Today the Senate Ways and Means Committee held a work session on SB 6853. This bill was introduced on February 9 as title only and has the distinction of being introduced, heard in public hearing, and adopted by the committee all on the same day despite no details being available.

Generally when a work session is held a committee will invite stakeholders to make presentations about the policy being discussed. Unlike a public hearing, however, the general public is not allowed to comment.

Not only was no public testimony taken, but the entire work session consisted of the members talking amongst themselves. In particular, the discussion focused on a defense of why the committee heard and adopted a title only bill.

Here is video of the work session.

First Senate Rule 45 (requires five day public notice) was suspended to allow the public hearing to proceed since the agenda was only made available the evening before the hearing.

Then staff explained that the bill being discussed was adopted as title only but now had a striker amendment with actual details.

Then the prime sponsor of SB 6853 Senator Rockefeller explained why he introduced the bill as title only.

Committee Chair Prentice also offered this defense of the committee's decision to adopt a title only bill.

The hastily called work session appeared to be a response to these editorials attacking the Legislature's use of title only bills:

• A bad example of legislative 'transparency', Olympian
  "Inthe waning days of the regular legislative session, Senate MajorityLeader Lisa Brown, a Democrat from Spokane, claimed the Legislature ismuch more transparent than it was when she entered the Legislature. Brown is wrong . . ."

• Sunshine and Clouds in Olympia, Kitsap Sun
  "Thebad news is that public access to information and hearings aboutlegislation has been ... challenging. There’s been a flurry of'title-only' bills introduced and set for hearings, sometimes on shortnotice, and with no timely public information on their content. Membersof the public deserve better than that — and if they want to get it,they’d better say so this fall to those who seek to represent them inthe Legislature."

• State government clings to double standard, News Tribune
  "Isit any wonder that city and county officials clamor for relief fromopen meetings and records laws when they see their counterparts instate government behave as they do? State officials profess a belief inpublic disclosure. They’re just not sure it always applies to them.Lawmakers in particular hold themselves apart from the state’s sunshinelaws. They caucus in secret for any reason and insist that theircorrespondence is somehow constitutionally protected from publicdissemination. They also apparently reserve the right to skip publicprocess in the interests of expediency."

• Public input? Who cares?, Everett Herald
  "Withincreasing audacity, key state legislators are taking control from thepeople and seizing it for themselves. Amid the difficult process ofclosing a $2.8 billion budget shortfall, they’ve skirted, waived orignored the public’s right to know what they’re up to and comment onit."
  

It's unfortunate the committee chose to cut the public out of this discussion. The now available details of the proposal are worthy of a meaningful public debate.

In a bit of irony, later in the public hearing an amendment offered to HB 2617 (Boards and Commissions) that would consolidate the state's various ethnic commissions was tabled due to lack of public notice.

In addition, one of the bills heard at today's public hearing was S-5541.1, a draft bill that won't be officially introduced until tomorrow.