Bills are drafted and filed for legislative action. Typically these bills are revisions to existing laws. This video explains how to make sense of these documents and their revisions, and perhaps even more importantly, how to make use of the Bill Reports. This video covers:
Learn how to search for Washington State legislative videos on TVW.org and find bill hearings step by step.
The 2026 legislative session ended at 8:30pm on March 12th, but the law making process continues. 276 bills were passed by the state legislature in 2026, which represented less than 10% of the bills filed this year. HB 2225, regulating AI Companion Chatbots, passed both the House and the Senate on March 12th. Once a bill is passed through both the House and the Senate and is signed by both the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, it travels across the rotunda to the governor’s office. If the bill is passed fewer than five days before the end of session, he has 5 days to sign it into law. If the bill is passed within 5 days of the end of session, the governor has 20 days, not counting Sundays, to sign it into law. Once a bill does reach the governor’s desk, the governor has 4 options: Due to the complexity of the AI Chatbot legislation, it will not go into effect until January 1, 2027, giving companies time to set up compliance systems. Most of the bills passed this session, however, will go into effect on June 11, 2026.
Each year, the Washington Observer hosts their annual Re-Wire conference, where policy makers, advocates, and stakeholders gather to discuss the upcoming legislative session. The conference this year was dominated by discussions of the budget and how the budget will affect policy decisions on health care, energy use, and human services. Get yourself ready for the 2026 session in 3 short minutes!
Learn about how a biennium works as you get ready for the 2026 session. The upcoming session is the short session, just 60 days, and legislators will have many issues to address, from the budgetary shortfall to pressing priorities from both political parties. Tune in to Teach with TVW each week to see how legislators are working to solve Washington’s most important problems. Essential Questions:
Cutoffs are a necessary part of the legislative process, designed to keep bills moving forward. The Washington State Legislature is a part-time citizen legislature, meeting for 60 says in even numbered years and 105 days in odd numbered years. In order to ensure that bills move through the legislative process, the legislature uses a set of self imposed deadlines called cutoffs. The Policy Committee cutoff is the first in the series of cutoffs – in the 2025 Legislative Session, this first cutoff was on Friday, February 21st when all bills that are not necessary to implement the budget (NTIB) must pass out of the policy committies in their House of Origin. Bills will then have one more week before the next cutoff, where they have to make it out of the fiscal committee in their House of Origin. Essential Questions:
Here in Olympia, there is a concept called “the 5 o’clock bill.” The legislature operates on a series of self imposed deadlines that are designed to winnow down the thousands of bills that are introduced each year to the few hundred that are passed into law. March 12th marked the halfway point in the legislative session, and all bills needed to move out of their House of Origin by 5pm. To learn why some legislators debated late into the night on the 12th, watch this 5 minute video that explains some of the strategies behind the “5 o’clock bill”. Essential Questions:
As in most states, and in the federal government, our Legislature is split into a House of Representatives and a Senate. Bills must pass through each chamber to make their way to the governor’s desk. We spoke with Republican Representative Chris Corry and Democrat Senator Yasmin Trudeau about the parallel processes in the adjoining chambers, as well as how the second half of the legislative process allows for more consideration time on bills while simultaneously moving ever closer to the next cutoff date. During the “second half”, bills can still be amended and all changes to the bill take more time to discuss, which could make it less likely to pass this year. Essential Questions:
Another week, another cutoff. By end of day, Friday February 28th, bills must be voted out of the fiscal committee in their House of Origin. So, bills with a financial impact that were introduced in the House of Representatives must move out of the Finance or Appropriations Committees and bills introduced in the Senate must move out of the Ways and Means Committee if they have any hope of becoming law. In this 4 minute video, learn about the importance of a fiscal committee, how it differs from a policy committee, what a fiscal note really is, and how to specialize your testimony for a fiscal committee. Essential Questions:
Having your bill heard in committee is one of the first hurdles that your bill must make on its way to becoming law. Understanding the power that the Chair of the Committee wields will help you clear this hurdle. Chairs set the agenda for the committees, which means that they decide which bills will get a public hearing and which bills will be put up for a vote. With thousands of bills vying to make their way to becoming a law and only so much time, the Chair must choose bills that are “fully cooked” and ready to become laws. In this week’s episode, hear from Chair of the Senate Law and Justice Committee, Senator Manka Dhingra, and how she works with all members of the Washington State Legislature to pass legislation that betters the lives of Washingtonians. Essential Questions: