ACTION ALERTS

We are attempting to gather statistics on the number of people registering for bills through our weekly FPIW Legislative Updates. To help us, please insert “FPIW Defender” in the organizational box when registering on the leg.wa.gov website: FPIW Defender, P.O. Box 975, Lynnwood, WA, 98046. (Or, if you wish to use your own address, that is your choice.) 

If you have not previously registered your position on a bill or provided written, in-person or remote testimony, please go to our web page at fpiw.org and review the quick, simple steps provided in one of our four “how to” training manuals. There is also a training manual “How to look up a bill”.

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HB 1889 would strike the requirement that applicants for professional licenses be U.S. citizens, allowing for the use of an individual tax identification number instead of a Social Security number. The bill also would allow undocumented students to pursue desired jobs by addressing the lack of clarity surrounding which licenses require an SSN. As of 2021, only around 22% of U.S. jobs require a professional license or certificate. Credentials are granted after an applicant has completed testing, training and educational requirements, and are intended to protect U.S. consumers by limiting licensure to qualified individuals. The bill lists optometrists, private investigators, private security guards, bail bond agents, money transmitters, and currency exchangers as professions that currently require licensees to be U.S. citizens.

If passed into law, the bill would eliminate the requirement for these professions. Democrats complain that licensing requirements create barriers to work for undocumented people due to U.S. citizenship requirements. Bill sponsor, Amy Walen, D-Kirkland, asks: “If someone can pass the very rigorous standards that we have in the state of Washington . . . why do we need to know about their federal documentation status?” That is the primary problem with this bill. The fix is easy. Prevent illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. and then migrating to Washington. We are not opposed to addressing licensing concerns for legal immigrants working towards U.S. citizenship.

This bill will undergo a public hearing in the Senate Committee on Labor & Commerce on February 19 at 10:30 a.m. To register your CON position, please click here. To provide written testimony, click here. To testify remotely, click here. To testify in person, click here.

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HB 2331 This bill would require that, to retain funding, all school districts must utilize controversial curriculum and inappropriate materials as determined by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). 

The bill specifically states: “a school district board of directors may not refuse to approve, or prohibit the use of, any textbook, instructional material, supplemental instructional material, or other curriculum for student instruction on the basis that it relates to or includes the study of the role and contributions of any individual or group who is part of a protected class as established in RCW 28A.642.010 and 28A.640.010.” This would effectively require every school district to utilize books that are sexually inappropriate for children and promote DEI, CRT, and other ‘woke’ ideology. 

This bill has already had a public hearing in the House Education Committee. A substitute bill was passed in the House – with a floor amendment – by a vote of 58 to 39 with 1 excused. The bill has now moved to the Senate Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education. Democratic Senator Lisa Wellman is not scheduling a public hearing so there will not be an opportunity to register your position on this bill or to provide testimony. 

Republican Senator Jim McCune has written an amendment to this bill that will require schools to follow existing law regarding learning materials. The proposed amendment will:

(A) Prohibit school boards from approving the use of any textbook, instructional material, supplemental instructional material, or other curriculum for student instruction if it contains erotic material, sexually explicit material, or lewd material.

(B) Prohibits school employees from using or offering any textbook, instructional material, supplemental instructional material, or other curriculum for student instruction if it contains erotic material, sexually explicit material, or lewd material. 

(C) Defines erotic material, sexually explicit material, and lewd material.

Please send a brief email to all members of the Senate Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education asking them to support Sen. McCune’s amendment. This email must be sent to the Committee no later than February 19th at 12:30 p.m. You can click here to email the committee members.

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HB 2494 will add provide additional funding for public schools. Public education in Washington state is already adequately funded and school administrators have a surplus of money to work with. According to the Washington Policy Center, public schools in Washington now spend an average of $19,000 per enrolled student. Furthermore, the two-year state budget for school funding in 2023-2025 has increased by 12%. In the past 12 years, public education spending has doubled from $13.5 billion in 2013 to $29 billion in the current budget ending in 2025. These numbers do not even include the nearly $3 billion in additional federal COVID relief funding that schools have received the past few years. By comparison, average private school tuition is $12,392 for elementary schools and $14,060 for high schools. 

Despite the rapid decline in multiple proficiency scores, public school employees are now among the highest-paid workers in the state. Not surprisingly, teachers’ salaries and benefit levels at private schools are consistently lower than those of their peers in public schools. Providing more money to the public school coffers is not going to improve test scores and graduation rates; however, you can be sure that public school teachers and the WEA union will be in Olympia to testify in support of this bill . . . for the sake of the children, of course. 

What public education needs is not more money, but major reforms including: greater transparency with parents; a focus on teaching basics such as reading, writing, math and accurate history; and a move away from ‘woke’ ideology such as DEI, CRT and “gender” studies.  

A public hearing on HB 2494 will be held in the Senate Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education on February 19 at 1:30 p.m. To register your CON position on this bill, please click here. To provide written testimony, click here. To testify remotely, click here. To testify in person, click here.

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HB 2368. This bill calls for the designation and development of an entirely new state agency responsible for the review and administration of the Washington state plan for refugee resettlement. This legislation is designed to specifically address immigrants who are not naturalized citizens and are “ineligible for federal services” – in other words, most will be illegal immigrants coming across our southern border. 

These illegal Immigrants will be provided with benefits that many Washington citizens struggle to afford including housing. healthcare. gainful employment, groceries, transportation and cash. Some level of federal funding will be available; however, local government will also be responsible for providing services to these illegal immigrants. The funding would come through “community-based organizations”. Not surprisingly, the fiscal reports do not provide any specific cost numbers.

This influx of illegal immigrants will not only impact our state budget but will, most assuredly, also burden our law enforcement system, courts, and jail system which are already struggling with increased crime, homelessness, drugs and a rapidly declining number of law enforcement officers.  

This legislation will undergo a public hearing in the Senate Committee on Human Services on February 20 at 10:30 a.m. To register your CON position on this bill, please click here. To provide written testimony, click here. To testify remotely, click here. To testify in person, click here.

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HB 1862 provides both a retail sales and use tax exemption and a business and occupation tax exemption for amounts received from sales on a military reservation by a nonprofit that operates an adaptive recreational facility that serves disabled veterans and members of the armed forces. Please register ‘pro’ on this legislation.

This legislation will undergo a public hearing in the Senate Ways & Means Committee on February 20 at 4:00 p.m. To register your PRO position, please click here. To provide written testimony, click here. To testify remotely, click here. To testify in person, click here. 

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THIS WEEK’S NEWS … 

February 21 is the policy cut-off date for the ‘Opposite Chamber’. Any bills not voted out of the cross-over chamber by the end of business on Wednesday are essentially ‘dead’ for this legislative session. It is important to note that any bill can technically be revived during the legislative session so a bill is never considered ‘completely dead’ until Sine Die.

I am sorry to report that several very good bills did not survive the first cutoff, including:

• HB 5820 which would have provided protection to those gathering or signing initiative and/or referendum petitions;
• HB 2358 that would have made obstructing highways a crime;
• HB 2233 that would have removed parents or guardians actively using controlled substances in a home where underage children reside;
• HB 1888 which created more ‘baby boxes’ in safe locations where newborns up to one month in age could be dropped off;
• HB 2002 which established criminal penalties for the public use of fentanyl or methamphetamine;
• HB 1380 which would have provided increased funding for the recruitment, retention, and support of law enforcement officers;
• SB 6026 which would have forced public schools to use student’s given names rather than their gender-identified names – without parent or guardian awareness. 

However, it is with absolute joy that I can report many horrendous bills have also died in committee to date, including:

• HB 2150 which sought to keep the name of Donald J. Trump off the presidential ballot in Washington state; 
• HB 1151 which would have promoted the mishandling of human embryos; 
• HB 2470 that would have created a local sales and use tax to address ‘gender-based’ violence;
• SB 5427 which would have created ‘hate crime’ bounties, paying up to $2,000 to citizens who turned their neighbors in for ‘bias incidents’;
• HB 2177 to put a sex offender on the State Sex Offender Policy Board; 
• HB 2030 which would have allowed any incarcerated criminal to vote, serve on a jury and/or run for public office;
• HJR 4208 that would have removed all gender terms from our Washingon State Constitution;
• HB 1960 which would have increased staffing in public schools at a time when enrollment numbers are dropping dramatically;
• HB 1333 which would have created the infamous ‘Domestic Violent Extremism Commission;
• HB 1868 which would have outlawed the use of all gasoline powered tools and landscaping equipment; 
• SB 5770 which would have allowed our property tax rate cap to increase from 1% to 3% annually.

Of course, there are still many good bills that need your support and lots of terrible bills that still need to be opposed during the last few weeks of this legislative session. Please do not grow weary . . . we need our FPIW ‘Defenders’ to keep fighting the good fight for another 3 weeks! 

To read our full recap of Bill Updates from previous Action Alerts, click here.

In conclusion, please continue to pray for our state, our governmental leaders, FPIW and all other Christian and/or conservative organizations as we lobby for biblical values in the public square in the coming weeks. Thank you! 

We cannot be over-comers without troubles to overcome!

Brad Payne
Policy & Government Affairs Director 
Family Policy Institute of Washington