Committee cutoff day sees some bills survive, some die

Wednesday, Feb. 4, marked the day that non-fiscal bills either stayed afloat or died. Among them were out-of-state demands on Washington hospitals, declawing cats, microchipping employees, and other issues.

After being introduced, bills are assigned to a committee staffed with legislators who have an interest in their topic. They are then workshopped, receive public testimony and, eventually, are voted on in an executive session. Bills must get passed out of at least one committee by the cutoff day (which, for non-fiscal bills, was Feb. 4), before getting to the full House or Senate. However, not all bills get the chance for testimony and a vote. The schedule of the committee is up to its ranking chair, and every committee this session has a Democratic chairperson.

One of the bills that died was House Bill 2427, sponsored by Rep. Alicia Rule, D-Blaine. Dubbed the “ink of hope act,” it had bipartisan support and would require tattoo artists to take training in spotting human trafficking. This bill, meant to intervene in human trafficking, was brought to Rule’s attention “from survivors,” according to the congresswoman. The bill was scheduled for executive session Feb. 3, one day before the cutoff, but the vote never took place.

“I don’t know why,” said Rule. “We’ll be back next year with it, no doubt.”

Rep. Dave Paul, D-Oak Harbor, is chair of the Postsecondary Education & Workforce Committee, where the bill was introduced. “Representative Rule only started recently working on the bill,” he said. “It’s a conversation starter, for sure, about the policy.”

The bill would cost $367,000 in its first two years (a biennium) and $218,000 in each biennium thereafter. With the budget shortfall this legislature is facing, Paul said, anything passed in his committee with fiscal impact “would be taken out of higher education funding.”

Another bill that died would have limited the eligibility for hospital charity care to only Washington residents. House Bill 2250 and companion Senate Bill 5959 come after rural hospitals along the Idaho-Washington border have faced increased demands from residents who don’t have varying medical care they need in their own state.Both the Senate and House versions of the bill had bipartisan support from Sen. Shelly Short, R-Addy; Sen. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane; and, on the House side, Rule and Rep. Andrew Engell, R-Colville.

Neither bill was scheduled for an executive session. Rep. Dan Bronoske, D-Lakewood, who chairs the committee that could have passed the House version of the bill, said it’s a conversation for the interim time between sessions.

“We have very reasonable charity care requirements for Washington state hospitals that border states and other places don’t necessarily have,” Bronoske said. “That is just a bigger policy discussion that needs to take place. I’m not saying people shouldn’t have access to care, but there are certain benefits of living in certain states. How do you thread that needle? I don’t know.”

Some bills that survived cutoff day include one that prohibits declawing cats; another that establishes an apple heritage program at Washington State University; and one that prohibits microchipping employees.

All these bills are in vastly different committees, with varying sponsors and fiscal impacts. They would be funded in different ways and impact different parts of the $78 billion state budget.

Speaker of the House Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, decides the House floor schedule. Surviving bills will have to make it through there, too, where they will then go to the Senate prior to being signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson to become law.

“Every step along the way is intended to perfect bills,” Jinkins said. “It's important that people file bills that have an interest for a lot of other members than to just go through the process of perfecting them and being open to the feedback that you get.”

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