What is Policy Cut-off?
Washington operates under a part-time legislature model, where legislators gather for relatively brief periods than go back home to their families and jobs. So, even though we call even-year sessions “long”, these “long” sessions are pretty short compared to other states. In order to conduct the state’s business within the timeframe outlined in the state Constitution, the legislature has implemented a set of strict cut-off dates. If a bill doesn’t achieve certain milestones by certain dates, it will not be considered any further in the legislative session.
We are currently reaching an important first cut off-date, the Policy Committee Cut-off on February 21st.
What is a policy bill?
In legislature-speak, policy bill in the Washington State Legislature is a proposed law that focuses on establishing or changing state policies, rather than dealing directly with financial matters. These bills are reviewed by policy committees, sometimes called non-fiscal committees. Examples include committees dealing with health care, education, economic development, civil rights, etc.
Bills that are received by policy committees are chosen by the committee chair to receive public hearings. Bills that have received public hearings can then go into the committee’s executive session, where the committee can vote to modify the bill and send it on to be voted on by the full chamber with a “do pass” or “do not pass” recommendation. Chamber refers to the House or the Senate, whichever side of the legislature the bill was introduced on.
Just because a committee agrees to send it on does not mean that it will get a full vote on the floor! There is an intermediate step called the “Rules Committee” where the caucus chooses which bills to spend precious floor time on based on importance and likelihood of passage.
If a policy bill has not been voted out of the appropriate policy committee by today, the bill is most likely dead for this session. (There are some ways that a bill can be resurrected by leadership, and sometimes text or ideas from a bill that died becomes an amendment or addition to a different but closely related bill.)
What’s next on the cut-off timeline?
The policy cut-off date does not apply to all bills: The transportation committee and the fiscal committees can continue to consider bills until February 28th.
The House of Origin cut-off (the deadline to pass a bill on at least one side of the legislature) will be on March 12th.
How can I participate in the legislative process?
- Sign up for Take Action Network! This plugs you into our statewide network of bill trackers and provides information on bills that are important to Indivisibles around the state. Check out our Take Action page to find the registration link and see previews of current actions.
- If you’re already signed up for Take Action Network, you’ve been seeing a lot of messages to “sign in pro” or “sign in con” for various policy bills. For the policy bills that made the cut-off, the new actions will be to “Lobby the rules committee to bring a bill to the floor” and “Lobby your legislator to vote for/against a bill” as these bills will need to pass their house of origin by March 12th.
- Soon after this first cut off, legislators will be returning to their districts to hold town halls with constituents. Be sure to watch for them and show up! Ask them what issues they’re focused on, and what the status is on bills that are important to you.
