The change, recommended by the Washington Policy for the last several years, is welcome and improves transparency into the legislative process

Mark Harmsworth
Washington Policy Center

Former Washington Policy Center (WPC) Director, Jason Mercier, finally saw Friday the practice of introducing title-only bills to avoid House rules on bill introductions, banned in the Washington House of Representatives. The Senate changed their rules several years ago. Mr. Mercier has for years recommended the change to improve government transparency.

In a series of rule changes, the House leadership added the section to ban title-only bills, now requiring at least section 1, typically the pre-ample to the bill, be included.

Title-only bills have been used in the past to introduce legislation to avoid session cutoff dates or avoid stating the full intent of the bill until the last minute. Title-only bills are essentially blank pieces of paper that provide a placeholder for action later in the legislative session. Not only are title-only bills not the norm across the country, they basically exist to circumvent Washington’s state constitutional protection for transparency on new bills introduced in the last 10 days of session. Budget bills are often introduced as title-only which severally limits the ability of a legislator to read through the budget prior to a vote.

The change ends the prior legislative games played to circumvent the bill transparency requirements guaranteed by Article 2, Section 36 of the state constitution.

The change, recommended by the Washington Policy for the last several years, is welcome and improves transparency into the legislative process.

Mark Harmsworth is the director of the Small Business Center at the Washington Policy Center.

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