Dear friends and neighbors,

I hope you had a chance to watch our online town hall with Reps. Beth Doglio and Lisa Parshley last Monday night. If you missed it, it’s on YouTube here. We answered pre-submitted and live questions on every topic from banning plastic bags, to data centers and AI, protecting access to vaccines, face masks for ICE and law enforcement, rural land use, and more. I’m glad to have constituents who are so engaged in the legislative process and informed on the issues before us!

The first three weeks of a short session are mostly spent on committee work – hearing bills and moving them to the floor where they can be voted on by the full Senate

Police training in Lacey

Not everything we do during session happens on the capitol campus. On Tuesday, I brought one of my colleagues from another district for a visit to the new Lacey police station and training center which is under construction. Once completed it will be one of the most modern law enforcement facilities in the state. It will be more than just a police station – it’ll have space for important behavioral health work, better evidence handling and storage, and improved training areas. We all want to be safe in our communities, and part of that is effective, well-trained law enforcement. Better training also helps ensure they’re policing in the best possible manner, with de-escalation techniques to reduce violent confrontations and working with behavioral health professionals when they encounter someone having a personal crisis.

I’m working with one of my Republican colleagues, Sen. Drew MacEwen from Shelton, on a bill to make Lacey one of our state’s regional training centers for new law enforcement officers. We have law enforcement training centers in Arlington, Pasco, Vancouver, Burien, and Spokane, so anyone seeking to become a police officer must go to one of those places for weeks of academy classes. Creating training opportunities here in Lacey will help people in the South Sound – not only will it improve local recruitment and allow people to get trained closer to home, but it’ll also reduce wait times to get into the academy by expanding statewide capacity. I’m hoping we can find funding for this new training center this year, or if not, in the next full biennial budget.

53rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade

This week saw the 53rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. While it was overturned by the federal Supreme Court in the 2022 Dobbs decision, here in Washington we remain committed to defending reproductive health care and the right to abortion. I know it is critical that everyone in our state — and those coming from other states — can get the care they need. We have already passed major protections, including the Shield Law, My Health My Data, eliminating cost-sharing for abortion in health care coverage, the Affirm Washington Abortion Access Act, and much more, but the work is far from over.

I have two additional bills on reproductive rights this year – SB 5917, to distribute mifepristone pills purchased by the state to health care providers who can get them directly to people in need, and SB 6182, which would create a fee on health insurance plans of less than $1 a month and direct the money to an “abortion savings fund” that would help fund reproductive health care providers like Planned Parenthood.

At a time when so many of our rights are under attack, Washington must stand strong as a national leader in protecting reproductive rights and access to abortion care.

As always, thank you for reading. I hope these updates are helpful, and if you ever have questions or feedback about our work in the Legislature, you can reach me at Jessica.Bateman@leg.wa.gov.

In service,

-Jess