Spin Control: Here’s how to keep tabs on the upcoming legislative session

OLYMPIA – Although Monday’s opening of the Washington Legislature’s session will be marked with pomp and circumstance, one should always keep in mind one of the greatest – and truest – political comments of the last century and a half:

“No man’s life, liberty or property is safe when the Legislature is in session.”

Judge Gideon J. Tucker – who wrote that nearly 158 years ago as part of a ruling on a malpractice claim in a contested estate – would probably know, considering he was a lawyer, newspaper editor and Tammany Hall politician, as well as the son of a politician.

Some people might argue things haven’t improved much since 1866. But the average Eastern Washington resident has one advantage that folks in Tucker’s New York didn’t.

They don’t have to travel across the state to the capital to keep an eye on the Legislature. You can do that from the comfort of your own home for most things, and go somewhere fairly close for a chance to be heard on a proposal you think is particularly great or incredibly awful.

As Spin Control often does on the eve of the Legislature flooding back into the capital, we offer some tips for those who want to follow the action in Olympia without having to travel 300 miles and often brave a snow-covered pass.

Where to start? The best place to begin is the Legislature’s own website, which has a home page that can point you to more detailed information on bills, committee hearings and floor activity. It can also help you connect with your legislators. Almost all of that information is a few clicks away, but there are so many links on that page that here are a few shortcuts you might want to bookmark.

How do I look up a bill by number? Go to the Bill Information page at app.leg.wa.gov/billinfo and enter the number. It will give you the bill, its sponsor, the text and its status. As the session goes on, the status page will also show you amendments that have been proposed, and – if they’ve been debated on the floor – whether they’ve passed or failed.

What if I don’t know the number? If you know the legislator who introduced it, use the “Bills By Sponsor” link on that page at app.leg.wa.gov/bi/billsbysponsor.

What if I don’t know the number or the sponsor, just what it’s about? Click on “Search the full text of a bill” button, which takes you to a search engine for every piece of legislation filed to date available at search.leg.wa.gov/search.aspx#document. If it’s a topic that’s likely to have lots of bills, like taxes, you might want to include the kind of tax, such as “income tax” or “capital gains tax.” You can signify the kind of legislation if you know it, or just click the “All Bills, Memorials and Resolutions” box. There can be multiple bills on a topic; they may be the same or very similar, or they could be conflicting.

Want to tell your legislator your thoughts on an issue or a bill? You can go to the website’s alphabetized list for House members or for Senate members with their Olympia mailing address and an office phone number. If you don’t know the name, you can go to the district finder at app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder and enter your address.

The roster pages will also let you send an email to your legislators. You can actually send an email to any or all of them, but to be honest, most only pay attention to contacts from their own constituents.

What if there’s a bill or resolution I’m really interested in? On any given day, the Legislature can hold more than a dozen committee hearings on a wide variety of bills. The committee schedules that day are listed on the home page at leg.wa.gov, with links to the proposed agendas. It’s possible to see the schedules and agendas for the coming days, as well, but remember that schedules can change, so it’s good to double check the committee schedules on the day of the actual hearing.

You can also request a daily or weekly email update of hearings for a specific committee, a specific chamber of the Legislature, or all committees from the House and the Senate. Go to public.govdelivery.com/accounts/WALEG/subscriber/new.

A word of warning, however: Asking for everything can overload your inbox. Thousands of bills will be introduced this session, and hundreds will get hearings, but only a fraction will come up for a vote. If you are only interested in a specific bill, you can sign up for an email notification on the page for that bill.

Although the legislators will be in Olympia for the meetings, many committees will take remote testimony on some bills, which will be noted at the bottom of that day’s schedule (follow the sign-in instructions). Controversial bills often generate a long list of people wanting to testify, and whether you want to speak remotely or in person, there’s no guarantee you’ll be called on just because you sign up.

Can I watch a hearing from Spokane? If you have cable television, you can watch some hearings and debates live on TVW – Channel 25 on Spokane’s Comcast system. But there’s only one channel, so on a busy day, the live feed may be broadcasting one of nine committee meetings while you were interested in another committee, or showing a House debate when you wanted to see a Senate debate. But TVW’s website, TVW.org, shows each event live, and records them for the archives, where they are available a few hours after they end. When the Legislature operated mostly by Zoom during the pandemic, it was how the press corps kept track of events.

Don’t want to follow things that closely but still interested? The Spokesman-Review is among only a handful of newspapers with a full-time reporter in Olympia. Capitol bureau reporter Ellen Dennis will be joined by Lauren Rendahl, a reporting intern from Washington State University’s Murrow College of Communications.

After several years of shrinkage, the Olympia press corps is larger this year, with the opening of the Washington State Standard office and its three-reporter bureau, plus larger staffs for some other news operations. Some of the State Standard stories will appear in The Spokesman-Review, and many reporters who cover the Legislature often post their stories on Twitter with the #WaLeg hashtag.

There are some good online options, including Crosscut and Seattle Axios, which both pay attention to state government and politics, and Pluribus, a website that keeps track of similar issues and developments in all 50 states for those who are interested in a broader view of issues. All three have some reporters who may be familiar to people who have followed legislative news in recent years.

Three of the political caucuses pick up some of those stories – usually the favorable ones about their members’ bills, speeches or actions that they like – and aggregate them for mass consumption.

The House Democratic Caucus has its daily e-clips, the House Republican Caucus has the Washington Ledger, and the Senate Democratic Caucus has a page it calls featured stories. The Senate Republican Caucus has a news page that consists mostly of members’ news releases with some guest editorials plus an occasional podcast it calls “Elephant in the Dome.”

It’s a short, 60-day session but that doesn’t mean it will be short on conflict or controversy.