Washington Votes Forum

Is Special Session about to end? This morning there are several news reports citing several possible deals to bring this year's legislative action to a close. Here is a blog post by Brad Shannon of The Olympian that provides a good overview on the various sticking points: Lawmakers return; Gregoire...

Budget time? More rumors abound that first year House Budget Chair, Rep. Ross Hunter , is poised to release an operating budget as early as this coming Monday. Here is a good blog entry from AWB were Rep. Hunter and Senate Budget Chair Ed Murray discuss the ongoing budget discussion.

Today is the day that lawmakers, at least those with the budget pens, have been waiting for. The state will release the latest revenue forecast, which many expect will add to the current budget deficit. Here is an excellent blog post that discusses what options lawmakers have to deal with the growing...

Yesterday marked the first of many calendar cut-off days in the Washington Legislature. This cut-off required all policy bills to move out of policy committees. Did the bill(s) you were following get through?

Are there additional savings available? Today the House and Senate approved HB 1086 , reducing the total state deficit by nearly $368 million. The Governor just vetoed various sections, adding about $6.4 million back to the deficit. The state is still looking at a current fiscal year deficit of more...

Is a timeout to read bills a good idea or will this just slow the legislative process? Introduced today, SB 5419 would require mandatory waiting periods on certain bills before legislative action can be taken. SB 5419, which was introduced by Sen. Becker , would provide a twenty-four hour timeout on...

Today HB 1226 , which would create a spay/neuter assistance program for pets owned by low-income individuals, was introduced in the Legislature. This bill would require animal food distributors to pay a fee to pay for the spay/neuter assistance program. The program would be managed by the Department...

SB 5016 , introduced by Sen. Scott White , would prohibit smoking in a vehicle when minors are in the car. Under the bill, the offense would be considered a traffic violation, but would only be enforced as a secondary offense. This means a enforcement officer can only site you for the violation if your...

Today, Monday, January 10th, marks the start of the 2011 Legislative Session. Throughout the Session WashingtonVotes.org will provide plain-English descriptions of every bill and amendments introduced by lawmakers in Olympia. We encourage users, and site visitors, to take utilize our various search features...

Next Monday, January 10th, will mark the beginning of the 2011 Legislative Session. Already there is a lot of talk about what themes might emerge this year. Here is an interesting Q&A with AP writers and Legislative Leaders, courtesy of TVW's Capitol Record. So what theme do you hope emerges...