By james art 
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson will have a little more trouble getting his staff into the state House of Representatives than his predecessors.
That’s because on Friday, in an unusual move, House Democrats rewrote a long-standing rule allowing automatic admission to the chamber for both governors and their appointees. Now it will only apply to the chief executive of the state. This means that a member of the governor’s administration will not be admitted unless invited by a member of the House.
Some saw the revision as a not-so-subtle response to Ferguson’s inaugural speech. Many Democrats in the House of Representatives still resent the Democratic governor’s reformist message, embracing Republican priorities and ignoring Democratic policies in areas such as fighting climate change and expanding access to early learning and higher education.
House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, D-Seattle, denied any connection. It was a situation where the old language was too “open” and “there could be an unlimited number of people in the wings of the House.”
House Minority Leader Drew Stokesbary, R-Auburn, didn’t see it that way.
“It certainly seems like they got mad at a speech where he admitted they weren’t perfect, and they want to get back at him,” he said, adding that the governor and his staff are welcome in his office at any time.
The wording change is part of the “standing rules” approved Friday that will govern how lawmakers conduct their legislative business this session and next. The document contains 36 rules spanning 26 pages that deal with topics ranging from the speaker’s duties to how long members can speak in debate to the ban on drinking in the chamber.
Usually the endorsement is pretty harmless. Lawmakers scrapped the previous set of rules, changed a few lines and adopted the updated version.
Not Friday.
Republicans tried unsuccessfully to add language that would give their party more direct input into budgets, expanding due process procedures for lawmakers under investigation and requiring a separate education spending plan to be written.
The Democrats made the notable revisions.
First came Rule 8 and a one-line edit to the guidelines for who should be admitted to the hall. What used to read “The Governor (or appointees or both)” is now simply “The Governor”.
Then there was the revised Rule 20 to make it easier for Democrats to end Republicans.
Typically, members of the House can speak for up to 10 minutes on a bill. This drops to three minutes in the days leading up to deadlines for voting on bills outside the House, and again in the final days of the session.
As those deadlines approach, it’s not unusual for multiple House Republicans to talk up a single bill, eating up large chunks of time and effectively preventing Democrats from passing legislation before the deadline.
“We’ve seen bills with majority support fail because they speak after recess,” Fitzgibbon said, “We don’t think that’s democratic.”
The rule is that a two-thirds vote of the House is needed to end such a filibuster. A simple majority will suffice now. Democrats can easily clear that hurdle, as they hold 59 of the 98 House seats.
Stokesbarry criticized the revision in a speech before the final vote. “This rule change puts the convenience of the majority before the rights of the minority,” he said.
In a later interview, he added that if the Democrats’ concern is leaking, “there’s a really easy solution”: start earlier.
Another notable change was the banning of “title-only” bills, which, as the name suggests, have only a title, a number, and no substance. Lawmakers routinely filed them late in the session to ensure they had mechanisms in place for last-minute legislation, usually budget-related.
Title-only bills are now barred in both the House and Senate.
– By Jerry Kornfield, Washington State Standard
The Washington State Standard is part of the States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. The Washington State Standard maintains its editorial independence. Contact editor Bill Lucia with questions: [email protected].