Into the Swamp
Into the swamp we go again in 2026. If you have decided to participate in our Washington state law making process! Yay! Let’s walk through how to easily testify on your first bill.
DON’T GO THERE
Most people make this first mistake by first traveling to the Washington State Legislator website home page. https://leg.wa.gov. Once you arrive , you can see that our tax dollars have paid for a very pretty but useless home page design. Most tax payers do not have the spare hours needed to search through and read dozens of subjects and categories presented here to figure out how to proceed. Nothing logical is set up to make it easy for the public to navigate, so many get lost and give up. Make note of this. The government lawmaking system is setup to discourage taxpayers in exactly this way. Their goal is to drown you with enough reading to discourage you from testifying on a bill.
NO LOGIN LINK, REALLY?
One of the most obvious mistakes on the Washington State Legislator website home page is that you virtually can not find anywhere to log in or create an account. Honestly, how many company home pages do you experience that have not got a login link on their home page? Very few.
START HERE
Make your own Wa. State Legislature Account
BEFORE LOGIN OR ACCOUNT CREATION
If you have not yet created an account, you will see a page that looks like this. No worries, you can easily fill out the form and make your account before you do anything else. And, be sure to “Bookmark” that new CSI sign-in page after you have created your account, this will save you so much time.
AFTER LOGGING IN
The CSI Account Page magically transforms after you sign in. It becomes the House Committee Sign-In Page! This is where we select Which Committee is working on the bill that we want to comment on, and, what date, and finally the bill we want to testify on.
House, Senate, Joint, or Agency. HINT: You can tell that this is a “House bill” because the House puts “HB” before the bill number.
WHAT COMMITTEE?
At first, you only see one drop-down box on this page. Choose the committee first by clicking on the drop-down arrow and highlighting “Civil Rights & Judiciary” from the list that appears below.
WHAT DATE?
Right away, you will see another pop-up appear on the right, asking you to choose What Date from the committee schedule. Select, “January 17, 2024”.
WHAT ITEM?
Magically, a list appears below entitled, “Select Agenda Items“. It is a list showing all the bills for that date with selection buttons on the left. Click to pick which ONE you want. Then “Select the type of testimony” by clicking on whatever types are still there for us to use below.
The possible types are “In-person” during the hearing, “Remotely”, “Position Noted for the Legislated Record (Vote-Only)”, or “Written Testimony”. They stop taking testimony for each bill at different times depending on where it is in their process.
- Before session
- In Session
- Out of Session
It is extremely hard to keep track of where the bills travel. If we are too late the list gets shorter and even disappears for submitting testimony. Be patient with yourself, it takes time to travel and learn the paths in this swamp, but with help from friends it can be accomplished.
Elk is a community I love. It is full of strong and opinionated “freedom-loving” people. We work things out for ourselves, thank you. And we know our neighbors.
Last night’s “Town Hall” meeting in Elk at the Country Church of the Open Bibler, was well attended and allowed a lot of informal discussion to take place. We were able to discuss obstacles being encountered by victims during the recovery from the wildfire. Being a fire victim myself, I left the meeting with some weight and frustration lifted off of my shoulders. There was hope for the future replacing it.
He understands the importance of stopping the new building codes requiring no propane allowances in our reconstruction. Heat pumps do not work well in the colder regions (below 34 degrees), or rural regions that lose power frequently.
This mandate needs to be fought, and the best way to prevent it from being passed into law in March 2024 is to flood 
A dairy farmer asked why his barn was not included as a loss, along with all of the hay in it. Evidently, only single-family homes are eligible for this tax break. A change in this law is needed. Farmland, timberland and livestock feed storage are real considerations here.