Legislative Session Week 8
In this week’s update: House & Senate Voting on Bills, WSNA’s Priority Bills – Updates on Floor Action, Legislator Town Halls
March 3, 2017 • 3 minutes to read
In this week’s update:
- House & Senate Voting on Bills
- WSNA’s Priority Bills – Updates on House/Senate Votes
- Legislator Town Halls
WSNA’s 2017 Legislative Priorities and issue-based one-pagers can be found here.
House & Senate Voting on Bills
After last week’s cutoff, both the House and Senate have been busy passing bills off the floor this week. The next cutoff – for bills to be voted out of their House of Origin – is next Wednesday, March 8th.
WSNA’s Priority Bills – Updates on House & Senate Votes
It’s been a busy week, with some positive results as we reached the halfway point in the 2017 session.
Nurse Staffing & Rest Breaks – Thank you to all our members who have connected with their legislators on staffing – they have heard you and understand the need for a solution that supports nurses.
We are working with stakeholders on possible alternative bill language focused on staffing plan transparency and documentation of staffing deviations from the adopted staffing plan.
School Nurse Supervision – The House bill (SHB 1346) passed this week by a vote of 95-1, and has been referred to the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee.
The Senate bill (SB 5325) is on the list to be heard on the floor today – please use the button below to take action and ask your Senator to vote yes on SB 5325.
Secure Medicine Return – The Secure Medicine Return bill (HB 1047) has not yet been heard on the House floor, but WSNA and coalition partners are working hard to secure votes – and expect we may see floor action early next week.
Public Health Policy Bill – ESHB 1432, which would put into statute the Foundational Public Health Services framework, passed out of the House this week by a vote of 86-12.
Public Health Legislative Education Day
WSNA was proud to sponsor and join 200 public health nurses and colleagues for the Public Health Legislative Education Day in Olympia on Wednesday, March 1. Secretary of Health John Wiesman and Director of Public Health – Seattle & King County, Patty Hayes, RN, MN, were featured speakers during the morning session.
The afternoon was spent on the hill, meeting with legislators about the importance of a new $60 million investment in public health and talking about the important relationship between funding and the House bill (ESHB 1432) that defines Foundational Public Health Services and sets parameters for implementing shared services (where smaller local health departments could find efficiencies and cost savings by contracting with larger local health departments for some services, such as epidemiology).
Legislator Town Halls
Are you representing nurses and patients at the Town Hall in your legislative district?!
It’s the time of session when many state legislators are holding Town Hall Meetings back home in their districts. Attending a Town Hall Meeting is a great way to remind your legislators about the issues you care about.
A list of legislator Town Hall Meetings is available on WSNA’s website. Some legislators have not yet scheduled their Town Halls, so if you don’t see your district listed, be sure to check back in about a week!