We are now less than two weeks away from end of the 2021 legislative session. It’s been a very busy time, wrapping up work in committees and marathon evening and weekend sessions voting on bills on the floor.
The “opposite house of origin” cutoff for moving legislation has passed — meaning all policy bills that were not approved by both the House and Senate in some form are considered “dead.”
Exceptions are made for any bill found to be necessary to implement the budget, and it should always be noted that no bill is truly dead until the Legislature adjourns.
In the midst of all this action, three other Republican senators — Doug Ericksen of Ferndale, Phil Fortunato of Auburn, and Jim McCune of Graham — and I officially launched the Senate Freedom Caucus.
A caucus is defined as a “conference of members of a legislative body,” usually united around a single political affiliation, ideological belief or shared demographic. For example, Senate Democrats have a “people of color” caucus.
Our caucus is focused squarely on one thing: freedom. We are united around the principles of life, liberty and prosperity.
In the days since announcing the Freedom Caucus, we have fielded one call after another, asking one simple question: Why?
The answer is not complicated. While the members of the Freedom Caucus are committed conservatives and members of the Senate Republican Caucus, a coalition focused on protecting our liberties has never been needed more.
For nearly nine months, the people of Washington have seen their businesses closed or opened at the governor’s whims, their jobs eliminated, their personal freedom restricted, and their sense of self-worth diminished. Freedom of speech and the ability to petition one’s government have been hampered. And the majority caucuses in Olympia have ceded their authority to a runaway executive branch that has acted with unilateral emergency powers.
The most potent sign of this tyranny is the tall metal fencing at the state Capitol. We were told it was to be a temporary security measure in response to reports of potential violence related to the January presidential inauguration. Now we are well into April, no violence (or even peaceful protest) has materialized, and yet the fence still surrounds most of the legislative building.
With only days left before the scheduled April 25 end of session, not one bill has survived that would put limits on Gov. Jay Inslee’s emergency powers and challenge his chaotic, ever-changing reopening plans.
As Jason Mercier with the Washington Policy Center recently pointed out in a blog post: “It is painfully clear that the majority party legislative leadership in the House and Senate have no intention of debating if checks and balances are needed on the Governor’s emergency powers. All of the emergency powers reform bills and economic reopening metric proposals died without ever receiving a floor debate.”
Instead, despite growing tax revenue and billions of federal dollars flooding into the state, the majority has pushed an income tax on capital gains, a cap-and-tax carbon scheme and high cost fuel standard that will collectively raise the price of your gas by 55 cents or more a gallon, and placed top-down mandates on school boards, home builders and police departments.
The Freedom Caucus is focused on pushing back against these destructive policies and unchecked executive powers that limit individual freedom, using every tool at our disposal as elected officials to highlight them from a lens of individual liberty. And as a non-partisan caucus, we are open to working with Democrats, Independents and others who share our goal of protecting Washingtonians’ constitutional rights.
Above all else, we have formed this caucus to be a voice for you, for your family, for your small business, for our community and for all of the people of our state. Thank you for standing up for freedom with us. Your interest and continued participation in your government is crucial to the future of our state.
Why? Because freedom matters.
Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, represents the 4th Legislative District. Visit him online at http://www.senatormikepadden.org.
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