GOAL Post2019-1
Legislative Update from Olympia 11 January 2019
RALLY IN OLY FRIDAY 18 JANUARY
LEGISLATURE CONVENES MONDAY, 14 JANUARY (105 DAY SESSION)
DEMOCRATS IN COMPLETE CONTROL
BILL INFORMATION
NEW GUN BILLS PRE-FILED
LEGISLATIVE TUTORIAL
LEGISLATIVE CALENDAR
NEXT WEEK’S HEARING SCHEDULE
LEGISLATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
HOW TO TESTIFY AT A PUBLIC HEARING
PUBLIC HEARING VERSUS EXECUTIVE SESSION
(This will be a long GOAL Post as I have to describe the environment and
the processes involved for new readers. Future issues will be
shorter. Also keep in mind that GOAL Post focuses on gun law only, we do
not cover hunting issues. The Hunters Heritage Council does that well.I
normally post GP on Friday evenings to summarize that week’s activities
and provide a forecast for the next. I’ll be on the road for the next two
weeks, so some issues might be late – or early.)
First business first: a gun rights rally will be held on the Capitol
Campus next Friday, January 18th. The rally will be held on the north
steps of the Legislative Building and will begin at 9 a.m., ending at 12
noon. The rally is sponsored by the Gun Rights Coalition. (Yes, it’s a
Friday, and unlike the people bussed in to attend many liberal rallies,
gunnies have to work. Are your gun rights worth a day off?) After the
formal presentation, attendees are encouraged to familiarize themselves
with the campus layout (the Capitol, or “legislative” building where
floor sessions are conducted, as well as the John L. O’Brien House
Office Building, the John A. Cherberg Senate Office Building, and the
Irv Newhouse Senate Office Building. This is a great opportunity to
locate your two representatives’ and one senator’s office and introduce
yourself to their legislative aides. Hopefully over the coming session
they’ll become familiar with your name and maybe even your face!
The legislature convenes on Monday, January 14th , for its “long” (105
day) session. This is the start of the 66^th biennium, which will run
through next year (2020). The primary focus of the long session is
supposed to be preparation and passage of a two-year budget, but worry
not – they’ll find plenty of time for gun control. If their work is not
completed, they can be called back by the governor for any number of
30-day special sessions, as happened two years ago with THREE
back-to-back special sessions.
I’m not going to point fingers, as it’s not clear who to point fingers
at:overly enthusiastic liberal voters or discouraged
conservatives. Either way, the Democrats now have solid control of BOTH
the Senate and the House. We still have a few friendly Democrats in the
Senate and the House, but not enough to overcome the liberal majority.
The new Senate has 28 Democrats, 21 Republicans.The House will have 57
Democrats to 41 Republicans. This means not only will every committee
chair be Democrat (the committee chair controls which bills will receive
a hearing), but most committees will have a two-seat Democrat majority.
In the first session of the biennium, all new bills must be filed.You
may see familiar subjects brought back, but the bill numbers will be
new.Bills stay alive for the entire two-year biennium.
Text of newly filed bills can be found at
https://app.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/ Also on the bill information page are
links to “New Introductions” (daily), and at the bottom, “Bills by
topic” and “Bill Tracking.”
Pre-filing of bills for the new legislature begins in December, and
there are already a handful of gun-related bills in the hopper.
A complete list of bills under consideration is included below in the
“BILL STATUS” section.It also contains the bill’s prime sponsor, the
current status of the bill (committee location) and the GOAL position on
the bill. Committee abbreviations are provided at the bottom of that
section. As this is written there are currently 12 gun bills available
for consideration/action.
For those new to legislative affairs, here’s how the process works: When
a bill is filed in the House or Senate (or both, simultaneously, called
“companion bills”) it is assigned to a policy committee.Most gun-related
bills go to the Senate Law & Justice Committee in the Senate. In the
House it’s a little more complicated, as it may be sent to House Civil
Rights & Judiciary or House Public Safety (most will go to CR&J). Public
hearings may be held, after which the bill may (or may not) be voted out
of committee. If the bill has a fiscal impact (usually an expenditure of
more than $50,000), it must then go to Senate Ways & Means or one of a
couple of House fiscal committees. The bill then goes to the Senate or
House Rules Committee, where it must be voted on to pass out to the
floor for a full vote.
After a bill passes the Senate or House, it then goes over to the
opposite chamber (House or Senate), where the whole process starts over
again. If the bill passes the second chamber in the same form it passed
the first, it goes to the governor for signature (or veto or partial
veto). If changes are made in the second chamber, it goes back to the
first for concurrence. It may also go to a conference committee from both
chambers to resolve differences.The final version must pass both chambers.
The bill then goes to the Governor, who may sign it into law, veto
(kill) the bill, or sign a partial veto (killing just selected
section(s) of the bill). The governor may also allow a bill to become law
without his signature. Most signed bills take effect on 1 July, although
bills with an “emergency clause” (considered immediately necessary for
public safety) take effect upon signature by the governor.
One of the first items of business in each session is the adoption of
the session calendar, identifying dates by which bills must clear
various hurdles. A bill that fails to clear the policy committee or
chamber floor by the designated date is generally considered dead for
the year, although they may be “resurrected” by parliamentary
procedure. I’ll post the cut-off dates for the 2018 session in the next
issue of GOAL Post.
At this time, public hearings are scheduled for HB 1010 (disposal of
forfeited firearm) on Tuesday, January 15th , at 10 a.m. in the House
Civil Rights and Judiciary Committee, and for SBs 5072 (extreme risk
protection orders, under 18) and 5027 (extreme risk protection orders,
under 18) on Thursday, 17 January at 10 a.m. in the Senate Law & Justice
Committee.
The following links can be used to contact legislators .Lists won’t be
updated until new members are sworn in Monday):
http://www.leg.wa.gov/Senate/Senators/
http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Representatives/
Legislative e-mail addresses are available at
http://app.leg.wa.gov/MemberEmail/Default.aspx
The link contains a quick tutorial on providing testimony at public
hearings on bills under consideration. I would urge you to read it and
consider visiting Olympia to let YOUR voice be
heard.http://leg.wa.gov/legislature/Pages/Testify.aspx
Public hearings are committee meetings open to the public, where the
public is allowed to testify on bills, to give their views on the
bill. But all votes on bills taken by a committee are conducted in what
are called “executive sessions.” They are typically part of a public
session, with a few minutes set aside to vote on bills previously heard
by the committee. Public testimony is just that, open to the public for
comment.On the other hand, no public input is allowed during executive
session. You are welcome to sit there, and to count votes, but silence
from the public is the rule.Just FYI for those of you who have not
attended legislative public meetings before.
And you won’t find the House Judiciary Committee listed any more. It’s
now the House Civil Rights and Judiciary Committee.
The Senate Committee Services office has done us the favor of compiling
a 26 page summary of Washington state firearms laws and other data
surrounding firearms… with – at first glance – a typical Olympia slant
on it.The “study” us available at
http://leg.wa.gov/Senate/Committees/LAW/Documents/Washington%20Firearms%20Laws.pdf
BILL STATUS/GOAL POSITION:
HB 1010 Disposition of forfeited firearms by WSP Senn (D-41 )H.CR&J OPPOSE
HB 1022 Prohibiting handgun sale data base Walsh (R-19) H.CR&JSUPPORT
HB 1024 Prohibiting gun owner data base Walsh (R-19) H.CR&J SUPPORT
HB 1068 High capacity magazine ban Valdez (D-46 )H.CR&J OPPOSE
HB 1038 Authorizing armed school personnel Walsh (R-19) UnAsg SUPPORT
HB 1073 Undetectable and/or untraceable firearms Valdez (D-46) H.CR&J OPPOSE
SB 5016 Authorizing armed animal control officers Van De Wege UnAsg SUPPORT
SB 5027 Extreme risk protection orders, under age 18 Frockt (D-46) S.L&J OPPOSE
SB 5050 Sentence enhancement for body armor use in a
crime O’Ban (R-28) S.L&J NEUTRAL
SB 5061 Undetectable and untraceable firearms Dhingra (D-45) S.L&J OPPOSE
SB 5062 High capacity magazine ban Kuderer (D-48) S.L&J OPPOSE
SB 5072 Extreme risk protection orders O’Ban (R-28) S.L&J NEUTRAL
HB = House bill, SB = Senate bill. L&J = Law & Justice, CR&J = Civil
Rights and Judiciary, PubSaf = Public Safety, HC = Health Care, H. K-12
= House Early education, Aprop = Appropriations, Fin = Finance, W&M =
Ways & Means“S” before a bill number indicates Substitute (amended).
HEARINGS SCHEDULED:
15 Jan House Civil Rights and Jud Committee, John L. O’Brien Building
10:00 HB 1010
17 Jan Senate Law & Justice Committee, John A. Cherberg Bldg
10:00 SBs 5027 and 5072
LEGISLATIVE HOT LINE: You may reach your Representatives and Senator by
calling the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-562-6000. Toll free!!! The
hearing impaired may obtain TDD access at 1-800-635-9993. Also toll free!!!
1-800-562-6000TDD 1-800-635-9993
OTHER DATA:Copies of pending legislation (bills), legislative schedules
and other information are available on the legislature’s web site at
“www.leg.wa.gov“. Bills are available in Acrobat (.pdf) format. You may
download a free version of Adobe Acrobat Reader from Adobe’s web site
(http://www.adobe.com). You may also obtain hard copy bills, initiatives,
etc, in the mail from the Legislative Bill Room FREE OF CHARGE by
calling 1-360-786-7573. Copies of bills may also be ordered toll free by
calling the Legislative Hotline at (800) 562-6000. You may also hear
floor and committee hearing action live at http://www.tvw.org/ (you need
“RealAudio” to do this, available free at the TVW web site).
By reading the House and Senate “bill reports” (hbr, sbr) for each bill,
you can see how individual committee members voted. By reading the “roll
call” for each bill, you can see how the entire House or Senate voted on
any bill. The beauty of the web site is that ALL this information is
available, on line 24/7 , to any citizen.
GET THE WORD OUT:If you want to subscribe to the GOAL Post by e-mail,
send a message to “goalwa@cox.net “.Please pass GOAL Post on to anyone
you believe may have an interest in protecting our rights.Better yet,
make a couple of copies of this message, post it on your gun club’s
bulletin board, and leave copies with your local gun shop(s).PERMISSION
IS HEREBY GRANTED TO DUPLICATE OR REDISTRIBUTE GOAL POST PROVIDED IT IS
REPRODUCED WITHOUT TEXTUAL MODIFICATION AND CREDIT IS GIVEN TO GOAL
“The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.”
Article 1, Section 24
Constitution of the State of Washington
Do you believe in the constitutional right to keep and bear arms? Do you stand with Yakima County Sheriff Bob Udell’s position that I-1639 is unconstitutional? Do you believe that WA Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s endorsement and support of I-1639 was wrong, a violation of his oath, a violation of the US and WA Constitution(s), and that he overstepped the authority of his office?
Lower Valley Assembly 