Washington Policy Blog

Despite Executive Order 11-03 from Governor Christine Gregoire implementing a moratorium on “non-critical” agency rulemaking in 2012, state agencies still imposed more regulations than the previous year.  Under the Executive Order, agencies weren’t supposed to adopt new regulations unless they, “protect Washingtonians from significant risks to public health, safety or welfare, or by request of local governments, businesses or entities the state regulates.”

It does not appear agencies paid much heed to Gregoire’s directive.

The state health insurance exchanges are a big part of the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare. These exchanges will function as insurance brokerages to help customers purchase health insurance that will be subsidized by federal taxpayers. As of this writing, only 18 states, including the District of Columbia, have set up exchanges. The federal government is suppose to establish an exchange for any state unwilling or unable to set up its own.

The deadline for approval of a state exchange by the federal government was January 1, 2013.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee held a work session yesterday on the opportunities for competitive contracting. I was invited to participate on a panel along with a representative from the Washington Federation of State Employees.

My presentation focused on the need to simplify the state's current competitive contracting process while utilizing performance-based contracts. From my testimony:

A single data chart caused a big stir last week when Professor Marguerite Roza of the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the U.W. presented her findings to the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee. Professor Roza's presentation only happened because the Committee is under new leadership. Senator Steve Litzow (R–Mercer Island) is allowing committee members to see briefing materials and consider bills that were previously blocked under the chairmanship of Senator Rosemary McAuliffe (D-Bothell).

The Senate Committee on Governmental Operations will hold a public hearing on Monday (Jan 28) to take public comment on SJR 8206: Amending the Constitution to require emergency clauses only be allowed by amendment to a bill and approved by sixty percent of each house of the legislature.

Throughout his campaign and even in the days leading up to his inauguration, Governor Inslee has repeatedly said he is, “focused like a laser beam on jobs.”