Senator Watson moves not to concur after House strikes SB618 into an ethics study task force

The Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee voted to not concur with House amendments to Senate Bill 618 after the House struck the original bill and substituted a task force to study legislator employment and ethics rules.

Staff described the House amendments as removing the bill’s substantive provisions and creating a multi‑stakeholder task force — including chairs of the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics, municipal and county representatives, the State Prosecutor’s Office and others — to study legislative employment rules and related interactions. Senator Watson told the committee she would not support replacing the bill with a study and said, “This is such a waste of time.” She moved that the committee not concur; Senator Harris seconded the motion and the committee voted in favor of not concurring.

Why it matters: the committee rejected the House’s decision to convert the bill into a study task force, preserving the Senate’s objection to removing the original substantive ethics provisions. The committee’s vote to not concur means the matter will proceed to the next procedural step for resolving the discrepancy between the two chambers.

Next steps: committee members discussed procedural options related to receding or concurring on other cross-files; the chair closed the item and the committee proceeded to remaining agenda matters.