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WACOPS Legislative Update – Week 12 – 4/3/15

WACOPS Legislative Update – Week 12 – 4/3/15

WACOPS Legislative Update 

April 4th, 2015

 

Week 12
This week brought intense budget and policy discussions. Wednesday, April 1st was the cutoff date for policy committees to pass out bills from the opposite house. The House passed their budget along party lines on Thursday evening. The Senate passed their supplemental budget out but failed to pass their operating budget, eventually adjourning early on Friday morning. The Senate will reconvene again on Monday to consider their budget. The cutoff date for fiscal committees is Tuesday.

Brady Bill

 HB 1512, regarding use of Brady Lists, was WACOPS’ top priority policy bill this year and proved to be our biggest disappointment. It passed out of the House 98-0 with the support of the prosecutor’s association, WAPA. The Chairman of the Senate Law & Justice Committee (Sen. Padden-Spokane) gave the bill a hearing but did not call it up for a vote. Four of the seven Senators on the Committee were co-sponsors of the companion bill, SB 5589, and six of the seven members had committed to voting for the bill without amendments. An amendment was offered by the State Patrol Mgmt. that not only would have gutted the bill, but would have made current law even worse for LE officers placed on the prosecutor’s list. Given the choice of having the amendment adopted or have the bill die, we choose to let it go this year. We will work it again next year.

 Budget Comparisons

 There have been three proposed budgets this year: the Governor’s budget, the House budget, and the Senate budget. Below you will find the three budget proposals compared based on relevant legislative priorities.


For more information, the Association of Washington Cities has a similar chart presenting budget impacts to local government from a more general perspective HERE.

WACOPS Bill Report

Click here for the bill report. We appreciate your input and welcome suggestions. Please feel free to contact us with questions or comments. We work for you and the greater input we get, the better we can represent you.

 Contact Us

If you have any questions or would like to testify on a bill, please contact us at 1-800-887-2677 or using the information below.

www.wacops.org

200 Union Ave SE
Olympia, WA 98501