Updates on Washington Investment Trust

Jan. 30: HB 1320/SB 5238: Washington Investment Trust, sponsored (in the House) by Rep. Bob Hasegawa.  Set up state institution to hold state funds and lend to small business, farmers, students and others.  Hearings were held this past week in House Business and Finance Committee and Senate Financial Institutions Committee.  Oral testimony by FCWPP in both hearings.  Strong support provided by former executives of the State Bank of North Dakota, which has run successfully since 1919.  Opposed by the Washington State Treasurer, who claims that the Trust would be unconstitutional, that the current concentration bank that handles state funds now does a better and much less expensive job than the proposed state bank would do, and that self-insurance would be risky.  We are looking into these claims.

Jan. 25: The Washington Investment Trust (state bank) bill (H.B. 1320 & S.B. 5238) will be heard by both state Senate and House committees tomorrow, Jan. 26.  We hope you will read the excerpts from messages by the prime mover and sponsor of the bill in the House, Rep. Bob Hasegawa, and we encourage you to notify the committee members as well as your own legislators that you support the Washington Investment Trust. 

 Here’s a link to members of the Business & Financial Services Committee in the House, http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Committees/BFS/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx, and a link to members of the Financial Institutions, Housing, and Insurance Committee in the Senate:   http://www.leg.wa.gov/Senate/Committees/FIHI/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx.