H-1481              _______________________________________________

                                    HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 4410

                        _______________________________________________

State of Washington                              50th Legislature                              1987 Regular Session

By Representatives Beck, Ferguson, May and Fuhrman

Read first time 2/11/87 and referred to Committee on Constitution, Elections & Ethics.

WHEREAS, Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 8402 (1987) notes that, "It is of paramount importance to establish cutoff dates for the consideration of legislation..."; and

          WHEREAS, Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 8402 recognizes that bill introduction is a part of the consideration process by setting limits on the time in which executive and agency request measures may be introduced; and

          WHEREAS, Establishing introduction cut offs for all legislation has been a frequently used tool of process management by the Washington State Legislature; and

          WHEREAS, The National Conference of State Legislatures has found that the vast majority of Legislatures do attempt to control the legislative process; and

          WHEREAS, Providing some controls which reduce duplication of bills and tend to restrict the total number of measures introduced is in the best interest of the public and the Legislature; and

          WHEREAS, Well over half the states use deadlines on bill introductions as part of the control process; and

          WHEREAS, Some states have adopted a process of short-form bills or informal introductions as a means of reducing formal bill introductions and other states have placed a numerical limit on introductions to achieve this goal; and

          WHEREAS, There does not now exist any control process in the Washington State Legislature to restrict bill introduction by members;

          NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, By the House of Representatives of the state of Washington, the Senate concurring, That as an interim measure, no member of the Legislature may prime sponsor more than three measures from the date of adoption of this resolution through the end of the 1987 regular session of the Legislature; and

          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That a joint select committee consisting of one member from each caucus is hereby created to study the methods used in other states to limit bill introductions and to recommend a system to this Legislature by December 1, 1987.