What Died in Committee — Washington’s 2023-24 Legislative Session

01

Findings

What the session’s record shows, stated before the tables that follow. Every figure below is read from the same records as the sections beneath it.

Most bills that die are never heard.

Of the 2,696 bills that failed in the 2023-24 session, 1,271 — 47.1% — never received a public hearing in any committee. The rest died only after being heard.

A bill can die two ways, and the record treats them differently.

1,425 bills were heard and then failed; 1,271 were never scheduled at all. A hearing leaves testimony and a record of who appeared. A bill that is never scheduled leaves nothing — no vote, no testimony, no stated reason.

The finding rests on a near-complete hearing record.

846 of the 848 bills that became law were publicly heard, a 99.8% control rate. Enacted bills are almost always heard, so a gap in the hearing data would surface here first. It does not, which is what makes the never-heard count believable rather than an artefact of missing records.

Most never-heard bills cannot be pinned to a committee.

874 of the 1,271 never-heard bills reached no committee agenda, so the record carries no committee to attribute them to. The by-committee table below therefore covers 397 bills, and its counts are floors rather than totals.

This is a count, not an accusation.

Declining to hear a bill is a normal and necessary part of managing 3,544 of them in a single session. This report measures where bills stopped, not whether any decision to stop one was justified.

Source WA Legislature legislation and hearing records · as of 2026-08-12

02

Where 3,544 bills stopped

Every bill introduced in the 2023-24 session, by what happened to it.

Source WA Legislature legislation and hearing records · as of 2026-08-12

03

By committee

The committee each never-heard bill was last associated with. Ordered by count.

Source WA Legislature committee agendas · as of 2026-08-12 · top 20 committees

04

By legislator

Source WA Legislature bill sponsorship records · as of 2026-08-12 · top 25 sponsors

05

Definitions

What was counted, so the figure can be checked rather than taken.

A bill

One bill number in one biennium, with its substitutes and engrossed versions counted as the same bill. Bill numbers are reused between sessions, so the number alone is not an identifier.

Public hearing

A committee meeting where this bill was on the agenda and the meeting type is recorded as Public — the stage at which testimony is taken.

Executive session

A committee meeting where the committee votes. Counted separately. A bill that reached executive session without a public hearing is not counted as heard.

Died

The session ended and no chapter number or effective date is on record. Only ever assigned once a biennium is over.

Never heard

Died, with no public hearing on record in either chamber.

06

Method and limitations

Each of these is a number a reader might reasonably expect. None of them follow from the records we hold, so we do not publish them.

Who decided not to hear a bill

Committee chairs control agendas, but the record contains no decision to attribute. A non-decision leaves no document, and we will not infer one from a roster.

Whether a bill deserved a hearing

Not a question the record can answer. Many bills are introduced to make a point, and their sponsors would say the same.

Whether the rate is unusual

We hold one completed session. Comparing sessions needs more of them loaded, and comparing states needs data we do not have.

Whether lobbying influenced any of it

Washington lobbying filings do not name bills. There is no link to follow.

A rate for the current session

The 2023-24 figures are final because that session has ended. The sitting session yields a not-heard-yet rate, which is a different measurement, and we publish it as such.

07

Reproduce this

The classifier, in full. Every figure above follows from it.

-- a bill = one bill_number in one biennium
-- enacted = a chapter number or an effective date is on record
-- died    = the session has ended and it was not enacted
-- heard   = a hearing row exists with hearing_type = 'Public'

SELECT COUNT(*) died,
       SUM(CASE WHEN heard = 0 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) never_heard
FROM (
  SELECT l.bill_number,
         MAX(CASE WHEN l.status_location LIKE 'C %'
                    OR l.current_status LIKE 'Effective date%'
                  THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) enacted,
         MAX(CASE WHEN h.bill_number IS NOT NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) heard
  FROM legislation l
  LEFT JOIN hearings h
    ON  h.bill_number = l.bill_number
    AND h.biennium    = l.biennium
    AND h.hearing_type = 'Public'
  WHERE l.biennium = '2023-24'
  GROUP BY l.bill_number
)
WHERE enacted = 0;

The join carries the biennium on every clause. Bill numbers are recycled between sessions, so a join on the number alone silently merges two different bills.

Cite this report

This is public-records reporting. Use it, and say where it came from.

“What Died in Committee — Washington’s 2023-24 Legislative Session,” WashingtonIndependents.org, data as of 2026-08-12, accessed 2026-09-11. https://washingtonindependents.org/reports/what-died-in-committee-2023-24/

08

Where this page comes from

Every figure above is read from a primary source and rebuilt on a schedule. Nothing here is modelled or inferred; where a source is silent the page says so rather than filling the gap.

WA Legislature legislation service

Every bill in the session, its versions, sponsor and status.

WA Legislature committee hearing records

Every committee agenda appearance, and whether each was a public hearing or an executive session.

Classification

Ours, not the Legislature’s. The rule is published in full above.

Not loaded

Testimony, committee votes by member, bill text, and fiscal notes.