2013 Regular Session Victories – Washington State House Democrats

Education – Early Learning through Higher Education

Integrating early learning (HB 1723) – Creates a framework for developing an integrated, high quality early learning continuum for low-income children ages birth to 5.
Reforming Working Connections Child Care (SB 5595) – Develops user-friendly customer service and creates a legislative task force to develop recommendations to transition the program to a high quality, integrated, early- education oriented service.
State-Tribal education compacts (HB 1134) – Allows OSPI (rather than the State itself) to enter into state-tribal education compacts with local school districts.
Teacher certification (HB 1178) – Expands the types of testing and assessments that measure basic skills of teachers.
Incentivizing STEM (HB 1472) – Allows students who take Advanced Placement computer science to receive credit in math or science.
Academic acceleration (HB 1642) – Encourages school districts to adopt an academic acceleration policy for high school students.
More graduation options (HB 1686) – Renames the GED and creates a new high school equivalency certificate.
Supporting school success (SB 5329) – Gives the state authority to intervene in schools that fail to improve after undergoing a three-year turnaround plan.
Support for kids of injured workers (HB 1863) – Allows L&I to give college scholarship information to children and spouses of workers who were injured or killed on the job.

Transportation budget (SB 5024) –Continues work on critical transportation projects and maintains thousands of good jobs across the state.
Helping small businesses get trained workers (HB 1247) – Makes it easier for small businesses to take advantage of the Job Skills Program (JSP), adding greater flexibility for employers and making training programs more accessible – which benefits both small businesses and workers.
The “Facebook Bill” (SB 5211) – Protects workers’ privacy by prohibiting employers from requiring employees or job applicants to share their login information to these accounts.

Maintaining sibling relationships in foster care (SB 5389) – Requires DSHS to encourage the maximum amount of sibling interaction among children in foster care as possible, encouraging healthy original family connections and reducing trauma experienced by children in foster care.
Helping foster children succeed in school (HB 1566) – Provides youth who are in foster care with an educational liaison.
Compensating those who are wrongfully imprisoned (HB 1341) – Provides individuals who have been wrongly convicted with $50,000 for each year they served behind bars. Those who were on death row will receive an additional $50,000, and for wrongfully convicted sex offenders, $25,000 per year that they spent on parole.
Protecting the safety of renters (HB 1647) – Requires landlords to safely secure spare and master keys to rental units.
Protecting Adult Family Home residents (SB 5630) – Implements recommendations of the Adult Family home quality assurance panel and extends specialty training requirements of providers/resident managers to caregivers.
Protecting our water from derelict vessels (HB 1245) – Provides funding to clean up and remove derelict vessels, and requires sellers of older boats to conduct a marine survey – similar to a home inspection – to help inform prospective buyers of the potential costs and challenges of owning the vessel.

Felony Flips (HB 1114) – Enhances public safety by reducing gap cases or ‘felony flips’ so that a person deemed incompetent to stand trial for a criminal offense can’t be quickly released when the underlying charges involved violent crimes, provides additional resources for the treatment of mental illness and helps ensure that people who are charged with violent crimes are given proper care before being released.
More effective involuntary commitments (HB 1777/SB 5480) – Accelerates implementation of 2010 legislation that expanded the factors used to commit people under the Involuntary Treatment Act. The new standards will make it easier to intervene and provide necessary care before people suffering from mental illness enter the criminal justice system.
Preventing stalking (HB 1383) Establishes a type of protection order specifically designed to protect victims of stalking.
Eliminate the marital rape loophole (HB 1108) – Gets rid of the exemption in the 3rd-degree rape statutes for spousal rape.
More timely mental health evaluations (HB 1627/SB 5551) –Improves the ability of counties to provide effective and timely evaluations so that defendants whose competency is questioned do not sit in jail for extended periods of time awaiting evaluation. Will help reduce enormous backlog of people being held in jail.

Tightening regulation of money transmitters (HB 1327) – Authorizes fingerprinting and federal background checks of money transmitting license applicants.
Helping families buy their homes (SB 5558/HB1861) – Allows the Washington State Housing finance Commission to provide down-payment assistance for single-family homeownership.
Requiring truth in seafood labeling (HB 1200) – Clarifies labeling standards and creates harsh penalties for seafood processors and others who misrepresent their products.

Housing Trust Fund Admin Costs (HB 1617) – Reduces the Department of Commerce administrative costs from 5% to 3%.
Transportation accountability (HB 1957) – Requires the Washington State Department of Transportation to get prior approval for any changes in the design of a new transportation project. It also requires WSDOT to regularly report the cost of these changes and provide updates on project delivery to the governor and legislature.
Electing judges and the OSPI (HB 1474) – Requires that the names of the top-two vote-getting candidates who in certain judicial elections and the Superintendent of Public Instruction election appear on the general-election ballot.