No matter how arcane the ways of Olympia may seem at first glance, you don’t need to be a lobbyist or a lawyer to have an impact on the state legislative process. In fact, effective participation in the legislative process is a fundamental skill for cities and city officials. By taking an active role in the legislative process, city leaders can help maintain local revenues, combat policies that harm cities, and ensure that their cities’ interests are considered during policy debates.

Of course, navigating the legislative process can be complex, at times even intimidating. But in important respects, the state legislative process is no more complicated than your local legislative process—it’s just a little different. And AWC has several resources and tools to make navigating the state legislative process easy and accessible.

Since the legislative session is just around the corner, now is a great time to familiarize yourself with the basics of tracking a bill through the process. One of the best tools for navigating the legislative process is the Washington State Legislature’s website, found at leg.wa.gov. This site offers a user-friendly array of searching options that city officials can use to track the status of bills that interest their city.

If you know the number of the bill you would like to track, you can simply search for the bill by going to the legislative website and clicking the “Bills” tab on the green righthand column. After being directed to the bill search page, you can type the bill number into the search cue. After clicking “search,” you will be redirected to a page that provides detailed information on your searched bill, including the status of the bill, the names of legislative sponsors, and additional documents like the text of the bill and the committee bill reports.

If you don’t know the number of the bill you are looking for, after clicking “Bills” on the right-hand column of the home screen, you can search the text of a bill by clicking the right-hand search cue labeled “search the full text of a bill.” Use a key word or phrase to track down the bill of concern; it works best to narrow your criteria as much as you can before entering your search query.

Bill tracking is just one of the many ways to engage during the legislative session. Communicating to your legislators the needs of your city and providing your input on bills affecting your community are the critical next steps.

For newcomers to the Legislature’s website, it may be easiest to begin searching recent past sessions, whose records are maintained on the site. That way, you can familiarize yourself with the system for bills whose ultimate fate you already know, or you can experiment with different search criteria around issues that have recently affected your city. (You’d be forgiven for avoiding issues whose resolution in past sessions may leave a bitter taste for your city.)

The more familiar you are, the better, because during the legislative session, dozens of new bills are introduced in both the House and Senate almost every day. Again, to locate these new bills, navigate from the legislative home site to the “Bills” tab. Under the right-hand bill search cue, you will see a link to “House Introductions” and “Senate Introductions.” These bill “introduction” reports contain a list of bills that will be introduced into the chamber that day. This is a quick and easy way to identify and monitor the new bills introduced that day that may impact your city.

Using the state legislative website, city leaders can also create their own personalized list of bills to track through the legislative process. This is especially helpful if you are trying to keep track of many active bills during session—the feature even gives you the ability to receive notifications when the status of your bill is changed. To create a bill tracking account, start at the legislature’s homepage, and look to the green righthand column; click the tab labeled “Track Bills,” then click “Register for a new account.” Follow the prompts to create customized reports and personal bill-tracking lists to aid in your legislative engagement efforts.

Bill tracking is just one of many ways to engage during the legislative session. Communicating to your legislators the needs of your city and providing your input on bills affecting your community are the critical next steps. In-person meetings, phone calls, handwritten letters, and emails are all effective means of engaging with legislators.

As always, AWC is here to support your city’s advocacy efforts. Our website has additional resources that can help you participate effectively in the legislative process. During session, our weekly Legislative Bulletin is a fantastic resource for an analysis on policies and bills impacting cities. Our staff is also always available to answer your questions and concerns. Please don’t hesitate to reach out—and don’t forget to join us in Olympia for AWC’s annual legislative advocacy event, City Action Days (CAD), scheduled this session for January 28–29, 2020.