Legislative Update

As a 2022 interim project, Senator Lisa Wellman (D-Mercer Island), Chair of the Senate Committee on Early Learning and K-12 Education, asked committee staff to put together a document that identifies and categorizes references to parents and guardians in state law, rules, and model policies. The final document organizes these policies by topics such as attendance and truancy, classroom access and parental involvement, curriculum and instructional materials, special education, graduation, and more.

The House and Senate pounded their gavels one last time on Sunday, April 23, as they declared “Sine Die” for the 2023 Legislative session. This Latin term means “without a day,” and it is used to describe an adjournment when the date to reconvene is not specified and when the Legislature intends to leave town for the last time. However, there is a bit of a caveat to that statement since the Legislature may come back for a special session to address the Blake Decision. More on that later.

Sine Die approaches and a sense of glee and panic pervades the air as multiple bills either pass or fail to advance. Concurrence, recession, and just plain obstruction are on display. Multiple bills, close to 400, will be sent to the Governor who is even now in the process of signing them. To date, there have been no vetoes. Below is a summary of what is known. A year-end, post-Session report will be more definitive.

As Sine Die approaches, the legislature will go ‘dark’. Negotiations between both chambers, caucus members, the Governor’s office, and legislature leadership will be taking place outside of the public eye. Budgets need to be adopted, and altered bills need to be reconciled/concurred by the opposite body. The balls/bills will continue bouncing back and forth until finally caught by the Governor. Bill signings are occurring.

Just ten more days of this year’s legislative session remain. All policy bills had to pass off the floor of the opposite house by April 12. Once again, there were some very late nights and some bills that didn’t make it past this deadline. Over the next few days of the session, legislators will pass bills necessary to implement the budget, continue work to concur on different versions of bills that have passed, and come to an agreement over a final budget. And all of this should end by Sunday, April 23.