Opening week has completed. Governor Ferguson performed many essential duties such as delivering a State of the State address that caused many gag reflexes, and presiding over the Seattle Seahawks 12 flag raising
You can watch a short summary of each day on TVW’s Legislative Reviews.
- Wednesday Jan. 14 [9 mins]
- Thursday Jan. 15 [8 mins]
- Friday Jan. 16 [8 mins]
For the upcoming week of January 19, here are some of the key bills with scheduled committee hearings and one-click sign-in and testimony links.
SB 5892: CON – Senate State Government & Tribal Committee – Protecting the voter registration database. PUBLIC HEARING JAN 20 @ 1:30 PM. Codifies SOS Hobbs’ new “emergency” WAC 434-324-145 – DL #, SS# and full birthdate of a registrant are confidential and can't be disclosed. Mandates that all Public Records Requests involving the statewide voter registration database must be handled exclusively by SoS. If a county elections office receives such a request, it “shall not produce any records in response to the request” and must instead redirect to the SoS. A “knowing violation” is defined as a violation of RCW 29A.84.150, which makes it a class C felony for an election official or designee to knowingly disclose or misuse voter registration data outside the scope of official duties.
CCRP Comments: What Secretary of State Hobbs is trying to use to keep from giving databases to The U.S. Department of Justice. This disallows the checking of non-citizens. At the minimum, the bill needs to be Amended to include protections for the private information of voters who sign petitions.
Register CON. Submit Written Comments. Register to Testify
SB 5973: Requiring a demonstration of support before issuance of a ballot measure title and authorizing citizen actions for certain signature gatherer compensation violations. CON – Senate State Government & Tribal Committee. PUBLIC HEARING JAN 20 @ 1:30 PM.
CCRP Comments: Dem bill to kill the initiative and referendum process (see HB 2259). hampers the initiative process. The Dems hate our initiatives because initiatives let the people choose. Register CON. Submit Written Comments. Register to Testify
SB 5917 - Improving access to abortion medications CON – Senate Committee on Human Services Wednesday Jan. 21 @8 AM. (Companion HB 2182 was heard on Friday Jan. 16).
CCRP Comments: This is an easy one to oppose as it is clearly contrary to CCRP Key Principles and Platform. Register CON. Submit Written Comments. Register to Testify
HB 2210: CON - State Gov & Tribal Relations – Protecting local representation by strengthening and securing fair elections in local governments. CON - Executive Cmte hearing Jan 23 @8 am. A county, city, town, school district, fire district, or port district may conduct its elections using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).
CCRP comments: The flowery language of the title should set off alarm bells. This multi-voting procedure convolutes election transparency and confuses audits. Public hearing was on Jan. 13 (TVW.org recording). You can still send written comments to committee members.
Remember that public hearing committee registrations close 1 hour before meeting start time. Written comments can be submitted by the end of the day of a committee public hearing.
The full set of weekly bill action suggestions are posted on the CCRP Legislative Action Committee Page.