The 67th Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture is offi­cial­ly in session.

After months of plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion, Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers in the House and Sen­ate gaveled their respec­tive cham­bers to order ear­li­er today in Olympia and prompt­ly pro­ceed­ed to adopt rules pro­vid­ing for the first ever most­ly remote leg­isla­tive ses­sion, over the objec­tions of Republicans.

As a small gang of pro-Trump forces grum­bled and yelled out­side of the perime­ter set up around the Leg­isla­tive Build­ing (one was arrest­ed), pro-Trump Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tors inside the build­ing tried unsuc­cess­ful­ly to alter the pro­posed rules for the ses­sion to relax phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing require­ments and per­mit Wash­ing­to­ni­ans to observe the work of the Leg­is­la­ture in per­son, which would be unsafe and against the guid­ance issued by pub­lic health experts to leg­isla­tive leaders.

Democ­rats defeat­ed the pro­posed rule changes in a suc­ces­sion of floor votes and the rules in each cham­ber were adopt­ed as drafted.

Sen­a­tor Andy Bil­lig not­ed in his floor speech sup­port­ing the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty’s rules pro­pos­al that the new rules, while not allow­ing the Leg­isla­tive Build­ing to be open to the pub­lic, would nev­er­the­less open up the leg­isla­tive process in sev­er­al impor­tant ways. For exam­ple, the rules will allow pro­ceed­ings of the Sen­ate Rules Com­mit­tee to be tele­vised for the first time ever. (In the past, to watch the pro­ceed­ings, it was nec­es­sary to be phys­i­cal­ly present in the room.)

The cham­bers also chose their offi­cers. The House reelect­ed Lau­rie Jink­ins as Speak­er and Tina Orwall and John Lovick as Speak­ers Pro Tem. The Sen­ate, mean­while, reelect­ed Karen Keis­er as Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore and elect­ed Steve Con­way and Steve Hobbs to be Vice Pres­i­dents Pro Tempore.

Bernard Dean remains the Chief Clerk of the House.

Brad Hen­drick­son remains the Sec­re­tary of the Senate.

Sen­ate Democ­rats wel­comed new Sen­a­tor T’wina Nobles to their cau­cus. House Democ­rats wel­comed new Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Ali­cia Rule, Tar­ra Sim­mons, April Berg, Jami­la Tay­lor, Liz Berry, Dan Bronoske, David Hack­ney, Kirsten Har­ris-Tal­ley, and Jes­si­ca Bate­man to their caucus.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans wel­comed new Sen­a­tors Jeff Wil­son, Jim McCune, Per­ry Dozi­er, and Chris Gildon to their cau­cus. House Repub­li­cans wel­comed new Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Peter Abbarno, Greg Gil­day, Rob Chase, Mark Klick­er, Eric Robert­son, Joel McEn­tire, and Cyn­dy Jacob­sen to their caucus.

Upon con­clud­ing their open­ing cer­e­monies and adopt­ing rules for the ses­sions, both cham­bers adjourned for the day. Tomor­row, leg­isla­tive com­mit­tees will begin meet­ing in earnest for work ses­sions and to hear bills.

Sev­er­al mem­bers of the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court also began new terms today, and Jus­tice Steven Gon­za­lez assumed his new duties as Chief Jus­tice.

On Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 13th, Gov­er­nor Inslee will deliv­er his third inau­gur­al address. New State Trea­sur­er Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti and new Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Den­ny Heck will also be sworn in and assume their duties. Oth­er return­ing mem­bers of the exec­u­tive depart­ment (besides Inslee) will also swear or affirm new oaths to the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion and U.S. Constitution.

“Today con­venes one of the most unique and chal­leng­ing leg­isla­tive ses­sions I can remem­ber for our state,” said Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee in a lengthy statement.

“As the pan­dem­ic era has forced us all to adapt our process­es, the Leg­is­la­ture is no excep­tion. At the same time, deci­sions await leg­is­la­tors that will impact our state for gen­er­a­tions going forward.”

Inslee added:

These are my pri­or­i­ties for this leg­isla­tive ses­sion: Relief, recov­ery and resilience. Relief for the here-and-now; a recov­ery plan to turn the cor­ner; and resilience for our long-term well­be­ing, includ­ing eco­nom­ic health, pub­lic health, a stronger edu­ca­tion sys­tem, and greater pre­pared­ness for future chal­lenges, includ­ing cli­mate change.

My agen­da calls for imme­di­ate action on $200 mil­lion more in aid for small busi­ness­es, and land­lords and ten­ants. My pri­or­i­ties also include get­ting more chil­dren back into the class­room in safe and healthy envi­ron­ments this year, as well as improv­ing the state’s pub­lic health sys­tem so more lives can be saved from this pandemic.

We must have more assis­tance to work­ers who have lost their jobs. We need to help every­one get back to a safe work envi­ron­ment. We need to keep peo­ple from los­ing their hous­ing and get more who are expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness under a safe roof.

The pan­dem­ic era has made this inequity that much clear­er, as the con­cen­tra­tion of wealth at the top has only accel­er­at­ed while Main Street has suf­fered and more fam­i­lies won­der whether they can afford food and oth­er basic needs.

That’s why I want to fund the Work­ing Fam­i­lies Tax Cred­it. We can help fund it with a cap­i­tal gains tax; one that would impact less than 2% of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans. At the same time, we’re going to low­er unem­ploy­ment insur­ance tax­es for small busi­ness­es that unex­pect­ed­ly had to lay off record num­bers of employees.

When we do come through this emer­gency, we are not going back to nor­mal; we are going to cre­ate a bet­ter nor­mal, together.

This goes beyond COVID-19. We can’t just address eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties with­out acknowl­edg­ing racial disparities.

We think of one anoth­er as equal because it is one of this nation’s prin­ci­ples, but we can’t be equal until we live as equals.

My leg­isla­tive agen­da takes aim at these inequities in all of these areas, whether it’s reform­ing inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions, envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, improv­ing our health sys­tems, expand­ing job train­ing and ear­ly child­hood education.

I look for­ward to hon­est con­ver­sa­tions with the Leg­is­la­ture about these issues and action that will ben­e­fit all Washingtonians.

Our team at NPI con­grat­u­lates all the new state law­mak­ers who have tak­en office. As in past ses­sions, we will be work­ing to secure the pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion that would raise all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans’ qual­i­ty of life.

We have launched the 2021 incar­na­tion of our State­house Bill Track­er on our Advo­ca­cy page, and we invite Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate read­ers to take advan­tage of this incred­i­bly use­ful resource, which is now in its tenth year.