Gov. Bob Ferguson arrives to applause in the state House chamber prior to his swearing-in on Jan. 15, 2025 in Olympia. A change in House rules will mean a less enthusiastic welcome in the chamber for Ferguson’s staff during this year’s legislative session. (Ryan Berry/Washington State Standard)
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson is going to have a little more difficulty getting his staff inside the chamber of the state House of Representatives than his predecessors.
That’s because on Friday, in an unusual move, House Democrats rewrote a longstanding rule allowing automatic admission to the chamber for both governors and their designees. It will now only apply to the state’s chief executive. That means a member of a governor’s administration won’t be let in unless they are invited by a House member.
Some viewed the revision as a not-so-subtle retort to Ferguson’s inauguration speech. Many House Democrats are still steaming over the Democratic governor’s reform-minded message, embrace of Republican priorities and failure to acknowledge Democrat-passed policies in areas like 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-ended” and “there could be just an unlimited number of people in the House wings.”
House Minority Leader Drew Stokesbary, R-Auburn, didn’t see it that way.
“It sure seems like they got mad at one speech where he admitted that they’re not perfect and they want to retaliate,” he said, adding the governor and his staff are welcome in his office any time.
The wording change is part of the “permanent rules” approved Friday that will govern how lawmakers conduct the business of legislating this session and next. The document contains 36 rules spanning 26 pages that deal with topics ranging from the duties of the speaker to how long members can speak in a debate to a ban on vaping in the chamber.
Usually, approval is pretty innocuous. Lawmakers pull out the prior set of rules, tweak a few lines and adopt the updated version.
Not Friday.
Republicans tried unsuccessfully to add language giving their party more direct input into budgets, expanding due process procedures for lawmakers under investigation and requiring that a separate spending plan for education be written.
Democrats made the eye-catching revisions.
First came Rule 8 and a single-line edit in the guidance for who should be admitted to the chamber. What had read “The governor (or designees or both)” is now simply “The governor.”
Then there was a retooling of Rule 20 to make it easier for Democrats to end Republican filibusters.
Generally, House members can speak for up to 10 minutes on a bill. That drops to three minutes in the days ahead of deadlines to vote bills out of the chamber, and again in the final days of a session.
As those cut-off dates near, it is not unusual for many House Republicans to speak on one bill, eating up large chunks of time and effectively preventing Democrats from passing legislation before the deadline arrives.
“We’ve seen bills with majority support not make it because they talk past cut-off,” Fitzgibbon said, “We don’t think that’s democratic.”
The rule has been that a two-thirds vote of the House is required to end such a filibuster. Now a simple majority will be enough. Democrats can clear that hurdle easily as they hold 59 of the chamber’s 98 seats.
Stokesbary criticized the revision in a floor speech before the final vote. “This rule change puts the convenience of the majority ahead of the rights of the minority,” he said.
In a later interview, he added that if Democrats’ concern is running out of time, “there’s a really easy solution”: start earlier.
One other notable change was the outlawing of “title-only” bills, which, as the name implies, have only a title, a number and no content. Lawmakers used to routinely file these late in the session to ensure they have vehicles for last-minute legislation, typically budget-related.
Title-only bills are now banned in both the House and Senate.