One of the first major deadlines of this legislative session occurred this past Friday. The 17th was the last day to read in committee reports (pass bills out of committee and read them into the record on the floor) in house of origin, except House fiscal committees and Senate Ways & Means and Transportation committees. Bills that don't advance by this deadline are considered “dead” for the year.
The next legislative deadline will be this Friday, and it is the last day to read in committee reports from House fiscal committees and Senate Ways & Means and Transportation committees in house of origin.
The House recently passed HB 1363, relating to law enforcements ability to conduct vehicular pursuits, out of the Community Safety, Justice & Reentry committee. However, Democrats did manage to water down this bill by including amendments that only allow pursuits under certain circumstances. While the pursuit language is still too narrow, this bill does bring back the reasonable suspicion standard and puts our state in a better position to increase public safety. This vote at least ensures that HB 1363 remains alive after Friday's cutoff and can move forward in the 2023 session. This bill is scheduled for another committee hearing TODAY at 1:30PM. Please take 5 minutes to register your PRO position by 12:30PM today through this link. When doing so, select the written testimony option and tell legislators in the Transportation committee to restore police pursuit AND to amend this bill to include pursuits of stolen vehicles.
Senate Democrats also passed SB 5082 and the bill is moving to the house. This bill removes advisory votes from the ballot that were originally put there through citizen initiative. This is another great example of Washington Democrats going against the majority of voters in our state, and creating less transparency by our state government. It is apparent why they want it removed - advisory votes are essentially an official poll of Washington State voters on their approval or dissaproval of new tax increases - and the voters regularly reject new Democrat taxes by overwhelming numbers.
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