This Wednesday, Feb. 4 was the house-of-origin policy committee cutoff. Bills that were not passed out of the policy committee in the chamber they were introduced in are considered dead unless necessary to implement the budget (NTIB). For the bills that remain alive, those with a fiscal impact on the state have been referred to the appropriate fiscal committees (House Appropriations, Senate Ways & Means, etc.) for consideration for a public hearing and committee action. These bills will need to be cleared by the fiscal committees by next Monday, Feb. 9 in order to continue through the legislative process.
The state relations team continues to track legislation that is relevant to the UW and is working through the weekend to monitor and engage on the long list of bills being heard in the fiscal committees.
In other news, UW Tacoma Chancellor Sheila Edwards Lange and UW Bothell Chancellor Kristin Esterberg both visited Olympia this week to advocate on behalf of their campuses. They met with several legislators to discuss sustained funding for UW’s core operations and preventing any further budget cuts that would erode UW’s ability to support students and the Tacoma and Bothell communities.
Questions?
The Office of State Relations is advocating on behalf of the UW in Olympia. For questions about the state legislative process, specific policy, or the UW’s advocacy efforts, please contact Morgan Hickel at mhickel@uw.edu or Kevin Chang at kchang28@uw.edu.