BILL REQ. #:  S-0138.1 

Read first time 01/20/11.   Referred to Committee on Labor, Commerce & Consumer Protection.

     TO THE HONORABLE BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, AND TO THE SECRETARY OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR:
     We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:
     WHEREAS, The tenth amendment states that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people;" and
     WHEREAS, The authority over determinations of unemployment compensation eligibility and payment under state unemployment insurance programs belongs to the states; and
     WHEREAS, The federal government, through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, mandates that states liberalize their unemployment insurance laws by expanding eligibility in order to receive temporary federal funding; and
     WHEREAS, The federal government is attempting to persuade states to spend more money for the promise of short-term federal funding; and
     WHEREAS, The required federal changes would prohibit the denial of unemployment compensation to individuals who limit their availability to part-time work, extend the length of benefits to individuals who participate in job training programs, and provide eligibility to individuals who quit their jobs for family reasons as defined in federal law; and
     WHEREAS, These expansions of the system would move state unemployment insurance away from its original goal of providing temporary partial wage replacement assistance to workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own and move it toward a federally controlled public assistance social welfare program;
     NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that the unemployment insurance modernization funding authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act be dispersed to states without requiring an expansion of state laws.
     BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable Barack Obama, President of the United States, the Secretary of the United States Department of Labor, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.