Senate Passes Retro Bill - AGC Asks Members to Attend House Hearing

Just ahead of a legislative deadline the Senate passed by one vote an AGC-opposed bill impacting Retro plans keeping the measure alive and sending it to the House. The Senate passed an amended version of SB 6035 (see original Retro article here) but the bill continues to restrict refund flexibility and ignore the risk assumed by retro associations.

AGC continues to oppose the measure now in the House Commerce and Labor Committee. A public hearing on the bill is scheduled for next week.

AGC is asking members to attend the committee hearing on March 24. Participants would not have to testify (unless you want to) but rather provide a show of strength in numbers to send the message that association members do not need to be protected from their own associations. The hearing starts at 10 a.m. and the total time commitment in Olympia would be roughly 9:30 a.m. to noon.

AGC members interested in participating are asked to contact AGC Government Affairs Manager Christine Swanson 360-352-5000.

In addition AGC has posted an action alert on its website regarding this legislation encouraging members to contact their Legislators via the AGC Grassroots Action Network (click here). Even if members recently used the network to comment on the Retro bill they are asked to do so again as the target shifts from Senators to members of the House of Representatives.

The vote on the legislation was as follows:

Voting Yea: Senators Berkey Brown Eide Fairley Franklin Fraser Hobbs Jacobsen Kastama Kauffman Keiser Kline Kohl-Welles Marr McAuliffe McDermott Murray Oemig Prentice Pridemore Ranker Regala Rockefeller Shin and Tom.

Voting Nay: Senators Becker Benton Brandland Carrell Delvin Hargrove Hatfield Haugen Hewitt Holmquist Honeyford Jarrett Kilmer King McCaslin Morton Parlette Pflug Roach Schoesler Sheldon Stevens Swecker and Zarelli.