Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Special Session Update

As you may know after adjournment of the 2013 regular legislative session, the legislature was called back into special session beginning on May 13. Since the start of the special session, primarily leadership and budget negotiators have been working in Olympia, but this week I came back to the Capitol to attend the signing of my first piece of legislation.

Transparency in Government Spending

Gov. Jay Inslee signed House Bill 2058, which I sponsored, into law on Tuesday. The legislation will promote more transparency in government spending by leveraging existing government data to create a user-friendly online map which will display capital and transportation spending by legislative district and county. The statewide capital and transportation budget expenditures are over $12 billion per biennium. I believe this information should be more accessible to taxpayers.

The bill is a joint venture by myself and fellow freshman legislator Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, and was a crash course in the way legislation is developed, amended and finally approved.

Bipartisan Teamwork

Representative Riccelli and I worked hard on this idea all session. We learned plenty together about the twists and turns of the legislative process along the way. This common sense idea became law because of hard work, bipartisan cooperation and freshmen optimism.

The bill goes into effect on July 28, 2013. Upon signing the bill into law, Gov. Inslee said “I appreciate the great bipartisan work that got this bill to my desk by Representatives Hawkins and Riccelli and others.”

This was a very special moment for me as your legislator. I want to help make your government more accessible to you. This bill reminded me of just how honored I am to serve as your Representative. I will continue to keep you updated on the special session and budget negotiations in future email updates.

Sincerely,

Brad Hawkins

State Representative Brad Hawkins
12th Legislative District

E-mail: brad.hawkins@leg.wa.gov
Web site: houserepublicans.wa.gov/hawkins

Olympia Office (January-April)
122G Legislative Building – P.O. Box 40600 | Olympia, WA 98504-0600
(360) 786-7832 or Toll-free: (800) 562-6000

District Office (May-December)
11 Spokane Street, Suite 205A | Wenatchee, WA 98801
(509) 662-5733