2022 legislative session begins; four state senators report positive COVID-19 tests

The 2022 ses­sion of the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture has begun!

Short­ly after noon today, the lat­est meet­ing of the state’s bicam­er­al leg­isla­tive branch was gaveled open by House Speak­er Lau­rie Jink­ins and Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Den­ny Heck, kick­ing off two months of onsite and remote lawmaking.

The 2022 ses­sion is expect­ed to run through March 10th, 2022, the last day allowed by the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion for a reg­u­lar ses­sion in an even-num­bered elec­tion year like the one we’re in.

Democ­rats con­tin­ue to wield a fifty-sev­en mem­ber major­i­ty in the House and twen­ty-eight mem­ber major­i­ty in the Sen­ate. Leg­isla­tive lead­ers have cit­ed sev­er­al pri­or­i­ties for this short ses­sion. Among them are adopt­ing a set of sup­ple­men­tal bud­gets, reform­ing the WA Cares long-term care ini­tia­tive, and tweak­ing some of the police account­abil­i­ty laws passed last year.

“All our fam­i­lies, in every dis­trict, deserve the oppor­tu­ni­ty to move for­ward and make some head­way,” said Speak­er Lau­rie Jink­ins said in a set of tra­di­tion­al ses­sion open­ing remarks from the ros­trum, observ­ing that past rebounds from reces­sion­ary gaps “haven’t [always] brought every­one along.”

Repub­li­cans con­tin­ued to lament that not every­one is togeth­er at the state cap­i­tal for the ses­sion. Top House Repub­li­can J.T. Wilcox has argued that lack of face to face inter­ac­tion in 2021 led to sub­op­ti­mal results.

“I think the process is break­ing down,” he said. “It’s a dis­as­ter for you, your cau­cus and the state if, as you’re win­ning, you’re not allow­ing the minor­i­ty (par­ty) and the cit­i­zens of Wash­ing­ton to help you avoid mak­ing mistakes.”

Democ­rats point­ed out that many aspects of the leg­isla­tive process have got­ten more acces­si­ble despite the remote nature of the last ses­sion. (For exam­ple, a per­son wish­ing to tes­ti­fy no longer has to give up most or all of their day to go down to Olympia just to speak for a minute or two.) And they declared that they’re lis­ten­ing to input gath­ered over the inter­im to make sen­si­ble adjust­ments to many of the ground­break­ing pol­i­cy bills enact­ed last year.

In the past few days, four Demo­c­ra­t­ic state sen­a­tors have test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, under­scor­ing the neces­si­ty and impor­tance of gath­er­ing remotely.

New State Sen­a­tor John Lovick (D‑44th Dis­trict: Sno­homish Coun­ty) was the first to announce a pos­i­tive diag­no­sis, on Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 7th.

“I’m fine, I have a bit of a cold but oth­er than that I feel OK,” said Lovick.

“One thing is for sure – I’m relieved that I’m both vac­ci­nat­ed and boosted.

“I wear my mask, I wash my hands about twen­ty times a day and I still got it. This virus is noth­ing to mess around with and we all have to do our part to pro­tect our­selves and each other.”

The next day (Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 8th), Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Andy Bil­lig (D‑3rd Dis­trict: Spokane) said he had come with down the virus as well.

“I am grate­ful to have been vac­ci­nat­ed and boost­ed, which I know has pre­vent­ed me from hav­ing any sig­nif­i­cant symp­toms.” said Billig.

“I also appre­ci­ate that we have the tech­nol­o­gy in place to facil­i­tate a hybrid leg­isla­tive ses­sion so Sen­a­tors can ful­ly par­tic­i­pate in leg­isla­tive activ­i­ties even while they quar­an­tine. I do not expect this pos­i­tive test will keep me from any of my leg­isla­tive duties as ses­sion gets under­way next week.”

This morn­ing, Sen­a­tor Mark Mul­let (D‑5th Dis­trict: Issaquah, Maple Val­ley, and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in East King Coun­ty) said he too had test­ed positive.

“If I had to get it, this is prob­a­bly the best time of year to get it,” Mul­let said. “As the own­er of a restau­rant, which is a busi­ness where you can’t miss work, I was lucky not to catch the virus when I had to be avail­able to man­age my restaurant.”

“After my wife got COVID last Tues­day, I’ve got­ten test­ed to make sure it’s been safe for me to take care of our kids,” Mul­let added. “As recent­ly as Sat­ur­day night I test­ed neg­a­tive, but after my pos­i­tive test in Olympia this morn­ing I just got in my car and head­ed back home to pre­pare for a week of remote work.”

Hours lat­er, there was yet anoth­er sim­i­lar announce­ment, this time from Sen­a­tor Yas­min Trudeau (D‑27th Dis­trict: Tacoma).

“I’m grate­ful that I can iso­late at home with my fam­i­ly to min­i­mize the pos­si­bil­i­ty of spread, and I’m espe­cial­ly glad that my hus­band and I were vac­ci­nat­ed against this virus,” said Trudeau. “It’s scary to have COVID when we have a lit­tle one here at home who’s too young to be vac­ci­nat­ed, but we’re mon­i­tor­ing all of our symp­toms extreme­ly close­ly and know that we have an incred­i­ble com­mu­ni­ty sur­round­ing us to help us take care of our family.”

“I’m draw­ing on the resilience of our loved ones, the sup­port of my col­leagues and the encour­age­ment that comes from know­ing the Leg­is­la­ture is well-pre­pared to con­duct the people’s busi­ness remotely.”

“This isn’t the way I want­ed to start my first ses­sion, but I’m no less excit­ed and ready to do the work our com­mu­ni­ty wants done. After a full iso­la­tion and recov­ery, I plan to go to Olympia when it is safe and pos­si­ble to do so – but whether I’m there or here at home, I’m ready to work.”

Lovick, Mul­let, and Bil­lig all not­ed that they are triple vac­ci­nat­ed. Trudeau did not men­tion how many dos­es she’s received, but she may also be triple vaccinated.

Wash­ing­ton State, like much of the rest of the Unit­ed States and world com­mu­ni­ty, is expe­ri­enc­ing a surge in COVID-19 cas­es and hos­pi­tal­iza­tions, dri­ven in part by the high­ly infec­tious omi­cron variant.

13,689 cas­es were report­ed yes­ter­day, accord­ing to the Depart­ment of Health’s COVID-19 dash­board. 19,150 new cas­es were report­ed on Sat­ur­day the 8th and 14,871 new cas­es were report­ed on Fri­day the 7th. Hos­pi­tal­iza­tions stand at 47,807, up from 46,215 on New Year’s Day.

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee is slat­ed to deliv­er his annu­al State of the State Address tomor­row. How­ev­er, instead of appear­ing in a packed House cham­ber, Inslee will offer remarks from the State Recep­tion Room in the Leg­isla­tive Build­ing before a small num­ber of media rep­re­sen­ta­tives and guber­na­to­r­i­al staff. Law­mak­ers will watch the speech remote­ly along with the public.

If you’d like to watch, nav­i­gate to tvw.org at noon on Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 11th.