A message from Rep. Brad Hawkins | April 25, 2013

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Hello, and welcome to the last week of the regularly scheduled 2013 legislative session. This week most of the action has been behind the scenes as House and Senate budget writers and leadership work to try and find the middle ground in two vastly different budget proposals.

As I explained last week, both budgets have passed out of their respective chambers. The Senate budget received bipartisan support, and the House budget passed on a party line vote. There is a lot of ground between the two proposals, but I hope that the final budget will protect taxpayers in our state by not raising taxes on struggling families in the 12th District and across the state.

Many in Olympia are talking about if and when there will be a special session. I think most are in agreement that there is not enough time to finish budget negotiations by the scheduled final day of the 2013 legislative session, April 28.

There are many rumors about when legislators will begin a special session. What we do know is that there are two options for starting a special session. Legislators can call themselves into a special session with a two-thirds vote of the two chambers. Under this option there is no time limit on how long the session will last. The more likely option is that the governor can call legislators together for a 30-day period. Often under this option, most of the legislators return home until budget negotiators who have stayed in Olympia come to agreement—this is called a “rolling special session.”

When legislators return to Olympia, it can take approximately one week to pass the negotiated budget and the various bills associated with it.

I will keep you posted on what happens in the coming weeks.

As always, thank you for the opportunity to serve as your Representative.

Sincerely,