Dear friends and neighbors,

I’m glad to have these opportunities to update you all on the work I’ve been doing this interim. This is an important time for legislators to review the implementation of the bills we’ve passed, hear input and suggestions about the most important issues for us to tackle next session, and develop ideas for new legislation and policy that we can introduce.

As the chair of the Senate Housing Committee, I’ve been working to develop new ideas for how we can improve housing affordability and the cost-of-living challenge facing so many families in our state. We’ve got to expand our housing supply, build homes that match the budgets of younger and growing families, cut the red tape and streamline permitting and construction, and make sure we are helping keep people in place to prevent homelessness and displacement. It’s not an easy challenge, but it’s important work that I’m honored to take on.

I’ve been working in partnership with Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck to bring together experts and stakeholders in housing to get the best ideas for how we can make all that happen. Builders, affordable housing managers, land use advocates, labor unions, and others are all providing input – my job is to hear what they have to say, identify common themes and barriers, then figure out what it would take to implement solutions and deliver actual results to improve folks’ lives.

Your input is an important part of that. Many bills that we pass start out as ideas from a constituent, so whether your concern is big or small, I hope you don’t hesitate to reach out when you have thoughts about something state government could do better or a need that you see to address in our community – my email inbox is always open at Jessica.Bateman@leg.wa.gov.

Assisted living facilities

Along with serving as chair of the Senate Housing Committee, I also sit on the Health & Long-Term Care Committee. As a part of my health care work this interim, I toured a local assisted living facility last month to hear about the challenges they are facing and what state government can do to help. We were able to increase funding in the budget for nursing facilities and adult family homes that serve people on Medicaid, many of whom are the folks who are the most in need of quality care. We also passed a bill this year to strengthen standards of memory care at adult family homes who have patients with dementia, by setting clear standards of care and providing better oversight over these facilities to make sure that people are getting what we promise. I know there’s a lot more to be done to make sure that our seniors and people with disabilities are living in dignity, health, and with the best possible care, so we’re going to continue to track this. This process of being out in the community, listening and learning from people doing the work and those most impacted, is how we figure out how to bring these goals into reality.

With Bob Chapman of Brookdale Olympia East

Your emails to me

Since the president’s announcement about deploying the Oregon National Guard to Portland, I’ve gotten emails from some of you about whether something like that could or will happen here in Thurston County or Washington state.

We passed a law this year, HB 1321, that provides protections against another state’s governor sending their National Guard to Washington. Our legal protections against the president federalizing our own National Guard are more limited, though. Federal law – the Posse Comitatus Act – limits the duties of federalized National Guard, and they cannot engage in civilian law enforcement. California and Oregon are currently suing the federal government over the deployments in their states, and our Attorney General Nick Brown held a press conference in Seattle to discuss some of the precautions his office is taking in case of such a deployment. You can read about that here.

Thanks for reading as always! If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to reply to me at Jessica.Bateman@leg.wa.gov. Have a great day!

– Jess