December 9, 2024

Understanding the WA State Legislature

Introduction

Your elected officials are headed to Olympia to fight for their constituents very soon!

The legislative session starts back up on January 13th, 2025, when your representatives get back to work on how to benefit and serve you. This year, they will be passing the capital and operating budgets that will be in place for two years. During the biennium, an even year is a short session (60 days), and odd years are a long session (105 days). While in session, they will consider a number of other bills – either bills that did not pass the finish line during the last session, or new bills that will be introduced. Long sessions are particularly important because it is during a long session when the legislature allocates funding to government policies, programs, and services. This money is sourced from a combination of state taxes and federal government grants. This means that for students at UW, public funding will be debated – your legislators will be going through the budget with a keen eye on resources for higher education, such as affordability measures, student housing resources, and more. Their decisions have a direct impact on you; legislation decides if students get increased resources for affordable housing, for example, and the legislature could just as easily cut that funding.  

How representation works

Your legislator represents people in your district – including yourself. Here’s how it works:

• House – for the House of Representatives, there are 79 total representatives, with two people representing each of the 49 counties in Washington. Your representative represents the district in which you live, and voters elect them in. 

• Senate – there are 49 senators, each representing the district in which they ran for office. 

It is important to note that these folks work for you. They represent, in part, your interests in government and governance! And, there are ways for you to access your representatives and be more involved in this process than you might have believed. To be most effective in advocating for the policies you care about, it’s important to understand how policy gets made in the Washington State Legislature. 

How legislation gets made

During the session, a lot of legislation will be introduced by sponsors and cosponsors. These terms mean that whoever writes and introduces the legislation are the ones who champion that cause. 

• Often, championing a piece of legislation is a political chess move that advances the personal and political causes that got a representative or senator elected into their seat. For example, one of your representatives may have run on improving public schools, so they might seek out legislation to support that focuses on increasing state-level funding to schools.

• Other times, legislators will be asked to champion a piece of legislation by an outside group, such as a lobby or advocacy group, who help devise the legislation. For example, Pro-Choice Washington might collaborate on legislation that expands healthcare policies, and bring it to a friendly representative, and help advance the cause through that relationship.

Sponsors and cosponsors work with other legislators to add more co-sponsors to the legislation, as it strengthens the position of the legislation to pass. 

The piece of legislation gets introduced onto the floor of the chamber and then goes through three committees: the policy committee, the fiscal committee, and the rules committee. The purpose of committees is to make sure each bill gets heard by legislators carefully – and allow the public space and time to comment on the bill. Often, the most advocacy work gets done in committees, as this is where legislators can make comments, where edits can be suggested based on what would make the bill pass or fail to pass, and where members of the public can make suggestions or comments as well. The bill then can either pass out of committee, or it can “die” in committee (fail to pass). This depends on if enough legislators on the committee vote to pass it through after giving the bill the necessary number of hearings. 

If and when the bill passes out of committees, it will go to the chamber floor. During the session of the House of Representatives or Senate, the bill will hear debate from legislators, and then go to a vote. Whichever house it is in, if it passes, it must repeat the process in the opposite chamber – that is, if the bill goes through the House first, it will then go to the Senate, and vise versa – and then go to the Governor to be signed into law or vetoed. 

Where can you get involved?

When a bill is in a committee, members of the public can support or oppose it in written, in-person verbal, or virtually delivered testimony. Testimony is a short delivered written or verbal speech where one makes a compelling case for an issue about which they care. While many organizations send professional advocates to testify on their behalf, it is a right for the public, and you can do it, too! It might seem scary to stand up in front of legislators and deliver your speech, but remember that your elected officials are simply people, too, and you are the master of your own story. No one knows your story better than you do. 

Additionally, anytime during session, you’re able to contact your legislator and set up meetings with them, either in-person or virtually. These meetings are also important for legislators so they can learn what constituents care about and can, in turn, represent you better. Oftentimes, if a legislator cannot meet with you because of their schedule, you will meet with one of their staff, usually a Legislative Assistant (LA). This is powerful in and of itself, as LAs hold the key to what makes it to their legislators’ desk!

When the bill is on the floor of a chamber where it would receive debate, members of the public can write or call their representative to urge them to vote for or against the bill – this matters. Legislators’ offices take the number of calls, and the messages within them, into consideration as they prepare how they will vote. 

Your impact

This information is important because state-level policymaking has a direct impact on you! As federal policymaking shifts in the next four years, Washington state policy will become more important in our day to day lives. Because states have rights to enact their own policies, they can pass legislation that makes the state more safe for marginalized people. Even if you are not a full time resident of Washington, state-level policies have a habit of influencing other states. Good, protective legislation being passed here is a hopeful beacon to other states and other organizers to pursue similar policies. Oftentimes, organizations that work on one issue will support another organization’s issues – for example, a reproductive rights organization might also support a trans rights organization – because we are stronger together. You can utilize policy mechanisms, like advocacy and coalition-building, through the Washington statehouse and state-level policy to advocate for justice-oriented changes. 

While there is a lot of uncertainty regarding federal trans and queer policies, Washington state has a good track record of fighting for policy protections for queer and trans communities and other marginalized groups. Though policy is not the entire solution, learning how to navigate this process may help make advocacy more accessible, and allow you to utilize your voice in the most effective way! Stay tuned for upcoming posts on the protections that already exist in the state, and how you can continue to participate civically at the state level in Washington!