My oh my … the Washington state legislative session started on January 12 and immediately shifted into ultra-high gear — we’ve already testified at multiple hearings. Social networks are the best way to keep up with what we’re up to.
- We’re on Blacksky at @wa-privacy.net; you can also follow from Bluesky
- For Mastodon (or compatible software like GoToSocial), we’re at @waprivacy@pnw.zone.
- And, you can follow WA People’s Privacy, our collaborator in movement, on Instagram at @wapeoplesprivacy!
There have been some changes on the legislature’s site since last year. For one thing, legislators email addresses are no longer available; instead, there’s a web form to send them mail. We’ve updated our pages on how to contact your legislators about a bill, “sign in” to a hearing to note your position for the record, and submit written testimony for a hearing … please let us know if there’s anything we’ve missed!
We’re tracking over a dozen this year. Several are “companion bills”, where the same bill has been introduced (with different bill numbers) in the House and Senate. Here’s a quick list of our top priorities. We’ll have more on the individual bills soon (hopefully) but every time I try to do a longer post something urgent comes up, so I just want to get a basic list up!
We’re just a group of organizers who work together, not an official coalition or anything like that, so opinions differ on some of these bills, but this should give you a sense of what most of us think
Flock/ALPR regulation (the “Driver Privacy Act”):
- Improve SB 6002 (Trudeau) / HB 2332 (Salahuddin)
Age verification/”child safety”:
- Oppose HB 2112 (Leavitt). Washington shouldn’t follow Texas’ lead!
- Oppose SB 6111 (Salomon). Washington shouldn’t follow Mississippi’s lead either!
- Oppose AG Request bills HB 1834 (Callan) / SB 5708 (Frame)
AI:
- Support SB 5956 (Nobles), regulating AI school discipline/surveillance:
- Support HB 2841 (Fosse) / SB 6312 (Saldaña), prohibiting surveillance pricing
- Support HB 2157 (Ryu), regulating High-risk AI Systems:
- Support HB 2503 (Shavers), requiring disclosure of AI training datasets
- Support HB 2599 (Kloba), regulating AI in therapy
- Improve Governor’s request bills HB 2225 (Callan) / SB 5895 (Wellman), regulating AI Companion Chatbots
This is a 60-day session, so ends on March 12. The first major deadline is the policy committee cutoff on February 4 — this Wednesday! If new bills haven’t been passed out of the committee having the first round of hearings by 11:59 on February 4, they’re dead for the session (unless there are legislative shenanigans, which is rare but not unheard of). Here’s the complete legislative calendar.
- January 12 (Monday): First day of session
- February 4 (Wednesday): Policy committee cutoff
- February 9 (Monday): Fiscal and transportation committee cutoff
- February 17 (Tuesday): Cutoff for passing house of origin
- February 25 (Wednesday): Opposite house policy committee cutoff
- March 2 (Monday): Opposite house fiscal and transportation committee cutoff
- March 6 (Friday): Cutoff to go through opposite house – unless it’s NTIB!
- March 12 (Thursday): Last day of session – Sine Die
NTIB stands for “necessary to implement budget”; if a bill is NTIB, it’s exempt from all deadlines. The situation is … fluid and It ain’t over till it’s over, from 2022, highlight how wild and wacky things can get in the last few days of the session: an NTIB bill that should have been long dead suddenly came back to life, Appropriations passed it even though it referred to a secret amendment that hadn’t been published yet, they called a snap hearing in the House Ways & Means committee but cancelled it after every single signin was CON … and it still wasn’t over. So we’ll see what this session has in store for us.
It’s already been an exciting and exhausting legislative session, so stay tuned for what’s next!