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Review of Important Dates - Washington State Legislative Session

Adapted from the February 19, 2018 "Health Policy News" e-newsletter.

On Wednesday, February 14th, bills had to be out of their house of origin by 5:00 p.m. After the House of Origin Cutoff, there are 554 bills still alive. This doesn’t include bills that are deemed Necessary To Implement The Budget (NTIB). For a primer on NTIB, click here. While this is a big drop from the peak of over 4,000 bills being alive, having over 550 bills alive and in play at this point in a short session is still a huge number. Bills that passed out of their house of origin have moved over to the opposite house policy committee. There are very tight timelines to pass bills in the last few weeks of session. Looking ahead on the cutoff calendar, bills from the opposite house must pass out of policy committees by the opposite house cutoff on Friday, February 23rd. Three days later, on Monday, February 26th, all bills referred to fiscal committees must pass out of their opposite house fiscal committee (Appropriations, Finance and Capital Budget Committees in the House and Ways & Means in the Senate, and also both Transportation Committees). Four days later, on Friday, March 2nd, bills must be passed out of the opposite house. Bills will continue to die at each point. We will watch to see if any bills, or parts of bills, are resurrected as provisos in the budgets. It continues to be a race to the finish.

Old NID: 
8302