Hi there, Senator Tom. Let’s talk, huh?

As Goldy reported in Morning News, the senate committee to which you referred the Reproductive Parity Act seems destined to abort the bill. The anti-choice committee chair, Randi Becker (R-Eatonville), released a statement last night saying that after a packed hearing yesterday, “the decision of the committee is that the bill will not move forward from here this year.” Which, c’mon, Senator Tom, you knew. You knew this would happen when you assigned this important bill to the Republican-controlled health care committee instead of the insurance committee, which is led by Democrat Steve Hobbs.

But I know you support the bill—you told me so. Your office did, and so did you. And it’s passed in the house already. And the governor supports it. And a majority of the senate has come out in support of it, pledging in a public letter that “when House Bill 1044 comes to the floor of the Senate we are all committed to vote for it.” (And hey! That’s your signature right there on that letter of support, second to last!)

And I mean, there’s no way you’re just using your “pro-choice” position and the support of pro-choice voters and advocates to look more bipartisan and moderate than you are, right? There’s no way you’ve bragged about your 100 percent NARAL rating and let them vociferously defend you in elections (listen to that press release! “Senator Tom’s steadfast support for women’s health care and women’s rights”!), that you’ve spoken to a rally of women’s health advocates as recently as this February—Planned Parenthood presented you as one of the “inspiring… pro-choice voices in Olympia!”—and then you’re just going to let this legislation die.

You have other options.

The deadline for bills to pass out of committee is tomorrow. But you have a little time—you can show some of that “steadfast support for women’s health care” by throwing your weight around. You did get yourself this sweet-ass majority leader status, after all—you know how to pull some shit when you need to. So go ahead: Move that the senate advance to the ninth order of business. Yeah, it’s a weird parliamentary workaround, but you can do it. I know you know how it works—you did it last year to help Republicans hijack the budget. And you’d have the votes, that majority of senators who signed that letter, to pull the bill out of committee, and put it to a floor vote, and pass it.

So do it.