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The Law / WACs
Agency rules help clarify and explain the law. Governor Gary Locke's Executive Order 97-02 on regulatory improvement required agencies to review their rules for effectiveness, clarity, consistency, need, cost, coordination, and fairness.
From 1997 through 1999, the Commission worked closely with nearly 100 stakeholder volunteers in a dozen advisory workgroups to review its rules.
These efforts resulted in several key improvements. The rules were updated to include contemporary examples and to reflect current case law and statutes. The rules were made clearer by simplifying sentence structures and trimming legalistic or redundant text. Some rules were shortened by 50 percent!
You can access and search through state laws (including RCW
49.60, the Law
Against Discrimination), rules, and rulemaking efforts at the website
of the State Code Reviser
The rules of the Commission are found in the Washington Administrative Code (WAC) at Chapter 162. Please click here to go directly to the current text of the Commission's Rules. Some commonly requested titles within WAC Chapter 162 include:
- WAC 162-12 Pre-Employment Inquiries Guide
- WAC 162-16 Employment
- WAC 162-22 Employment and Disability Discrimination
- WAC 162-26 Public Accommodations and Disability Discrimination
- WAC 162-30 Sex Discrimination (including pregnancy, childbirth, and pregnancy related conditions)
- WAC 162-38 Real Estate Transactions and Disability Discrimination
QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
In 1997 Governor Gary Locke issued Executive Order 97-03 on quality improvement.
This requires state agencies to review how they might improve the quality
and efficiency of their operations and services.
The Commission has made improving our investigative case processing and
eliminating our longstanding backlog a top priority. As recently as 1997,
new complaints might wait up to 12-14 months for assignment to an investigator,
and the backlog had reached 1700 cases.
Today, as a result of focused quality improvement initiatives, cases are assigned to an investigator within 5 days and the average length of an investigation is 6-8 months.
In response to these improvements, the Commission earned the Governor's Award for Service and Quality Improvement in November 1999! This was an exceptional honor - and it reflects the diligent efforts of our entire staff. For further details, please link to the "Governing for Results" portion of the Governor's Homepage.
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