The Lege is Back

Photo by Brylie Oxley / Wikimedia

The State Legislature returns today for a 2-month session, with formal sessions in both houses beginning at noon.

The House Transportation Committee begins work at 3:30 p.m. with a presentation by the governor's office on the state of state transportation, and a presentation of the governor's proposed supplemental transportation budget for 2019. The Senate Transportation Committee will hear a similar presentation Tuesday afternoon, also at 3:30 pm.

You can check out the full list of committee meetings scheduled for several days ahead.

As of publication time, there are no pre-filed bills going after Sound Transit or other transit agencies. Bills from the previous year can be brought back in the short session. Usually, they are not.

• Some pre-filed bills of interest that may or may not go anywhere include:
• House Bill 2403, to regulate transit-only lane enforcement cameras
• Senate Bill 6043, to standardize regulation of transportation network ("rideshare", as they usually call themselves) companies statewide.
• SB 6054, to study passenger ferry service between Olympia and Seattle
• SB 6096, to establish a carbon pollution tax.

Update: All bills from last year were reintroduced and retained in the status they were in as of the end of the last special session, as is the custom. Joe O'Sullivan at the Seattle Times tweeted a list of nine reintroduced bills scheduled for action on the House floor Wednesday. One of these bills is House Bill 2201, Rep. Mike Pellicciotti's (D - Federal Way) bill to adjust the methodology for calculating Sound Transit motor vehicle excise tax. The bill got unanimous support from House Democrats last year, but got ignored by the then-Republican-controlled Senate.