage as Amend­ed by the Senate
3/12/2020

Yeas: 48; Excused: 1

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Beck­er, Bil­lig, Braun, Brown, Car­lyle, Cleve­land, Con­way, Darneille, Das, Dhin­gra, Erick­sen, For­tu­na­to, Frockt, Hasegawa, Hawkins, Hobbs, Holy, Hon­ey­ford, Hunt, Keis­er, King, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, McCoy, Mul­let, Muz­za­ll, Nguyen, O‘Ban, Pad­den, Ped­er­sen, Ran­dall, Rivers, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Salomon, Schoesler, Shel­don, Short, Stan­ford, Takko, Van De Wege, Wag­oner, War­nick, Well­man, Wil­son (Claire), Wil­son (Lyn­da), Zeiger

Excused: Sen­a­tor Walsh

The final House roll call was follows:

Roll Call
EHB 2965
Coro­n­avirus response
Final Pas­sage as Amend­ed by the Senate
3/12/2020

Yeas: 96; Excused: 2

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Apple­ton, Barkis, Bergquist, Blake, Boehnke, Caldier, Callan, Cham­bers, Chan­dler, Chap­man, Chopp, Cody, Cor­ry, Davis, DeBolt, Dent, Doglio, Dolan, Duerr, Dufault, Dye, Enten­man, Eslick, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Gildon, Goehn­er, Good­man, Gra­ham, Gregerson, Grif­fey, Hansen, Har­ris, Hoff, Hud­gins, Irwin, Jenkin, John­son, J., Kil­duff, Kir­by, Klip­pert, Klo­ba, Kraft, Kretz, Leav­itt, Lekanoff, Lovick, MacEwen, Macri, May­cum­ber, McCaslin, Mead, Mor­gan, Mos­bruck­er, Orcutt, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Pel­lic­ciot­ti, Peter­son, Pet­ti­grew, Pol­let, Ramel, Ramos, Ric­cel­li, Robin­son, Rude, Ryu, San­tos, Schmick, Sells, Senn, Shew­make, Slat­ter, Smith, Springer, Steele, Stokes­bary, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Suther­land, Tar­leton, Thai, Tharinger, Valdez, Van Wer­ven, Vick, Volz, Walen, Walsh, Wilcox, Wylie, Ybar­ra, Young, Jinkins

Excused: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Paul, Shea

The Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion restricts ses­sions held in even num­bered years to a max­i­mum of six­ty days. Ses­sions in odd-num­bered years can last twice as long… up to one hun­dred and five days. From 2013–2017, when Repub­li­cans con­trolled the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, the Leg­is­la­ture reg­u­lar­ly went into over­time (spe­cial ses­sion) to hash out bud­gets, but this prac­tice end­ed fol­low­ing the elec­tion of State Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhin­gra in late 2017.

The Leg­is­la­ture adjourns hav­ing adopt­ed a num­ber of bills that our team at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute worked hard for, espe­cial­ly the Reusable Bag Bill and com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al health edu­ca­tion. The Leg­is­la­ture also passed bills spon­sored by NPI’s Gael Tar­leton to strength­en elec­tion secu­ri­ty and com­pen­sate the coun­ties for elec­tion costs in even num­bered years.

Anoth­er win was the VOTE Act, which allows sev­en­teen year olds who will be eigh­teen by a gen­er­al elec­tion vote in pres­i­den­tial pri­maries or Top Two elections.

Some of our oth­er favorites include:

• House Bill 2390 (Respect­ing Peo­ple with Dis­abil­i­ties in our RCWs)
• Sen­ate Bill 5165 (Bar­ring Dis­crim­i­na­tion Against New Americans)
• House Bill 1793 (Autho­riz­ing Traf­fic Safe­ty Cameras)
• Sen­ate Bill 6208 (Autho­rizes Bicy­clist Yields at Stop Signs)
• House Bill 2588 (Account­abil­i­ty for Obscure Spe­cial Districts)
• House Bill 2602 (Pro­hibit­ing Dis­crim­i­na­tion on the Basis of Hairstyle)
• House Bill 1251 (Elec­tion Secu­ri­ty Consultations)
• House Bill 1261 (Pro­hibit­ing Suc­tion Dredging)
• House Bill 2311 (Updat­ing Cli­mate Pol­lu­tion Reduc­tion Goals)
• Sen­ate Bill 6312 (Helps Non­prof­its Keep Fundrais­ing Proceeds)

With all that said, the Leg­is­la­ture also once again decid­ed to hit the pro­cras­ti­nate but­ton and defer tak­ing need­ed actions to pro­tect Wash­ing­ton’s fis­cal health.

The House and Sen­ate approved a sup­ple­men­tal trans­porta­tion bud­get that does­n’t address the giant hole Tim Eyman’s I‑976 would cre­ate if it ulti­mate­ly goes into effect. (The ini­tia­tive is on hold and has been since last November.)

The bud­get does un-freeze some projects that Gov­er­nor Inslee’s office had paused in the wake of I‑976’s pas­sage, but oth­er­wise, it does not respond to I‑976. A legal chal­lenge to the mea­sure’s con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty is ongo­ing; the mea­sure was ruled par­tial­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al today by Judge Mar­shall Ferguson.

The two cham­bers also neglect­ed to adopt any sub­stan­tive pro­gres­sive tax reform mea­sures this ses­sion, leav­ing Wash­ing­ton even more reliant on the sales tax as an all-in-one fund­ing mech­a­nism for every­thing from pub­lic schools to tran­sit to fos­ter care to Dis­abil­i­ty Life­line to Apple Health and behav­ioral health.

What hap­pens if our cur­rent pub­lic health cri­sis trig­gers a reces­sion and sales tax rev­enue falls off a cliff? The fis­cal hole that a sig­nif­i­cant reces­sion cre­ates may not be patch­able with the mon­ey that’s cur­rent­ly in the Rainy Day Fund. And fed­er­al assis­tance may or may not be forthcoming.

Then there is the issue of equity.

How much longer do low and mid­dle income Wash­ing­to­ni­ans have to wait for the Leg­is­la­ture to act to fix our upside down tax code?

How much longer do local lead­ers have to wait for pro­gres­sive rev­enue options that they bad­ly, sore­ly, des­per­ate­ly need to escape being chained to reliance on sales tax­es and prop­er­ty tax­es, both of which have got­ten very high?

And how much longer can rur­al com­mu­ni­ties hold every­thing togeth­er? They’re slow­ly being choked to death by old Tim Eyman ini­tia­tives the Leg­is­la­ture inex­plic­a­bly refus­es to repeal and replace.

There were oth­er missed oppor­tu­ni­ties, as well.

The House has, con­found­ing­ly, still not vot­ed to repeal the state’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and inac­tive death penal­ty statute. The Sen­ate vot­ed to get it off our books for a third con­sec­u­tive year, but the House nev­er fol­lowed suit.

69% of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans sup­port life in prison alter­na­tives to the death penal­ty — a find­ing we announced almost two years ago — but the House, even under new man­age­ment, did not take up the cause.

The Leg­is­la­ture also failed to repeal Tim Eyman’s push polls, which means there will be more Eyman pro­pa­gan­da on this year’s gen­er­al elec­tion ballot.

Two oth­er areas where the Leg­is­la­ture fell short were cli­mate jus­tice and gun safe­ty. The House and Sen­ate did­n’t approve a bill to give the exec­u­tive depart­ment clear author­i­ty to reg­u­late the emis­sion of green­house gas­es. Gov­er­nor Inslee’s clean fuels leg­is­la­tion also died in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate again at the hands of Trans­porta­tion Chair Steve Hobbs.

A bill to ban high capac­i­ty mag­a­zines, mean­while, could not over­come the oppo­si­tion of gun enthu­si­asts in both parties.

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee voiced the same mix of sen­ti­ments — hap­pi­ness and frus­tra­tion — in a state­ment reflect­ing on the session.

“I am pleased the Leg­is­la­ture agreed with my plan to tack­le home­less­ness and pro­vide shel­ter­ing for some of our most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple. There was good progress made on a num­ber of fronts dur­ing this sup­ple­men­tal bud­get year,” Inslee said at a media avail­abil­i­ty. “How­ev­er, I am dis­ap­point­ed that the Leg­is­la­ture failed to act on oth­er impor­tant pieces of cli­mate leg­is­la­tion as well as pub­lic safe­ty leg­is­la­tion that would have reduced gun vio­lence in Washington.”

“While I wish they would have gone far­ther on a num­ber of impor­tant issues, I thank the Leg­is­la­ture for their work on behalf of Washingtonians.”

So now, with much accom­plished and much left unad­dressed, the 2020 inter­im begins. The Leg­is­la­ture does not have an “off sea­son” — leg­is­la­tors plan­ning to return next Jan­u­ary will be tak­ing con­stituent meet­ings, serv­ing on task forces, and devel­op­ing bills in the months lead­ing up to the 2021 session.

But not every­one will be returning.

As men­tioned above, around a dozen incum­bent law­mak­ers have announced that they won’t seek reelec­tion this year, includ­ing Sher­ry Apple­ton, Richard DeBolt, Eric Pet­ti­grew, Chris Klduff, Mau­reen Walsh, and Ran­di Becker.

Oth­ers are leav­ing to run for high­er office, includ­ing Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti, NPI’s Gael Tar­leton, and Beth Doglio. Jared Mead is on the verge of mov­ing from the state lev­el to the local lev­el as a final­ist for a Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­ty vacancy.

And some incum­bents who are run­ning again are fac­ing intra­party chal­lenges, includ­ing Frank Chopp, Zack Hud­gins, and as of today, Mark Mullet.

The 2018 midterms pro­duced a Leg­is­la­ture that was more diverse than ever before, but still con­tained many vet­er­an law­mak­ers. In 2020, the insti­tu­tion seems poised to under­go yet anoth­er trans­for­ma­tion. And that’s a good thing.

The Leg­is­la­ture needs more sen­a­tors like Man­ka Dhin­gra and Joe Nguyen. It needs more rep­re­sen­ta­tives like Debra Lekanoff and My-Linh Thai. It needs bold­ness and courage to over­come its stub­born, bad insti­tu­tion­al habits of pro­cras­ti­na­tion and tak­ing the path of least resis­tance on fis­cal matters.

Will the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton deliv­er? We’ll find out this autumn.