WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State House Democrats

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

Rep. Blake’s Legislative Update – February 11, 2013

Dear Neighbor,

We are already one month into the 2013 legislative session, so there are 11 more weeks to go.  The session follows a cut-off calendar, which determines the deadlines for public hearings and executive action on bills, as well as floor action in both the House and Senate. We are coming up on our first cut-off, February 22, which is the last day a policy bill can be considered in committee in its house of origin.  Fiscal bills get an extra week beyond that. 

Watch my video update!

Blakevid

It’s not too late to Page!

Did you know several lawmakers were pages in their early teens?  When you give young boys and girls a peek at what legislating is all about, don’t be surprised if they grow up with a deep desire to improve this world.

Since 1891, young people 14 – 16 years of age from across the state have come to Olympia to serve as pages for the Washington State House of Representatives. Paging presents students with a unique week-long educational opportunity to participate in the legislative process. Duties range from ceremonial tasks such as presenting the flags, to operational chores like distributing amendments during legislative sessions.Pages

Pages spend a week in Olympia learning first-hand about Washington State civics and exploring the Capitol campus. Paging is a paid position at $35 per day, for each day worked. Pages must attend a two-hour page orientation on the Sunday afternoon immediately preceding the scheduled work week. The scheduled work week begins the next day, Monday, and extends through the following Friday. Daily work hours begin at 7:45 am and typically last until 5:00 pm.

To become a page, applicants must be between the ages of 14 and 16, and obtain written permission from their parents and school. For more information about the legislative page program, please contact Representative Brian Blake’s office at (360) 786-7870 or email Brian.Blake@leg.wa.gov and complete the page application located here. For details and more information on the Washington State House of Representatives Page Program, please visit the website by clicking here.

Getting rid of GET?

GETThere’s been a lot of talk about closing the GET, which is state’s Guaranteed Education Tuition program created by the Legislature in 1998 as a way for families to save for college.  Parents, grandparents and others can buy GET “units” at a fixed price today that can be applied towards college tuition at a later date. GET has helped over 27,000 students achieve the dream of a college education.

Recent reports show a projected unfunded liability of $631 million several years down the road. That’s a concern to be taken seriously, but ending the program completely could end up costing the state anywhere from $649 million to $1.6 billion. Thankfully, we have options to get the GET reserves back to healthy levels. This report from the State Actuary illustrates how holding the line on tuition increases for the next two years and increasing state support for instructional costs will quickly lead to a healthy GET reserve.

What’s going on in the House Agriculture and Natural Resources committee?

ComitteepixLast week in my committee we rolled up our sleeves and dug into some important issues.  On Tuesday we had “wolf day,” hearing a range of legislation relating to wolves from declassification of the grey wolf (HB 1337) and protecting livestock against predator attacks (HB 1191), to building upon the existing wildlife interactions program (HB 1501).

Then on Thursday, February 7, the Agriculture & Natural Resource Committee heard several bills related to water rights including:

HB 1350 – Options for local communities to balance their growth  with water resource goals.

HB 1375 – Consolidating a new exempt withdrawal of groundwater into an existing public water system.

HB 1438 – Changes in water rights for irrigation purposes that involve conversion to more efficient irrigation technologies.

HB 1548 & HB 1549 – Efficiencies in the Department of Ecology processing of water right change applications.

To access the documents and presentations from all the legislative committee work sessions online, feel free to check the Electronic Bill Book.

If you want to know what bills passed through committee or are interested in following what’s going on in the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee you can sign up here to receive E-mail notifications. You can also check out our committee agenda to see what’s coming up next week.

As always, I welcome your thoughts, suggestions, and ideas, so stay in touch!

Until next time,

Blakesig