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Washington's House of Representatives decided to cut down on the number of in-person employees in Olympia due to a COVID-19 surge, making the majority of lawmakers work remotely.
The rule allows for only two legislators from each caucus and their presiding officers to come into the building, and only with proof that they have received their COVID-19 booster shots.
The House's Executive Rules Committee approved the measure 4-3 along party lines, House Chief Clerk Bernard Dean said. The measure will be put into effect next Monday and will be reassessed every two weeks.
All people working in person will also be required to test for the virus three times a week. The House will pay for the tests.
If the COVID-19 situation begins to ease, more lawmakers will be allowed to attend legislative sessions in person again. However, the rate of positive cases of the virus has surged in the state in recent weeks.
Data from the Mayo Clinic shows that while the average positive test rate was around 6.4 percent in mid-December, that number has spiked up to 20 percent as of New Year's Day. With the highly contagious Omicron variant circulating around the world, many states are showing increased caution.
Dean said Monday that the Executive Rules Committee approved the policy on Friday, with the four Democratic members—Speaker Laurie Jinkins and Representatives Pat Sullivan, Lillian Ortiz-Self and Monica Stonier—voting for it and the three Republican lawmakers—House Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox and Representatives Joel Kretz and Paul Harris—opposed.
The public gallery overlooking the chamber will initially be closed to the public, and will be limited to credentialed press who have verified their vaccination status. As before, all committee hearings in both the House and Senate will be held remotely, with public participation.
The number of lawmakers on the floor may increase in the future, the updated plan notes, based on the status of the ongoing pandemic. As of last week, the state had a total of 849,075 cases since the start of the pandemic and 9,853 deaths.
Last Thursday, the state Department of Health reported 6,888 new cases, the highest number of new coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic. Due to the holiday, no updates were posted Friday or over the weekend.
A spokesman for Senate Democrats said Monday that the Senate is also looking at revising its 2022 session plan—which had planned to allow all 49 senators on the floor, with a testing requirement—and instead return to the hybrid, mostly remote option that chamber used last year. Any change to the Senate plan would need to be finalized by the Senate Facilities and Operations Committee.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
