Dent proud of committee’s bipartisan effort in 2023 session

MOSES LAKE – Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, said that there is a lot he has to be proud of from this session, but the thing he was most proud of was the bipartisan effort to tackle bills by him and several other lawmakers.

“I think, for me, there were a lot of wins,” said Dent. “The kind of wins that you don’t see.”

He said one of the biggest of those was the cooperation between members of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. The cooperation wasn’t as simple as being amicable but making a deliberate effort to work across the aisle, work with stakeholders and prioritize doing the right thing.

Dent, as the ranking Republican on the committee, said that he and the chair, Rep. Mike Chapman, D-Port Angeles, made a pact before the session to work together to pass bills out of the committee in a bipartisan fashion.

“The ability to work together with the chair of Ag and work as closely as we did, in a bipartisan manner, to move legislation only in a bipartisan manner out of that committee was outstanding,” Dent said.

Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake, agreed.

“There are committees that work together – or the two, chair and ranking members that work together– however, I haven’t seen it to the extent that the House Ag Committee did this year,” Warnick said. “They had an agreement that if a bill wasn’t supported by both sides, it didn’t have to be 100% support, but if it didn’t have bipartisan support, then the bill wouldn’t move forward so that is historic.”

Dent also noted that the bipartisan commitment to work together also happened with Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee on a bill relating to airport siting.

“That was outstanding, again, willingness to work together to do for the people, what we’re sent over there to do,” Dent said.

He said he's looking forward to the next session, to continue to build relationships not only with his committee members and stakeholders but other legislators as well.

He hopes to reintroduce his bills that did not pass this session and work on other committee related issues.

Dent said what surprised him most this session was the reluctance of some legislators to work in a collaborative manner on amendments when bills came to the floor. He said he hopes that working across the aisle like what was done in the ag committee catches on in other parts of the legislature.

The biggest challenge this session, Dent said, was an aviation bill he sponsored.

“I think the biggest disappointment was my aviation and aerospace advisory committee bill – not getting it passed,” Dent said.

He said there was a lot of miscommunication around the bill being confused with a different bill that considered sites for a new airport.

Dent introduced 11 bills this session, with four making it to the governor’s desk.

House Bill 1032, which sought to mitigate the risk of wildfire through electric utility planning and identification of best management practices appropriate to each utility's circumstances, was signed into law on April 20. House Bills 1243 and 1019, relating to municipal airport commissions and creating the pesticide advisory board, respectively, still await the governor's signature.

House Bill 1590, however, arrived at the governor’s desk only to be vetoed. The bill, which changes some of the membership and subcommittees of the oversight board for the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, had passed both the House and Senate unanimously.

In his veto letter, Inslee said a separate bill passed by the Legislature this year makes the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction responsible for the delivery and oversight of basic

education services to ‘justice-involved students’ who are served through certain institutional

education programs. The letter also said that starting this year, OSPI is required to submit annual reports on its progress in developing the timeline and plan for assuming these responsibilities.

“Rather than adding a single subject-matter expert to the Board, it will be more productive for the Board to engage periodically with the range of experts at OSPI who will be developing the required plan and timeline. While I am vetoing this bill, I am encouraging the Board to engage with both OSPI and the Partnership Council on Juvenile Justice around institutional education and related issues,” Inslee said in the letter.

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To view the full veto letter by Gov. Jay Inslee, visit https://crmpublicwebservice.ofm.wa.gov/bears/attachment/vetomessage/161