The state House and Senate cancelled committee hearings and shut down most legislative activity earlier this week, as snow storms and hazardous road conditions continued to batter the Puget Sound region and Olympia.

Governor Inslee joined Seattle Mayor Durkan in a press conference on Monday for an update on winter weather responses and preparations by state and local officials. In what he said was an admittedly off-topic comment, the governor urged legislative action on his capital gains income tax proposal to tap what he called “enormous pockets of wealth” in the state and help alleviate problems like homeless people dying from exposure. “I hope that’s the lesson we take away from this snow storm,” he said.

The biggest takeaway from the storm for proponents of remote testimony like Jason Mercier, Washington Policy Center’s Director of the Center for Government Reform, was the state Senate’s decision earlier this year to make remote testimony a permanent option for Washington citizens. He said that weather events like this underscore the need for that option and urged that the state House do the same.

Early Wednesday morning, the Senate Committee on State Government, Tribal Relations, and Elections held a public hearing on Senate Bill 5784, the public records bill, and citizens from Eastern Washington weighed in via remote testimony from the Tri-Cities area.

The hearing on SB 5784 is the latest step to address the controversy over whether state lawmakers should be bound by Washington’s 1972 voter-approved public-disclosure laws. Under current law, state and local officials must release records like e-mails, memoranda, calendars, and investigative documents. The Legislature, however, has long claimed itself to be exempt from the law, citing constituent privacy and other concerns.

Several news organizations brought a lawsuit last year to challenge this claimed exemption and a Thurston County judge ruled that legislators broke the law by withholding documents requested by the news organizations.

The Legislature has appealed the ruling, and it is expected to go before the state Supreme Court later this year. Meanwhile, lawmakers quickly introduced and passed legislation last session that exempted them from the Public Records Act. Although the bill passed with “veto-proof” majorities in both chambers, public outcry over the rushed process and lack of public notification prompted Governor Inslee to veto the bill, and lawmakers backed down.

This year, lawmakers gave adequate public notice on SB 5784, including Wednesday’s hearing.

The bill still provides broad exemptions for the Legislature, but it does not remove the Legislature from the Public Records Act and does not keep secret all records relating to legislation prior to its passage. In any event, if a request for a record is denied, a person making the request could ask for a judge’s opinion.

Sen. Jamie Pederson (D-Seattle), the bill’s sponsor, has called SB 5784 a “good-faith offer of compromise,” but open government advocates continue to question how the bill would affect legislative transparency. They point to the exemptions allowed for records related to alleged workplace misconduct at the Legislature and to other provisions that could possibly close access to records that are available now.

No action was taken on the bill in committee today.

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