Public Policy Legislative Session Updates
January 8, 2026
There are a lot of advocacy opportunities concerning national issues these days. It’s important we also act locally by supporting state legislation and by reaching out to our community leaders.
The 2026 WA legislative session began on January 12 and runs for 60 days. WA AAUW branch public policy chairs have selected 7 bills to highlight on our Advocacy Day. Get info about each bill on the WA legislative website. To the right on each bill webpage, see options for signing in Pro/Con as an individual (“Sign up to testify/Submit written testimony”), sending a comment to your legislators and receiving emails about the bill’s progress.
Artificial intelligence and Women’s Rights
HB 2157 (Ryu) Regulating high-risk artificial intelligence system development, deployment, and use.
HB 2225 / SB 5984 (Callan/ Wellman) Concerning regulation of artificial intelligence companion chatbots.
HB 1566 / SB 5395 (Orwall/Rule) Making improvements to transparency and accountability in the prior authorization determination process.
Women’s Rights Bills
SB 5826 (Nobles) Concerning access at public postsecondary educational institutions to medication abortion.
SB 6014 (Nobles) Concerning pregnancy-related accommodations.
HB 2355 / SB 6053 (Thomas/ Saldaña) Establishing labor protections for domestic workers.
SB 5936 (Orwall) Concerning prevention of and remedies for human trafficking.
Talking points on these bills and template letters to your representatives are coming soon.
REGISTER as soon as possible (to make sure you get support documents) for our online January 26 Advocacy Day. Our keynote speaker will be Emily Bender, UW professor of Linguistics and Director of its Computational Linguistics Laboratory. She co-authored the 2025 book The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.
Additional presenters will be:
Fina Ormond, WA State Deputy Director of Elections
Dr. Jai Jaisimha, co-founder of Transparency Coalition AI (TCAI)
AAUW-WA legislative consultant Nancy Sapiro
Members of our AAUW-WA Public Policy Team
SIGN UP for This Week in Olympia, an informative summary of legislative activity written by our Legislative Consultant Nancy Sapiro. You must sign up each year.