2022 Legislative Wrap Up for Session End.

Wins, Losses, and Thinking About What We Are Facing

By Cindy Alia 3/14/2022

Thank you CAPR members for the excellent help you provided to me in the 2022 legislative session!  We had some tough fights on our hands, with some bills from last session and the addition of bills this session.  There were some good bills we could get behind and champion, but we rarely had the opportunity to do that. Shortly after session began good bills languished and died as the legislative calendar progressed beyond cutoff dates.  We can squarely lay the blame for that circumstance at the feet of the majority party.  This left us in the position of fighting bad bills with repeated emails, phone calls, and testimony.  I can assure you that is what CAPR did repeatedly and daily during session.  Without your help with your calls and emails, providing testimony against harmful bills, we may not have been able to fight off the bills that failed.  Thank you for making CAPR a successful organization this session!

WIN! 1838 Protecting, restoring, and maintaining habitat for salmon recovery Our most intense battles were fought and won, and CAPR members helped in defeating this bill, easily the most egregious bill of the session.  Early in the session, Representative Lekanoff prime sponsored HB 1838 along with her counterparts in the house majority, representatives Fitzgibbon, Bateman, Berry, Macri, Ramel, Simmons, Pollet, Harris-Talley.

Although doubtful the bill could have accomplished the goals to “recover, enhance, and achieve abundance for harvest and delisting recovery,” it would limit best available scientific standards to agency created standards in a specific tome and negated all other scientific input, negate Voluntary Stewardship Programs, and most damaging, would have offered unwanted monetary incentives to property owners to maintain up to 250 foot no touch riparian areas on their property at the threat of extensive fines of $10,000 per day for arbitrary and capricious regulatory non-compliance. 

In short, the bill would have devastated farming families and other property owners caught in the web of “riparian zones” yet to be delineated.  A gift to takings litigation this bill rightly failed.

This stealth and damaging bill was a reach too far even for some who may have agreed to the bill but were surprised by it and angered by the heat the bill brought to the fore in the battle for the productive and positive use of property and the existence of property rights in Washington State.  Not a successful step for the prime sponsor who witnessed other of her radical bills fail this session. 

WIN! 4209 Adding a new section to the Washington state Constitution regarding the conservation and protection of the state's natural resources.  It is and should always be a grave concern to all citizens to contemplate a change or addition to the state constitution.  In these bills, sufficient contemplation of binding future generations to what some legislators consider a present ideal is too restrictive and bears a great potential to conflict with or undermine existing constitutionally guaranteed natural rights possessed by the people. 

This bill is not written to protect an existing natural right of the people but attempts to create a future right to abysmally vague future ideals rather than factual existing features of the planet.  This would cause future law and litigation based on future attempts to retain ideal existences or correct what some people may consider less than ideal future problems.  Again, this is not an adequate basis for constitutional material constructed to protect and create procedural law for existing natural rights. 

Such circumstances as the right to a clean and healthy environment, including pure water, clean air, healthy ecosystems, and a stable climate, and to the preservation of the natural, cultural, scenic, and healthful qualities of the environment are nebulous and subjective ideals, not objective established facts that are established without bias.

Additionally, this bill would provide the state with the constitutionally protected ownership of all things in life and consider them resources of the state.  “The state, including each political subdivision of the state, shall serve as trustee of the natural resources of the state, among them its waters, air, flora, fauna, soils, and climate.”  It is not, under all circumstances, within the power of the state to serve as trustee and protector of all natural resources of the state, and not within its powers certainly to be the trustee and protector of climate.

We are happy to see this bill has failed, yet it reminds us of the importance of an unfettered constitution that protects God given natural rights of all people and how we must keep it clear of legislative goals.  It is a directive to the legislature and the courts, and must remain free of legislative notions. 

WIN! 1099 Improving the state's climate response through updates to the state's comprehensive planning framework.  This bill was another overreaching all encompassing environmental wish list that would have had little to no effect on the goal of improving climate but would have taken many of our daily and necessary rights and placed them into the realm of mere privileges. 

Hard fought for two sessions, CAPR members stepped up and made it clear to legislators the bill was a no-go!  Hundreds of calls, emails, and testimony had an impact on the bill not passing, though it came very close to passing at the last minute but it did not go forward in the house where the majority speaker claimed it would take too much time and attention from other bills she wanted to see pass. 

That may have been the case, but there were not very many amendments to the bill filed.  The bill may have lost favor when late in the process the bill was sent to a conference committee where house and senate differences were to be reconciled, but rather than reconcile differences majority democrats, Representatives Duerr, Fitzgibbon; Senators Lovelett, Van De Wege inserted language from another bill 1782 dubbed the middle housing bill, which had failed dismally on February 22 without a vote from either house. 

The dirty politics played angered many, especially because they were played the afternoon before the last day of session.   In the end, the bill was not voted on in the house and failed to pass.  That is a good win because the bill would have added a climate change and resiliency element to the featured main goals of the GMA, including reducing green-house gasses with specific targeted goals in certain cities and counties and would require regional transportation planning by participating counties or local governments including per capita vehicle miles traveled goals.  

It required Ecology to make like changes to the Shoreline Management Act and flood control plans and would have required environmental justice be a facet of all planning.  This bill also included protecting and the now expected over-reach buzz word, “enhancing”, for the targets of environmental, economic, and human health and safety. 

Enhancement is a dubious goal that would require metrics unknown at the writing of the bill but would surely create a regulatory nightmare as it would be created through various agency rule makings.  It is evident that Washington can and should wait for many years to come on a bill like this to pass. 

WIN! 1117 Promoting salmon recovery through revisions to the state's comprehensive planning framework.  Another over-reaching bill sponsored by Representative Lekanoff and fought by CAPR for two sessions based on undefined goals lacking in specificity and the harm to established property rights. 

Salmon recovery would have been added to the Growth Management Act as a 14th goal.  The most objectional part of the bill would have been creating the concept of “net ecological gain” in counties east of the cascade divide, rather than as is presently regulated, a concept of no ecological harm done in a project.  The bill also would have required a schedule for the removal of all identified fish passage barriers in transportation portions of Growth Management Planning. 

The net ecological gain feature of the bill would have included the additional burden of GMA planning to include recover and enhancement of fish, which would be accomplished on the regional basis of Water Resource Inventory Areas.  The land use element of comprehensive plans must include a strategy that achieves net ecological gain of in-water and upland habitats, vegetation, water quantity, water quality, and other natural features which contribute to anadromous fish habitat on a watershed basis.

Planning would include a "Compensatory mitigation ratio", defined as a measurement of the size, temporal duration, or quality of mitigation required by a permitting agency to ensure impacts to regulated aspects of the environment from an activity subject to a permit are fully mitigated over the life of the activity or project subject to the permit.

"Properly functioning watershed conditions" are watershed conditions that are necessary for salmon to survive and include, but are not limited to, the following functions: forest cover, floodplains, instream habitats, fish passage, riparian habitats, water quality and quantity, and impervious surface levels. 

It is clear this bill would have opened the door for future additions via legislation or via agency rulemaking to create an ever-changing regulatory goal that would be arbitrary and capricious depending on what would be considered a net ecological gain or recovery or restoration standards for fish life.  The bill also included an element of human health and well-being interests, and diversity, equity, and inclusion interests. 

WIN! 1684 Concerning public health and fluoridation of drinking water.  Another majority sponsored bill, but prime sponsored by Republican Paul Harris, created an unfunded mandate for all water systems serving 1000 or more persons to go to the expense to access and undertake an analysis of the cost of implementing and maintaining fluoridation when planning water infrastructure. 

The bill offered a blessing on these systems to undertake private loans to meet the bill’s mandate, but CAPR objected to the state mandating what it would not fund.  The state Board of Health would have adopted rules to facilitate and support (tell those systems how). It would have provided engineering assistance if the planning was to implement or upgrade fluoridation systems. 

The bill required notification to users if fluoridation was to be discontinued, but not notification if it were to be implemented and begun.  The bill also required an oral health equity assessment.  CAPR and other organizations objected to and testified against this bill as written.  The bill failed, but the mandate problem was solved in that funding for the mandated endeavor was quietly added to 5693, the supplemental operating budget.  That bit of slight of hand, funding a bill that did not pass, is objectional and should have had a clause that if the bill did not pass the funding would not be implemented in the bill unfortunately that clause did not exist, and the funding will go forward. 

Other objections include many people do not wish to have fluoride added to their drinking water, some are sensitive and disabled by fluoride, and some do not wish to ingest chemicals in their drinking water.  Most objectionable is to mandate this additive to drinking water that is considered a pharmaceutical or drug when those who wish to ingest it may through other means such as tablets, toothpastes, mouth rinses, or dental treatments. 

The question comes down to is our right to clean, pure drinking water going to hinge on what others surmise to be a benefit to our health?  Do we trust the Board of Health to create rules that will be interpreted as law for the addition of substances to our water?  Having experienced the past two years of emergency proclamation and free-handed agency rulemaking do we believe that authority to be limited to such health issues as our dental conditions or would that precedent be extended to other health mandates and notions? 

We have already experienced the results of other additives in our pure water such as chlorine and ferrous substances designed to eliminate low levels of arsenic but resulting in all minerals, we formerly enjoyed in our water being removed, leaving only the residue of chlorine and ferrous substances.  Perhaps government should limit itself to simply enabling the ability of water systems to provide pure water to its users.

WIN!  2026 Implementing a per mile charge on vehicles. The bill would have created a Road Usage Charge in an overly complicated system of taxation or fees that will impact owners of different vehicles in different and disparate ways.  In the bill the RUC does not replace a gas tax and does not direct the money to road usage or maintenance alone, but includes rail lines, transit, and other general purpose uses such as bike and walking paths and trails. 

The bill impacted suburban and rural drivers more negatively than urban drivers because urban drivers drive less distance to work and impacts those who must drive greater distances to go to work.  The bill also impacts lower income drivers more than higher income drivers.  Lower income drivers can ill afford expensive electric or hybrid vehicles and must do with what vehicles they can afford, often the vehicles lower income people can afford also are vehicles that have a lower fuel efficiency. 

The bill did not adequately address privacy concerns as related to the gathering of data via GPS monitoring to exact taxation.  The bill would have been mandatory for electric vehicle owners but would put a cap on the tax due for them, while it created a patchwork of voluntary participation in the RUC that would complicate taxation and would create constantly changing compliance and enforcement strategies that would become an inequitable bureaucratic nightmare.

We must remain vigilant on the topics of vehicle miles charges or road usage charges as road usage charges continue to be funded by the legislature in 5689 Making supplemental transportation appropriations for the 2021-2023 fiscal biennium. 

Sadly, we experienced losses in fights against bills that harm property rights.  I appreciate and am grateful for your help in fighting these bills as well, the bills will impact what can be done with property and how existing concepts in law will serve to protect property owners.  With so many bills attempting to place other objectives above property rights and given the current majority in the house we could expect we would not win on all bills.

LOSS, 1376 Concerning registration of land titles.  After several years of fighting the repealing of this entire title in state law, we have been defeated in protecting the Torrens Act, which provided for the registration of land titles.  A somewhat comprehensive title in Washington State law, the act provided superior protections for property owners as opposed to the simple recording of documents at the county level.  The Torrens system eliminates having documents recorded against a land title without a property owner’s  knowledge because the owner has the certificate of title, signed by the Registrar of Titles and that certificate must be presented to change the ownership, or further encumber the property – including assignments.  This is the reason CAPR fought so hard to retain this law, registration of a title could prevent recording of documents on your property without your knowledge as opposed to the simple recording of documents at the county recorders office which could essentially be done by any person and is not verified to be true or accurate.  The act was also a good remedy for keeping at title unclouded after recovering from having false documents recorded on your property.  Testimony presented by legislators promoting the bill was inaccurate and overly simplified.  Several good legislators understood the importance of the act but were outvoted by others. 

LOSS, 5042 Concerning the effective date of certain actions taken under the growth management act.  This bill has the intention of repealing the vesting doctrine as related to the Growth Management Act.  The bill allows for, almost invites litigation through the growth management hearings board, and delays permitting of projects until after a hearings board decision is made.

Provides that the effective date of certain actions taken under the Growth Management Act (GMA) will be the later of the two following dates: 60 days after publication of notice of the action, or if a petition for review to the Growth Management Hearings Board (Board) is timely filed, the date on which the Board's final order is issued.

Includes, in the list of actions under the GMA subject to the effective dates established in the bill: expansion of an Urban Growth Area; removal of the designation of agricultural, forest, or mineral resource lands; creation or expansion of a limited area of more intensive rural development; establishment of a new fully contained community; and creation or expansion of a master planned resort.

This bill undermines existing law, can cause years of delay to projects, and creates uncertainty in planning in terms of time and money.  The bill interferes with local planning under the GMA and eliminates the presumption of validity by planning counties.

Aside from the bills discussed above, CAPR kept a watchful eye on and provided written testimony, phone calls, and emails on many other bills.  We took the liberty of promoting the importance of life and of recognizing that elevating and not denigrating respect for humanity is a component of liberty and that all would benefit in society when a reverence for life is held equally for all.  If life holds an egalitarian importance society has a better chance of recognizing all rights are held dear and of promoting rights for one another.  When the legislature proposes bills that promote the idea some people have a life of lesser value, they are directing us to a path that in general all rights become less important or can be decided to be important on various criteria.  1141 and 1851 were such bills.

WIN! 1141 Increasing access to the death with dignity act.  Some time ago an initiative was passed by the people of the state that was considered to be compassionate in allowing for critically ill individuals to end their life with physician assistance.  Regardless of what your vote on that initiative was or would be, the legislature created in what I called the door dash death bill simplified methods for deciding if death was a decision that should be made by easing who could help make that determination, shortened the waiting period for implementing that decision, and made it easier to procure and use the deadly medication by simplifying the methods of delivery even to the extent of allowing for it to be sent to your home by a delivery service. 

Clearly the misleading title of the bill represented the careless regard of life that is held by some legislators, increased the danger of the misuse of deadly drugs, and allowed for the removal of protections voters hinged their vote upon, believing their vote represented a scenario that was both careful and compassionate.  This bill failed.

LOSS, 1851 Preserving a pregnant individual's ability to access abortion care.  The bill bizarrely calls for abortion rights to apply to all persons who think they are pregnant to have the right to an abortion.  Even if one is pro-abortion as these representatives must be, one should be able to realize all people cannot become pregnant and require the right to an abortion, and the state of pregnancy is not truly imaginable. 

Those who think otherwise are chastised in bill language in these words: The state shall not penalize, prosecute, or otherwise take adverse action against an individual based on their actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes. Nor shall the state penalize, prosecute, or otherwise take adverse action against someone for aiding or assisting a pregnant individual in exercising their right to reproductive freedom with their voluntary consent.  This bill sadly disregards the seriousness of abortions and denigrates women by attempting to trivialize their physical being and circumstances and extending that reality needlessly to all people. 

The bill is a nonsensical answer to a non-existent problem that unfortunately creates division where none existed and applies a dose of virtue signaling righteousness to the books of law in this state.  It is a law that will continue to lead those in our state tasked with making law down the path of disregarding both reality and factual actual needs for the respect of human rights and was an outlandish, antisocial, preemptory path to confirming the legality of abortion in the state, affirming statutory performance of abortion and disallowing state interference with abortion.  The bill passed both houses.

Please see this chart for a listing of bill numbers, titles, status, and bill links so you can read or see the CAPR Bills of Concern Legislative Session 2022.  The trends are disturbing, good bills never see the light of day, bad bills are repeated in one and another in part to reinforce the possibility of some policy passing.  Under the present status of 2022, we are not marching toward liberty and sound policy but rather undergoing a fight against a wish list leading toward tyranny.  Your help in fighting this trend is greatly appreciated, ever vigilant is the cost of freedom!

Thank you,

Cindy Alia

CAPR advocate for liberty, legislative watchdog, and educating lobbyist