By Cindy Alia 3/12/21
Your legislators are adjourned until Monday morning, thank you for your calls and emails to your represntatives and senators, you are causing changes to bad bills, and keeping bad bills at bay! Bills of Concern for the coming week are listed here. The legislative cutoff date for bills from the house of origin has passed on last Tuesday, March 9. This helps to narrow our focus on bills we have objected to in the house of origin but still must fight to prevent passage in the opposite house. Bills that have passed the house will now go to the senate and you need to call your senator! Bills that have passed the senate will now be in the control of the house, and you need to call your representatives!
Outside of fighting to prevent bad bills, we have good bills we must work to get in session here is one great bill to help improve our elections integrity!
Of high importance to our reliance on our Representative Republic is the ability to rely on the integrity of our elections. We must not only believe, but also be able to illustrate factually the integrity of our ballots and elections.
HB 1554 is a crucial step sponsored by Representatives Chase and McCaslin, in the process toward factual integrity, call your representatives and senator and insist this be a bill of high importance and first order of action.
Elections Integrity
HOUSE BILL 1554 Concerning postelection audits that enhance ballot integrity. Insist this bill get the attention and discussion we need to increase election integrity through human oversight and accountability in auditing ballots in Washington state. Good bill, read it by clicking here!
ENGROSSED SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1068 Exempting election security information from public records disclosure. Bad bill read it by clicking here! The problem with this bill is that it reads very simply that only certain information will be exempted from public records, however, there are no stipulations that describe exactly what could be considered and organized within an agency under the heading “election security”.
Highly controversial bills that will very negatively hamper your life, liberty, and property:
Taxation
HB 1111 Concerning investment income tax deductions. This bill seemed to languish unattended but is now on a fast track. It eliminates the business and occupation tax deduction for investment income for all taxpayers except individuals, impacting B and O taxation. Bad bill, read it by clicking here! This bill is still in the house, call and email your representatives!
ENGROSSED SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 5096 Concerning an excise tax on gains from the sale or exchange of certain capital assets. Bad bill, here is your Washington state income tax. You may read the bill as passed the senate by clicking here!
SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 5126 Concerning the Washington climate commitment act. A type of stealth taxation, carbon scheming will cost the consumer through creation, regulation, enforcement. Bad bill, read the bill report by clicking here!
ENGROSSED THIRD SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1091 Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the carbon intensity of transportation fuel. Bad bill, costly and unrealistic make work Carbon Cap and trade credit system. You can read the engrossed bill report by clicking here.
Bills that will force negative Growth Management Act changes.
ENGROSSED SECOND SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1099 Improving the state's climate response through updates to the state's comprehensive planning framework. This bad bill adds the goal of climate change mitigation to the Growth Management Act through resiliency, guidelines related to greenhouse gas emissions reductions and vehicle miles traveled reductions, impact of sea level rise and increased storm severity, SEPA review, flood management and a host of methodology dealing with climate change impact on people, property, and ecological systems, including an environmental justice component. Sets goals of ever decreasing green house gas emissions of below 1990 levels. Read the engrossed bill by clicking here!
ENGROSSED SECOND SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1117 Promoting salmon recovery through revisions to the state's comprehensive planning framework. This bad bill adds a goal of salmon recovery to the Growth Management Act which includes the concept of Net Ecological Gain. Requires the Department of Fish and Wildlife to manage critical area mitigation and report to the legislature gains or progress made by counties and cities. Read the engrossed bill report by clicking here!
SECOND SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1173 Concerning state lands development authorities. Bad bill that creates authority and funding for another unelected committee which will influence land development and the use of state lands, it authorizes the establishment of State Lands Development Authorities in counties with a population of 2 million or greater to oversee and manage the development or redevelopment of state-owned property within or adjacent to manufacturing industrial centers. Sprawl for me but not for thee. Read the bill report by clicking here!
ENGROSSED SECOND SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1220 Supporting emergency shelters and housing through local planning and development regulations. This bad bill adds to the Growth Management Act updated housing goals to include very low through moderately low-income housing planning to include an element of racial disparity. Cities may not prohibit emergency housing, permanent supportive housing, or indoor emergency shelters in multifamily, commercial, or mixed-use zones where short-term rentals are allowed. Read the bill details by clicking here!
ENGROSSED SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1241 Planning under the growth management act. This bill Increases the review and revision cycle for comprehensive plans and Shoreline Master Plans from eight to 10 years and among other requirements creates a feature of government/tribe coordination to include an offer to assist in mediation or dispute resolution prior to the adoption of the plan. You can read the details of the bill here!
Salmon recovery
SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 5273 Concerning the replacement of shoreline armoring. Bad bill because it reduces previous negotiating standards bulkhead owners had established with the agency. This bill establishes in law the department of Fish and Wildlife preferred hierarchy of marine residential shoreline stabilization techniques. Read the details of the bill by clicking here.
Impacting Property Rights through regionalization
Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 1152 Supporting measures to create comprehensive public health districts. Bad bill, even though the engrossed bill is very changed, and all references to property have been removed, it remains a bill that is damaging to property rights as the regionalization of the health districts results in diluting the influence citizens have with and on their county wide local health jurisdictions who at least have to answer to elected officials. CAPR remains opposed to the bill, you may read the engrossed bill summary by clicking here.
Lessening protections property owners may employ by repealing the Torrens Act.
HB 1376 Concerning registration of land titles. This is a bad bill because it repeals in its entirety the Torrens Act which is the form of property title known through the Registration of land ownership rather than simply the recording land ownership.
Once land ownership is registered, it must be filed with a court any additional encumbrance or transaction that effects title, and the owner of the registered land must be aware of that action. The Torrens system eliminates having documents recorded against your land title without your knowledge because you have the certificate of title, signed by the Registrar of Titles and that certificate has to be presented in order to change the ownership, or further encumber the property – including assignments.
Conversely, in recording information, the situation is significantly different and lacks the protections of the awareness of a landowner because there is no responsibility by the county auditors to ensure that documents being accepted are proper or that a landowner is aware of documents being recorded. There exists a presumption, right or wrong, that recorded documents that encumber a piece of land are proper simply because they are recorded.
Note the somewhat clever obfuscation of the fact that a significant legal act to protect property owners will be eliminated by 1376.
“It is expressly provided that the repeal of the Torrens Act does not affect any right accrued or liability incurred under those statutes prior to repeal.”
However, while the bill provides for protections land owners employ through the Torrens Act prior to repeal, it does not acknowledge there will cease to be protections employed by landowners after the Torrens Act is repealed because those protections will cease to exist after the repeal.
The legislature proposes to repeal protections while not replacing them with legal assurance. It is unacceptable to repeal legal protections and not replace, enhance or promote such protections in law. Registered titles have legal certainty through the courts, recorded titles have no such legal certainty.
Registration of land titles is superior in terms of protecting a property ownership, in these times of careless data management a superior option should remain in law and the bill should be rejected. Read the bill here.
Environmental Justice
5141 Implementing the recommendations of the environmental justice task force. Bad bill that inserts federal EPA environmental justice definitions into state law. Unintended consequences will be more difficult to change if they exist as law rather than as agency policy. Read the engrossed bill summary by clicking here.
Thank you again for your emails and calls to legislators! In this time when we the citizens are shut out of our capitol buildings and must operate virtually to make our voices heard it is especially important that you make your calls and emails!
March 13, 2021