Tuesday marks the first full day of the 2016 legislative session and Gov. Jay Inslee will grab the spotlight when he delivers his State of the State to a joint session of the House and Senate.
Inslee, who is entering the final year of his first term, is unlikely to propose any bold new initiatives in the speech that begins shortly after noon. TVW will provide live coverage.
Rather, the Democratic governor is expected to outline his proposals to give teachers a raise, reduce gun-related deaths and comply with a federal court order on evaluating mentally ill inmates held in jail.
Education will garner a bit of his time. He’s likely to urge passage of a bipartisan bill charting how lawmakers can meet a 2018 deadline for amply funding public schools.
He probably won’t bless two Senate bills aimed at keeping charter schools open. Inslee opposed the charter school initiative and the state Supreme Court has since found that ballot measure unconstitutional.
Those two bipartisan bills aim to fix the constitutional problems so existing schools can still operate. They will be the subject of a hearing at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in front of the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee.
And at 3:30 p.m., the Senate Ways and Means Committee will get an update on efforts by the Department of Social and Health Services to comply with a federal court mandate to reduce wait times for evaluation of mentally ill inmates.
Last week, DSHS Secretary Kevin Quigley testified for three hours in a Snohomish County court room telling a judge why the state is not yet in compliance.
You can read about his testimony here.
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