First, if you want to see my bill tracker for specific open government bills - go here.

Second, there is much going on in the last week before Sine Die, and then legislators racing to the hustings to campaign for reelection. We have a critical hearing Monday at 1:30 PM on activist media access to the state legislature, we have Sunshine Month ops well underway, and more. So with that, the table of contents…

Friday’s cut-off hit hard on several big bills that were of concern to the open government community. But first below is the legislative calendar for everybody’s reference:

Although the open government community is a melting pot of patriots who might be progressive or liberal or libertarian or conservative or MAGA… it’s shocking to see groups like Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility stood relatively mute against legislation regarding, “Concerning public records act exemptions regarding concealed pistol licenses, permits to purchase firearms, and firearms purchases or transfers.”

So I decided to enter the breach and make clear that gun violence prevention research needed an exemption to the exemption. Why Representative Sharlett Mena and other progressives decided to vote alongside Republicans for this exemption out of committee is anybody’s guess, but thankfully the Senate she wants to join told her this bill wasn’t valuable enough to get past Friday’s cut-off. Clearly Rep. Mena is not and will never be a California Assemblyangel Catherine “Maverick” Stefani, who I’ve met and admire for among other reasons… calling the NRA a domestic terrorist organization😁!

Gun violence research matters. The pro-gun lobby knows this so they’ve worked to defund and hinder gun violence research directly and indirectly, such as via exemptions to the public records act. But when HB 2235 was on deck, it was a member of the open government community meeking fighting to stop it. Ergo I hope as a gun violence survivor next year to see our open government community grow a bit… orange.

Shockingly an effort to protect Washington state-level and local-level politicians from violence disintegrated. The Washington Coalition for Open Government was neutral on the bill - some legitimately concerned about more exemptions, some legitimately concerned about the need to protect our state’s public servants and their families from the malicilous violence of late nationally. During hearings, county prosecutors requested to be covered by this bill.

But for some reason, although supposedly a priority of the current legislative leadership, HB 2333 died on the Senate Floor. Another casualty of the Olympia fillibuster of using cut-off to stop legislation from even having a courageous vote.

I will share some thoughts after the session is over Friday, March 13 but there was a consequential number of anti-Public Records Act bills frozen throughout the legislative season. For now, these thoughts from Megan Rhyne of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government ring true out here on the West Coast:

With that, sadly we have to address the upcoming Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) hearing in Federal Court.

First, this makes me remember as a “The West Wing” fan the song, “I Don’t Like Mondays”:

With that, in the the federal case 3:26-cv-05214 of Ari Hoffman et al versus Washington State House of Representatives et al, there that I’ve covered before is a hearing Monday regarding a Temporary Restraining Order effort to get… Jonathan Choe, Ari Hoffman and Brandi Kruse press passes to sit on the House of Representatives floor and also to the wings of the State House. The federal courts have issued this schedule:

As such, being I will bang out an emergency beehiv Monday summarizing all the docs + hearing; let me just share the link to the audio feed for the TRO hearing:

Listening to KVI’s Ari Hoffman, it’s likely that at least he’ll be very actively covering this case on KVI. But then again, this is the same Ari Hoffman who does a significant portion of his 2 hour - subtracting commercials - program bashing The Seattle Times these days. The same Seattle Times that has worked hard to roll back legislative privlege and been fighting the good fights for open government for decades.

But outside of the Capitol Campus are many developments in the Evergreen State…

First, last Friday night on March 6 “Northwest Now” on KBTC Tom Layson had on Morgan Damerow, the new Transparency Counsel for the Washington State Attorney General. (Audio, Video). Listening as I write, noting that the Model Rules for the Public Records Act is still underway. Also still in the works is finding a permanent solution to the Microsoft MS Teams auto-delete.

Second, next Friday morning on March 13 the Washington Coalition for Open Government is having their Sunshine Breakfast. Tickets are still available.

Thanks to the TRO hearing and some other things in the works, there is going to be a change in the publishing schedule:

There may be an announcement on a project I’m working on... Hint: 1-800-DIAL-PDC.

I also have several public records requests before the Washington State Legislature on bills I’ve covered on this Beehiv - one with a projected completion in mid-April, the other on May 18 (yes, I know - the anniversary of the May 18, 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption). So this Beehiv will still steam stories…