Town Hall recap and legislative priorities
Last month the 22nd district legislators held a virtual town hall. We had a great turnout, and you posed some excellent questions. I appreciate hearing input from folks in the district as we work on your behalf during session. Some of the best ideas for bills have been brought to us by folks who live in the district and saw something that needed to change.
If you’re curious about what bills made it through the first round of cutoff dates this session, scan the QR code or click on the image above to check out the WA House Democrat’s legislative priorities page.
Fitness centers could soon have AEDs
Senator Hunt’s Senate Bill 5592 requiring fitness centers to have an automatic external defibrillator (AED) on site is in direct response to a constituent who came to us with this request last year after she lost her husband to cardiac arrest while he was at the gym.
Every 40 seconds someone in the United States has a heart attack. Roughly 20% of those are silent heart attacks with no outward sign of distress but internally damaging and putting the person at higher risk of future heart attacks. More than 15% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen in a public place like the grocery store, or the gym.
President of the Washington Fire Chiefs and Fire Chief for the Lacey Fire District Steve Brooks testified in support of this bill in the House Health Care & Wellness Committee last week saying, “The presence of AEDs, their ease of use, all the way down to elementary school aged children who are regularly trained in them has shown nationwide and really, worldwide efficacy.“
We want to hear from you! Take this survey on cardiac response awareness
More than 356,000 people have out-of-hospital cardiac events every year in the United States. Being trained to use an AED machine or knowing how to give CPR might mean the difference between life and death for someone experiencing a heart attack. That’s why Thurston County offers free CPR classes for those who live or work in the county. Find out more here: https://www.thurstoncountywa.gov/living-thurston-county/citizen-cpr-class-schedule-and-information
Sine Die is March 7
Sine Die, or the final day of the legislative session, is just a few weeks away. Here’s some upcoming deadlines in case you’re following along:
- Policy committee cutoff – 2/21/24
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- The last day for policy committees to hear legislation introduced in the opposite chamber (the Senate)
- Fiscal committee cutoff – 2/26/24
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- The last day for fiscal committees (Appropriations, Capital Budget, Finance, and Appropriations) to hear legislation introduced in the opposite chamber
- Opposite House cutoff – 3/1/24
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- The final day of floor debate to pass bills introduced in the opposite chamber
- Sine Die – 3/7/24
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- The final day of session…probably. Session doesn’t officially end until the governor declares it over, and he may choose to extend it if more bills need to get passed.
- Legend has it that one year the governor declared sine die a day early!
A quick note – the 3/1 cutoff deadline doesn’t apply to bills that are necessary to implementing the budget (a supplemental budget because it’s a short session year). That’s why even though it seems like session would end on 3/1, there’s still plenty of work to do passing budget bills over the following days, right up until the governor declares Sine Die.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out of you have any questions Jessica.Bateman@leg.wa.gov and follow my Facebook page for more news updates!
