WA Legislature wraps up with bills on the cutting room floor, half of initiatives cleared

OLYMPIA — On their last day in the Capitol on Thursday, state legislators agreed to create a retirement savings program for Washington workers who don’t have access to one through their jobs, exempted more child care providers from the state’s business and occupation tax, among other bills.

It was a fairly quiet end to a session where the progressive wing of the Democratic majority didn’t get quite as much across the finish line as they wanted, leaving town with substantial bills on the cutting room floor.

Among this year’s casualties: a bill that would have required oil companies to disclose their profits, another to limit annual rent hikes and a proposal that would have stepped up regulation when health systems consolidate, which can affect what services are available to patients.

Legislators did pass a slew of other noteworthy measures, though, including a bill to create a civil penalty if a person doesn’t report a lost or stolen gun within 24 hours, a bill to prohibit police from “hog-tying” suspects in the wake of the death of Manuel Ellis in Tacoma and a bill to make it easier to convert commercial buildings to residential housing.

The majority also partially conceded in passing three voter initiatives concerning income taxes, police chases and a “parents’ bill of rights,” all backed by the state’s GOP chair — though they declined to act on three others, meaning those will head to the ballot in November.

House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, put a positive spin on the session.

“I think we got a lot done on all of our priorities,” she told reporters Wednesday. “We didn’t get everything done, which is good for us because we wouldn’t need a Legislature if we got everything done, right?”

Republicans pointed to those failures as proof of their effectiveness in the minority.

“The bad bills that would have taken Washington in the wrong direction have died either in a Senate committee or on the Senate floor or on the House floor, in no small part due to the work by House and Senate Republicans,” said House Republican Leader Drew Stokesbary, of Auburn.

But some bills, like the measure to limit annual rent increases for existing tenants, stalled because of to disagreement among Democrats. House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, D-Seattle, said the Democratic caucuses include “folks from a lot of different geographies and a lot of different life experiences,” from Capitol Hill in Seattle to Hoquiam.

“When I look at the big accomplishments that we have over the last couple of years, I don’t know that any of them passed the first time out of the gate,” he said. “This is the furthest that a rent stabilization bill has ever made it in the Legislature, this is the first time it’s ever passed out of the chamber. I think it really advanced the discussion on that topic in ways that are going to bear fruit in the future.”

About 80% of the bills passed were “very highly bipartisan,” Jinkins said.

Lawmakers also passed an updated budget on Thursday, agreeing to spend more in the current two-year budget on the state’s operating costs, including a modest bump in funding for special education, what Democratic budget writers described as their “biggest commitment ever” in fighting substance use disorder with $215 million in new funding for substance use treatment, education, outreach and prevention.

Rep. Timm Ormsby, D-Spokane, chair of the House’s budget committee, said the budget “reflects the needs of those who are struggling the most, including our overburdened and underrepresented communities, and continues to fund necessary supports in a sustainable way.”

House Republican budget lead Rep. Chris Corry, R-Yakima, said there were things he liked in the budget, including more money for school maintenance and teacher support services and that the budget doesn’t include any new taxes. But he urged broader relief from taxes “for all of Washington’s families.”

“I am happy to see that this budget ends our ending fund balance higher,” Corry said. “But I do worry about the ongoing spending and how long we will be able to continue with it.”

Legislators also passed an updated transportation budget that put more money toward road maintenance, a longevity bonus for state troopers and removal of fish barriers. And on Wednesday, they gave the go-ahead to a construction budget including more money to build and repair schools and toward the state’s housing trust fund, which finances affordable housing projects.

Sen. Joe Nguyen, D-White Center, said that with the crisis of the pandemic behind them, it felt like the first session in a while where legislators could turn their attention to good-governance issues, like the state’s public defense crisis.

“Before, it was, ‘Give people money and COVID shots now,’” he said. “Right? Or, like, ‘We’ve got to do this tax thing or else we’re not going to have any money for these programs.’ Now it’s like, ‘OK, how do we thoughtfully balance and rearrange everything?’ “

Still, even-year short sessions, limited to 60 calendar days, can be a whirlwind — Jinkins has compared it to a bull ride at a rodeo — and included some very late nights in the House of Representatives.

The last few days took on a lighter tone, though, as legislators were finalizing budgets, reconciling bills that differed between chambers and saying emotional goodbyes to departing members.

“You don’t really have time to stop and smell the flowers because you’re going 90 miles an hour,” said Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah. “But here I feel like in the last day or two, it’s definitely a different pace.”

In the state Senate on Wednesday, some senators and staff donned mullet wigs in a nod to Mullet, who is the lead writer of the state’s construction budget and who will not serve in another session because he is running for governor. He’s one of a whole slate of state senators and representatives who won’t be coming back for the 2025 session, including the Senate majority leader, Andy Billig of Spokane, and the former House Republican Leader, J.T. Wilcox, of Yelm.

Gov. Jay Inslee, who has now seen his last session as governor of Washington come and go, signed 11 bills Thursday morning, including a measure to bar people younger than 18 from marrying.

The governor said Thursday evening that it had been “a banner year for a short session,” and said lawmakers didn’t yield on the remaining initiatives, which would repeal the state’s carbon market and the capital gains tax — both of which are now significant sources of money for state spending — and would make a tax that funds public long-term care insurance optional.

“They didn’t go backwards,” he said. “They didn’t collapse in the face of people who wanted to gut our ability to have more funding for schools, to have more assistance for electric school buses, to have the way to help in our behavioral health crisis.”