Editor’s note: The below version contains additional information provided after deadline.

Sen. Janea Holmquist Newbry (R-Moses Lake) said she thinks citizens were denied their voice when the senate suddenly passed a version of the Dream Act on Friday.

"The public was kept in the dark. It never went to a public hearing, where they could have had a voice," she said.

The bill, christened the REAL Hope Act (SB 6523), was introduced and first read on Friday before the vote, although the Majority Coalition Caucus held a press conference Thursday afternoon announcing the bill, as well as one giving veterans in-state tuition rates. Newbry said there should have been a public hearing.

"What happened on Friday just goes against everything I stand for in giving the citizens a voice. It is not acceptable and shouldn't be what accountable, transparent government is all about," Newbry said. "The process is the process."

She said she heard about SB 6523 less than a day before the vote, when it passed 35 votes in favor and 10 against. The bill would make undocumented immigrants eligible to receive state need grants for college and, unlike the Dream Act, would appropriate an additional $5 million to the fund.

Newbry was one of four senators absent during the vote, and said she abstained, instead of simply voting against the bill, in an effort to delay it.

"My efforts were to postpone the vote in order to allow citizens, who were denied notice and the right to a public hearing, the opportunity to at least know what their government was doing," Newbry said.

The house passed the DREAM Act last year as well as on the first day of session this year, but the senate's Majority Coalition Caucus said the bill wasn't a priority for them at the time. When asked what changed, REAL Hope Act sponsor and higher education committee chair Sen. Barbara Bailey (R-Oak Harbor) said it came down to one thing.

"For me, it's money. Why put something out that's false hope?" Bailey said at the press conference Thursday.

About 32,000 students were unable to get state need grant funds last year. Newbry said the additional $5 million would only give an additional 800 to 1100 students funding.

The money would come from the general fund but a fiscal note was not available as of press time. The legislature approved $605 million last year for the state need grant during the current biennium.

In order to be eligible for the grant, students would need to live in Washington for at least 3 years prior to receiving their high school diploma or equivalent, and be taking steps to gain citizenship.

When the Dream Act passed the House last month, 13th District Rep. Matt Manweller (R-Ellensburg) voted against it. Rep. Judy Warnick (R-Moses Lake) was for it.

While the Dream Act was heard in the House and passed twice, Newbry said the senate bill still should have had a public hearing as well and that people from out-of-town should have had time to come testify.

"My folks shouldn't have had to hear about it on the evening news," Newbry said.

Newbry said she plans to introduce a bill giving citizens priority on receiving state need grants.

Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee, Republican Caucus chair, mentioned that Newbry’s Worker Recovery Act went through a similar process earlier this month. The bill was heard in committee last year, but changed and renamed before the floor vote this session.

 “The Democrats allowed the ‘bump’ so we didn’t have to wait 24 hours,” she said.

“Perhaps there’s a difference of opinion,” Parlette said.