June 25th - 2013 Second Special Session

It’s Tuesday morning and the House convened at 10:00 AM for possible action on bills. After a remarkably short caucus, we started voting on bills at 10:45 AM. We passed 4 bills and then broke for caucus and lunch. The four bills we passed were …

Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1978 passed 82 to 2 with 13 excused.
Substitute House Bill 1986 passed 82 to 3 with 12 excused.
House Bill 1988 passed 87 to 0 with 12 excused.
Substitute House Bill 1957 passed 83 to 5 with 9 excused.

After breaking for lunch, we started considering amendments to the proposed Transportation Funding Package. The funding package relies on a 10-1/2 cent fuel tax increase, increases fees and bonding of projects. All told the fuel tax increase amounts to a $3.76 billion dollar tax increase, the various fees amount to $2.74 billion and bonding of projects adds another $3.5 billion. Among the amendments proposed by the House Republicans were two amendments to remove the Emergency Clause from these bills. One amendment removed the Emergency Clause and the other removed it and replaced it with a Referendum Clause. As many people know, an emergency clause eliminates the ability of the public to place a referendum on the November ballot. In other words, the Democrat Majority doesn’t believe the voters of Washington should be allowed the opportunity to approve or reject the tax increase.

Although rarely done, Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1954 and Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1955 were amended on Second Reading and placed on the Third Reading Calendar for action as early as tomorrow. House Rule 12 requires budget bills to sit on the bar for 24 hours before being considered for final passage on Third Reading, unless waived by the Speaker without objection or a 2/3 majority vote of the House.

We broke for caucus again and then ran two more bills before adjourning for the day.

House Bill 2079, which never received a public hearing and was never referred to a committee, passed 56 to 34 with 7 excused.
Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 1872 passed 58 to 32 with 7 excused.