E-Newsletters

Staying alive We have now passed two cut-off dates, and the majority of bills that were introduced will not progress any further this session. Essentially, the legislative session is like a funnel. We started with nearly 4,000 bills introduced over 2017 and 2018 in both the House and Senate, but only about 600 will pass into law. The next cut-off is the "House ...

How a bill becomes law: Step 2 You may remember a few weeks ago, our team dropped SB 6345 in the hopper to start its legislative journey. In this week's installment, SB 6345, a bill to impose a 10-year moratorium on fracking in Washington state, received a hearing in the Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks Committee. The hearing gave ...

This is a tense week in Olympia as the first of the “cutoff" dates approaches this Friday. Any bills not passed out of a policy committee by Friday, Feb. 2 will be ineligible to be considered for the remainder of this session.

Capital budget passed!

I am pleased to announce that the capital construction budget, blocked from a vote since last year, finally passed the Legislature. The capital budget was the top priority for our new Senate majority and funds construction projects that will generate 19,000 jobs statewide.

In the Spokane area alone, the state will fund $125 ...

Today we start the second week of the Legislative session. Early in session, we are mostly holding hearings in committee, refining bills and deciding what will move forward to the next phase of the legislative process. We will also be on the Senate floor later this week to pass a few high priority bills. A bit of Spokane in Olympia New to ...

As we prepare for the next legislative session, which begins Jan. 8, there is a lot of positive change in Olympia. After a special election victory in the 45th Legislative District, Democrats have reclaimed the majority of the state Senate. With these changes, I have been elected by my colleagues to serve as Deputy Majority Leader of the Senate. I will ...

Mobile Office this Wednesday Please join me, Rep. Riccelli and Rep. Ormsby at our Mobile Office this Wednesday in Spokane. As in the past, we host mobile offices to stay in touch with our constituents who may not have been able to visit us in Olympia or our district office in Spokane. The Mobile Office is an informal event that allows for one-on-one dialogue ...

I am pleased to report that we have passed a K-12 education plan that funds our schools and delivers for Washington’s 1.1 million schoolchildren. It does so by supporting important programs aimed at closing the opportunity gap, increasing salaries and salary equity for educators so we can attract and retain the best possible teachers, and maintains local control. I was ...

Sunday was the final day of the 2017 regular legislative session and we have good news and disappointing news to report. First, the good news. In the final days of session, we unanimously passed a significant and responsible transportation budget. This transportation budget continued funding for important Spokane investments like the North Spokane Corridor and the U-District Gateway Bridge. New funding ...

Working Collaboratively We are starting the final week of the 2017 legislative session. In the past two weeks, we have passed meaningful and bipartisan legislation, including: