Turn Up the Volume in Olympia

Great news from Olympia! On Monday, the Senate passed 1587, a bill that creates a state program that helps make buying fruits and vegetables more affordable for struggling households that count on SNAP to afford a basic diet. The bill provides funding to maintain current programs that have been helping to reduce food insecurity and increase fruit and vegetable consumption with matching dollars and discount coupons at farmers markets and grocery stores as well as with prescription vouchers provided at community health clinics.

The Senate also passed 1603 which reforms some of the harshest policy changes made to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program that have put up barriers to participation and access for eligible families. TANF provides cash assistance for basic needs, workforce training, and child care for families with children living in deepest poverty.

On Wednesday, the Senate passed 1893 which clarifies existing federal law so that more low-income college students will know if they might be eligible to apply for SNAP and will be given the information for how to apply. The bill also establishes a grant so that community and technical colleges can help low-income students pay for emergent basic needs costs that might otherwise cause them to miss classes or drop out of school altogether.

But our work isn’t done yet! We must work to ensure that our priorities are funded in the final budget agreement and we have one more bill that must pass out of the Senate before a cutoff deadline at the end of the day on Wednesday.

The House passed a budget that includes funding for these bills and all of our priorities, thanks to a robust revenue package that closes some long-existing loopholes, including one on capital gains earned from highly lucrative sales of property or stocks. But the Senate budget currently doesn’t fund these and other key anti-hunger priorities, in large part because they have proposed a smaller revenue package. We support elements of both the House and Senate’s revenue packages because both take important steps to clean up our out-dated and upside-down tax code so that we can afford investments in education, mental health, and taking care of our neighbors in need, including the funding needed for our anti-hunger priorities.

Both the House and the Senate are voting on bills this week: voting on bills passed in the opposite chamber by the Wednesday cutoff and then voting on bills again to accept or reject changes made in the other chamber. Then, as the last day of session, April 28, draws nearer, budget negotiations will begin in earnest. This is why we need to turn up the volume on our advocacy in Olympia: we need you to call and email your legislators, urging their support for funding our priorities in the final budget.

WHAT YOU CAN DO