Legislature approaches first cutoff deadline as Olympia thaws out

Like many parts our state, Olympia was hit with a lot of snow last week. So much so that the Legislature shut down on February 11 and had a late start on February 12, which is nearly unheard of.

Additionally, the bad weather and dangerous roads resulted in AWC making the difficult decision to cancel our City Action Days (CAD) conference. We were very disappointed to miss having all of our city officials in town, but safety is our biggest concern. We did go forward with our traditional and always popular Talk to Your Lobbyist session via a LiveStream broadcast on Thursday. If you missed it, you can watch the recording at your convenience. We hope that those who missed CAD will be able to come to Olympia for AWC Lobby Day on March 25. We are working on a really great program for the event.

Bill cutoff dates

This week marks the first big deadline of the 2019 session – Friday, February 22 is the first policy committee cutoff. This is the date when bills must have successfully been voted out of the policy committee or they are considered likely dead for the session. This is not true for all bills – some bills are deemed “necessary to implement the budget” (NTIB) and not subject to the normal cutoff deadlines. Additionally, since the Legislature makes these rules, they can also break them, so it isn’t unheard of for a bill that you thought was “dead” to be resurrected later in the session.

This week it is particularly critical to let legislators know which bills cities support and oppose as they are considering votes on bills to get them out of the policy committee in time. AWC’s hot sheet can help you identify bills that are of particular interest to cities and our position. Please feel free to share it with your legislators.

The next major cutoff deadline is March 1 when bills will need to be voted on out of the fiscal committees. This video provides a good overview of the cutoff process for the entire session.

As always, if you have any questions about the legislative process or any bill, feel free to contact us.

Now is a great time to:

1. Reach out to your legislator with a phone call or email and remind them of your city's and AWC's priorities.
2. Find out when your legislator will be hosting a local town hall meeting and plan to attend and speak out about legislation impacting your city.
3. Check out AWC's bill hot sheet and share it with your legislators.