The bills that got their torches snuffed at first cutoff

Which bills will outwit, outplay, and outlast their competition?

The format of the decades-old reality TV show Survivor—where then-Harvard Law Student and now-Washington Attorney General Nick Brown was voted off for being a challenge threat—actually mirrors the Legislature’s procedural cutoff process quite closely.¹ In “Survivor” terms, the bills that failed to leave the policy committees before last week’s deadline often had a weak social game and poor endurance for challenges. These bills got their torches snuffed well before the hunger pangs set in.

The bills that made it out of committee last week live to see the next challenge: The fiscal committee cut-off on Friday, where the competition ramps up. Of course, as in Survivor, the real game begins post-merge, or after the House of Origin cut-off on March 12, when House bills and Senate bills that make it off the floor are tested in the opposite chamber.

Survivor host Jeff Probst during season 43. Photo courtesy of Jeff Probst’s Instagram.

Editor’s Note: Before we pay off Sara’s Survivor analogy for the paid subscribers, we wanted to give all the folks who are about to hit the paywall a chance to save a few bucks on the warm feeling of supporting independent journalism. We’re offering 10% off subscriptions through Friday’s fiscal committee cutoff.