{"id":176698,"date":"2026-01-12T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/12\/lawmakers-ready-for-upcoming-legislative-session\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T04:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T09:35:13","slug":"lawmakers-ready-for-upcoming-legislative-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/12\/lawmakers-ready-for-upcoming-legislative-session\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers ready for upcoming legislative session"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.spokesman.com\/stories\/2026\/jan\/12\/budget-voter-initiatives-and-artificial-intelligen\/\">Lawmakers ready for upcoming legislative session<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.spokesman.com\/stories\/2026\/jan\/12\/budget-voter-initiatives-and-artificial-intelligen\/\">https:\/\/www.spokesman.com\/stories\/2026\/jan\/12\/budget-voter-initiatives-and-artificial-intelligen\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-01-12 04:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.spokesman.com\">www.spokesman.com<\/a><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Budget Challenges:<\/strong> The session will focus on addressing a $2.3 billion budget shortfall and includes discussions about spending cuts, closing tax preferences, revenue shifts, and implementing a proposed&#8217;millionaires\u2019 tax&#8217;.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Governor&#8217;s Legislation:<\/strong> Gov. Bob Ferguson has proposed several pieces of legislation, including banning false identification as a law enforcement officer, funding for a preschool program, and regulations for artificial intelligence chatbots.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Voter Initiatives:<\/strong> Two initiatives that would bar transgender athletes from girls\u2019 sports and repeal changes to a parental rights initiative are likely to go before voters in the fall rather than being considered by legislators.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Federal Funding Issues:<\/strong> Legislators must address the impacts of reduced federal funding on core state services and rising inflation caused by federal decisions, including President Trump&#8217;s tariffs.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawmakers ready for upcoming legislative session https:\/\/www.spokesman.com\/stories\/2026\/jan\/12\/budget-voter-initiatives-and-artificial-intelligen\/ Publish Date: 2026-01-12 04:00:00 Source Domain: www.spokesman.com Budget&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":176699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thumb.spokesman.com\/qFtRVN8n1UbtOiL9fTWOWPnd8j0=\/1200x630\/smart\/media.spokesman.com\/photos\/2026\/01\/11\/679159065ea33.hires.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-176698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176698"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176700,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176698\/revisions\/176700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}