WA Lege Day 10: Judges in the House

OLYMPIA — Senators and representatives will spend a bit of time with each other again this morning as the Legislature meets in joint session to hear a report on the state of the state's judiciary.

That means relatively few hearings in the morning, but a full schedule in the afternoon. Among the more interesting are a Senate proposal to add children 14 and under to the list of victims that would qualify someone for an aggravated first-degree murder charge and a House proposal that would require anyone filing a public records request to identify themselves. The latter is aimed at screening requests for public records from prison inmates, who might use information from the records for intimidation or other nefarious purposes.

The House Transportation Committee gets a briefing on big mega-projects for roads and bridges, which includes the North Spokane Corridor. A House Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government gets a briefing on several state agencies, including Parks and Recreation an whether the new Discover Pass is generating the amount of money projected (probably not).

Several dozen folks from the Spokane area arrive in Olympia today for their annual lobbying trip to the capital. They get a briefing from Ted Sturdevant, Gov. Jay Inslee's budget and policy director at noon, and bipartisan, bicameral briefings on education and health care issues in the afternoon.