Happy New Year and happy new legislative session.
After much preparation, the day has finally come. Today marks day one of the 105-day 2021 legislative session. These four months can be a long time for city officials to stay engaged with the legislative process, particularly given how much work you have
going on in your community each day. AWC strives to keep it manageable by using our weekly Legislative Bulletin to help you know where to focus your efforts and stay on top of what is important to cities. Watch your inbox for occasional Action
Alerts; that’s when we need your immediate response on the most critical issues.
The session is kicking off with an ambitious first week of committee hearings focused on some priority bills for cities:
- Policing reforms
- Capital gains taxes
- The Governor’s budget proposals
- Fiscal flexibility
- Changes to open public meetings during emergencies.
Legislative leaders have set out several ambitious priority issues for the virtual session, though they admit that they probably can’t do as much as they would in a normal setting. Some of the topics they’ve identified as priorities include:
- COVID-19 response and recovery
- Housing
- Childcare
- Police reform
- Climate change
- Progressive revenue
- Adopting the biennial budgets.
AWC has also developed an ambitious set of priorities
for the session:
- Addressing housing instability;
- Adopting a statewide transportation package with local funding included;
- Agreeing on statewide policing reforms that respect local authority;
- Providing greater fiscal flexibility to get through pandemic-created budget challenges; and
- Retaining state-shared revenues for cities.
Additionally, AWC will be working on a host of other significant issues including, but not limited to:
- Enhanced broadband access
- Tax increment financing
- Infrastructure funding
- Funding replacement of fish-blocking culverts
- Additional options for encouraging affordable housing development
- Additional less-regressive revenue options.
The virtual session
As you know, this session will primarily be conducted online. The Capitol Campus buildings will remain closed to the public. The House and Senate will hold their committee meetings in a virtual format using Zoom. You will be able to sign up to testify
on bills remotely or provide written comments via the legislative website. The Legislature has created a handy resource page with information on how to follow the process and engage remotely.
You can also always watch the action live (or view archived footage if you missed the live meeting) via tvw.org. AWC has recently signed on as a TVW sponsor and we are proud to help support their gavel-to-gavel
coverage that allows people across the state to access the legislative process.
Top 10 tips for a successful session
If you missed them, make sure to check out these tips to help you make your voice heard!
Register for City Action Days
AWC’s City Action Days
conference is also going online. It will be held February 10-11 and will feature the same great content as always on hot legislative issues from legislative speakers. Even though you can’t attend in person, it is still important to make plans
to meet with your legislators. In normal years, many who attend the conference plan dinners and get-togethers with their legislators. We encourage you to keep those traditions going–just move them to a virtual format. For example, you might
consider hosting a virtual dinner or coffee.
If you need any help or additional information in navigating the legislative process, please feel free to reach out to the Government Relations team. We are always happy to help.