ACTION ALERT
Support the Ranked-Choice Voting Local Options Bill — Leave a comment in support of House Bill 1156 today!
HB 1156 has a public hearing scheduled Feb. 8, 2021 @ 1:30 in the House Committee on State Government and Tribal Relations
Here are links to the bill’s current schedule, and the video stream that will go live:
https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=1156&Year=2021&Initiative=False
https://app.leg.wa.gov/committeeschedules/Home/Documents/28522
https://www.tvw.org/watch/?eventID=2021021219
The House State Government and Tribal Relations has simultaneously scheduled a “possible” Executive Session on this bill for Thursday, Feb 11 at 10:00 am. Executive Sessions are where the committee votes on whether to move the bill forward. The public may listen in, but may not speak.
The members of the committee are Javier Valdez (D-46), Chair; Debra Lekanoff (D-40), Vice-Chair; Mike Volz (R-6), Ranking Minority Member; Jim Walsh (R-18), Assistant Ranking Minority Member; Laurie Dolan (D-22); Jenny Graham (R-6); and Mia Gregerson (D-33).
Gregerson, Lekanoff, Dolan, and Walsh are all co-sponsors of the bill, so it looks as if it has a pretty good chance of passing to the next stage. Walsh is the first Republican to co-sponsor any form of ranked-choice voting bill in recent years.
The Actions?
1) Particularly if you are in the same district as any of the committee members, go to the bill’s comment page and indicate your support. Here’s the link:
https://app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/bill/1156
If you are in the same district as any of the co-sponsors on the committee, please also thank them for being co-sponsors.
2) Go to the page for the Feb 8 hearing and register your support. Here’s the House committee sign-in page:
https://app.leg.wa.gov/CSIRemote/House
You’ll have to select the State Government and Tribal Relations committee and then the Feb 8 hearing. At that point you can choose among offering written testimony, testifying live, or simply registering your support for the bill. You choose! If you want to testify live, best to register for doing that ASAP. With the affairs of the legislature all being conducted remotely, many more members of the public than usual are participating, and all the available slots for live testimony may be taken up right away.
Also, please note that HB 1156 combines moving all elections to even-numbered years with the Local Option to adopt ranked-choice voting. There is hope that the portion of the bill moving elections will be removed, but absent that, it’s not clear that the bill should be supported without reservation. For one thing, it would mean that County Auditors would have nothing for their elections staffs to do in the odd-numbered years with regrettable affects on continuity of employment and the quality of the staffs.
Click on ‘Support’ and leave a comment on House Bill 1156 today!
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