Welcome to the 34th Dems Legislative Tracking page! This is our home for resources related to tracking legislation through the Washington State Legislature. Here you can learn about how a bill becomes a law, how you can participate in the lawmaking process, find upcoming committee hearings, and see which bills we are watching closely. You will also be able to see information on any lobby days we have planned for the current session!

Learning the Legislative Process

1. Introduction

Legislators introduce bills in either the House of the Representatives (“House”) or Senate. The chamber of the legislature in which a bill is introduced is called the bill’s “chamber of origin”. Once a member has filed a bill, it receives a four digit identification number (“bill number”) and title.

Filing can also happen during the month before session starts, called “prefiling”, but bills are not officially introduced until the first day of session.

Normally, a bill is read the first time by title only in open session of the chamber. This is called the “first reading”. Following this, the leaders in the chamber of origin decide to which committee a bill will be referred. Usually the committee selected relates to the subject of the bill.

2. Committee Assignment

Once in committee, the bill is reviewed and discussed. The committee may:

Pass the bill without changes, called “amendments”;
Pass the bill with amendments;
Create and pass a new version of the bill;
Reject the bill; or
Take no action.

Committees often hold meetings to discuss bills. These are usually open to the public to attend and give their comments. Click here to learn how to testify at a committee meeting.

If the committee passes a bill that would impact the state’s budget upon becoming law, a fiscal note will be attached to the bill describing the estimated dollar value. If the bill receives a fiscal note, it is sent to a fiscal committee for review.

If a bill is passed out of all the necessary committees, a bill report will be sent for reading to the full chamber in which the bill was introduced. The bill then goes to the Rules Committee for review.

To see a list of bills reported out of House or Senate committees each day, go to standing committee reports.

3. Rules Committee Review

The Rules Committee chooses which bills the chambers should vote on. When the committee receives a bill, it can either schedule it for a second reading on the floor or take no action. If the bill has a major effect on the state budget, the rules committee may ask a fiscal committee to review

First Rules Committee Review

In this first step, the rules committee reviews the bill and decides whether or not to move it to the next step. This is called Rules Review in the House and Rules White in the Senate (the report that lists the bills in this step in the Senate is printed on white paper).

Second Rules Committee Review

In this second step, the rules committee decides whether to schedule the bill for a second reading in the House or Senate. This is called Rules Consideration in the House and Rules Green in the Senate (the report is printed on green paper). Bills sometimes skip this step and go to the calendar for second reading.

To find out which bills are scheduled for readings, view the links below:

4. Floor Calendar / Debates

Next, members of the chamber of origin will debate and vote on bills in up to two separate sessions called the second reading and third reading. If a bill is approved for a second reading, members will debate the bill and may vote to amend it. If they vote to approve the bill, with or without amendments, the bill will be scheduled for a third reading.

At the third reading, members will take a final vote on the bill. If the bill passes, it goes to the other chamber. To see how members voted on a specific bill, view the legislature’s roll calls on a bill page.

5. Next Chamber

After passing one house, the bill goes through the same steps in the other house. If the other house makes changes to the bill, the first house must approve them.

If the House and Senate disagree on changes to a bill, one of them can ask for a conference committee. At a conference committee, members from each house meet and try to come to an agreement.

If they agree on what to do, the conference committee will make a report. Both houses must vote to approve the conference committee report for the bill to pass the Legislature.

6. Governor's Decision

After the bill passes both the House and Senate, the Legislature sends it to the Governor. Visit the legislature’s bill-to-law cross reference page for a list of bills that went to the Governor.

What the Governor Can Do

The Governor makes the final decision on whether a bill should become a law. They may either sign the bill into law, or veto all or part of the bill.

About Vetoes

A veto is when the Governor rejects an entire bill or certain sections of it. Unless the Legislature overrides a veto, some or all parts of the bill won’t become law.

If two-thirds of the members of both houses vote to override a veto, the entire bill will become a law without the Governor’s signature.

Deadlines for the Governor

A bill will become law without the Governor’s signature if they do not sign or veto it within a certain period of time. There are two different deadlines, depending on when a bill is delivered to the Governor:

Bills delivered more than 5 days before the Legislature adjourns have 5 days to be acted on, not counting Sundays
Bills delivered within 5 days of the Legislature adjourning have 20 days to be acted on, not counting Sundays