The Lobby Room puts our faith into action by helping you support bills that align with our Social Justice Priorities. This is our opportunity to let our legislators know where we stand and help or hinder the progress of bills towards law. Many challenges await the 2025 Washington state legislature’s long legislative session, which spans January 13 to April 27.  In long legislative sessions, more bills are filled and more financial issues are addressed than in short sessions such as 2024.  You can visit our table in the Narthex on Sunday January 12 after services to learn more.

The Lobby Room was hugely successful in the 2023 long session, with 3108 actions recorded and the 2024 short session yielded over 2100! While several important bills did not succeed in the 2023/2024 biennium, sometimes it takes several years for innovative bills to gain traction as the groundwork is laid in the public arena and among the legislators and staff. So we may see some of our favorite bills on the agenda again!

 

How to participate in the Lobby effort

The best place to start is on our Welcome to the 2025 Lobby Room page. This will give you a brief introduction to how we work. The graphic above shows you the how bills will progress through the legislative process with most of our actions being at the policy committee level through the floor vote.

Teams focused on Climate Justice, Community Engagement, Justice for Women and Families, and Racial Justice are prioritizing 2025 bills for action, taking special consideration of those recommended by our allies.  For each team, you have the option of signing up via the Welcome tpage for short, specific Legislative Action Alerts that make giving your input via the the Legislature’s website easier than ever!  Of course you can also give your legislators input via emailing them directly (many legislators request no paper please!) or by calling them on the phone.

If you need help or would like to attend a training session, please contact us here.