The House and Senate kept a steady pace all day Friday to meet the March 25 deadline to pass policy bills from the opposite chamber to either a budget committee or the floor.  

The Evergreen State College is continuing to track approximately 100 bills, these bills and others can be found at the Legislature’s website.

Several bills that would impact higher education are moving through the process including legislation that would require forecast caseloads for the State Need Grant and the Washington College Bound Scholarship Program, expand academic flexibility to national guardsmen/women, and provide some flexibity for higher education with regard to purchasing.

As policy committees wrapped up business Friday, attention shifts to the budgets and to floor action. The next deadline is this Friday (April 1) when each chamber must take action on bills with fiscal impacts.

This is followed by an April 12 deadline which is the last day to take floor action on a bill that started in the opposite chamber. Most bills, with the exception of those necessary to implement the budget, will need to have some floor action prior to April 12.

The bills that passed the April 12 deadline will then move back to their original chamber if they were changed in the opposite chamber.  The original chamber must either concur with any changes or dispute changes.  For the bills that cannot be reconciled through this process a conference committee will be established to address the differences between the two chambers and try to find some compromise.

A conference committee is expected on the budget bills but may be needed on some policy bills.  A conference committee consists of two House and Senate members from the majority party and one House and Senate member from the minority party. Once the conferees agree on what is in the conference bill the only action in either chamber is a yes or no vote. No further amendments are allowed.

The largest task remaining is passage of the operating, capital and transportation two-year budgets. The biennial transportation budget passed the House last week. 

It is anticipated that the House will release its biennial operating budget as soon as this Tuesday (March 29) with the capital budget to follow. The budgets will move through the process quickly with public hearings and an executive session taking place this week in preparation for a floor vote on Saturday (April 2).

The Senate will follow the release of the House’s version of the budgets. However it is unclear whether the Senate will wait for the budget bill to come to the Senate from the House or release its own budget. Many believe it will depend on how soon the House acts.

April 24 marks the end of the regular session this year. The Governor then has 20 days frm the date the Legislature declares “sine die” to sign a bill, veto a section(s)  or veto a bill entirely. The exception is with budget bills where the Governor has line-item veto authority.  A bill that is not signed will go into effect ninety days after the last day of session or on a date specified in the legislation.

If the session ends and budget bills are not finalized, the Governor can call the Legislature back into session. The Governor may also call for a special session for non-budget topics, but once a special session is called the Governor cannot limit the issues, and the special session can run up to thirty days.

How long the regular session will go depends on how close the House and Senate budget proposals are. The further the budgets are apart the more difficult it will be to reach an agreement and meet the April 24 deadline.