As policy committees reached the midpoint of time to consider bills from the opposite chamber, legislation banning cannabis infused alcohol was rescheduled for faster consideration in the Senate.
Here are some observations of the Washington State Legislature (WA Legislature) for Friday March 17th, the 68th day of the 2023 Regular Session.
My top 2 takeaways:
- On Thursday March 16th, leadership of the Washington State Senate Labor and Commerce Committee (WA Senate LC) moved up the executive session on the cannabis infused alcohol ban bill to Tuesday March 21st.
- HB 1772, “Prohibiting products that combine alcohol and tetrahydrocannabinol,” was originally scheduled to have an executive session on Thursday March 23rd after being heard by committee members on Monday March 20th.
- As committee schedules were shuffled, legislative staff published an announcement of the removal of the executive session on Thursday followed by an announcement of the bump forward to Tuesday.
- As HB 1772 had thus far been considered a non-controversial and perhaps even redundant bill, it was a good candidate for quicker consideration among the 53 bills assigned to WA Senate LC at publication time.
- On Friday, policy committees would reach the halfway point of the three weeks allotted to consider bills from the opposite chamber ahead of the next cutoff gateway on Wednesday March 29th.
- Fiscal committees would then have less than a week to consider bills from the opposite chamber before the next cutoff on Tuesday April 4th.