The first-ever virtual legislative session adjourned on Sunday, April 25 after 105 days of work. Prior to the start of this unique session, lawmakers were setting lower expectations for what they might accomplish in a session conducted entirely online. Yet, in the end, this year’s session will likely be remembered not only for the virtual environment, but also for the number of large policy issues that legislators tackled via Zoom.

For Washington’s 281 cities and towns, this was a productive and successful session. We saw good progress on our five legislative priorities and fared well in the new 2021-2023 biennial budgets. Generally, we are pleased that lawmakers looked to cities for partnerships and not preemption.

Generally, we are pleased that lawmakers looked to cities for partnerships and not preemption.

While legislators have wrapped up their work for now, bills are headed to the Governor’s desk for consideration. Bills sent to the Governor prior to the last five days of session must be acted upon within five days of reaching his desk. For bills sent to him in the last five days of session or when session has adjourned, the Governor has 20 days (not counting Sundays) to act. That means the Governor has until about May 18 to act on most bills, either signing, vetoing, or partially vetoing. You can find out more about the Governor’s bill action on this webpage.

On another technical note, unless a bill has a specific effective date, bills take effect 90 days after session, which is July 25.

Your Government Relations team will provide a more complete rundown of session outcomes during our session wrap-up webinar on May 13. Make sure to register for it soon. We will also publish a full recap edition of the Legislative Bulletin on May 24.

Special session speculation

It seems that each time a legislative session comes to a close, speculation begins about the chance of a special session taking place. Indeed, this year there have been suggestions that the Legislature may come back in the fall to work on a statewide transportation package and address any federal infrastructure funding that results from the American Jobs Plan. However, it’s important to remember that many factors would have to align for a special session to occur and the likelihood of that is not high. So, we won’t count on it happening, but we won’t count it out either.

Thank you for being strong city advocates

All year long we talk about the importance of city officials acting as strong city advocates, reaching out to local legislators to help them understand what cities do and the impact of their work on your communities. The Government Relations team appreciates all the city officials who stepped up this year and became virtual advocates during this challenging time. We were pleased to see that often the online session made it easier for city officials from around the state to participate in hearings and connect with the legislative process without making the trip to Olympia.

We thank you and encourage you to keep up the good work. As you know, advocacy is a year-round job. So don’t stop now – reach out to your legislators and thank them for their service and for those specific policy and funding issues that benefited your community. Invite them to a city council meeting and provide a summary of the session.

If you have any questions about bills that passed or did not pass, please feel free to reach out to the Government Relations team. We are always happy to help.