Government Affairs

Overview

With a nearly $3 billion deficit facing the state, the Governor and the majority party concluded that some package of new taxes was needed to prevent an all cuts budget. This was the focus of the legislature from the beginning of the regular session in January to the last day of the special session. There was room, occasionally, for important policy adjustments.

With time running out this legislative session and a special session looking more likely with each passing hour, an important budget item has yet to be resolved: Washington's General Assistance Unemployable (GAU). Both the Governor and State Senate deeply reduced the GAU program in their proposed budgets.

HB 3186 places Jewish Family Service's home care services for aging adults at risk. This legislation is designed to help capture new resources for home care and adult day health services. However, if this bill passes, it will mean additional fees totaling nearly $70,000 and no additional public resources for Jewish Family Service.

Did you know private schools, including private religious schools, aren't able to access the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction's (OSPI) background check system? OSPI's background check system is available for public, but not private, schools. Fortunately, two bills — HB 2996 and SB 6619 — are making their way through the legislature that will change this and give private schools the ability to access OSPI's background information.

Earlier this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard legislation (SB 6396) that would ban the sale of assault weapons. If enacted, the Washington ban would be similar to the federal assault weapon ban passed by Congress in 1994 as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. The federal law imposed a ten-year moratorium on the manufacture, transfer and possession of 18 types of semi-automatic weapons. This moratorium lapsed in 2004 and several states have enacted assault weapons bans of their own.

An important piece of legislation is making its way through the Washington State Senate that fixes a gap in the state's malicious harassment statute. With cut-offs and deadlines looming, I need your help to get SB 6398 voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on SB 6398 this Friday. This bill clarifies the definition of "threat" in the state's malicious harassment statute - Washington State's hate crime statute.

In a short, sixty day session, anything is possible. But erasing the need for drastic cuts to health and human services may very well be a lost cause.

So much is at stake for low-income people and community agencies like Jewish Family Service and the Kline Galland. Lend your voice to solutions to keep our Jewish community, and Washington State, safe and strong. Join the Washington State Jewish Action Center to stay up-to-date and take action on legislative and policy happenings in Olympia, WA and Washington, DC.

The 2010 legislative session presents challenges for the Jewish community and our legislative priorities. To balance Washington’s budget and erase an almost $3.0 billion deficit, Governor Chris Gregoire’s proposed budget made deep cuts into critical programs

On December 9, 2009, Governor Gregoire released her 2009 supplemental budget. Typically, supplemental budgets make minor corrections to the two year budget passed in the previous legislative session. However, with the state facing a $2.6 billion shortfall, on top of the $9.0 billion shortfall from the year before, Gregoire's budget was anything but "minor".

Jewish Federation’s role to address and solve community problems was evident at Hate Crimes and Discrimination in the Northwest, a symposium for elected officials and their staff held on October 15.

The goal of the symposium was to explore and discuss with elected officials and their staff a wide range of issues concerning hate and discrimination. The symposium was split into three parts: