First Week of Session
Welcome back!
The 2015 Legislative Session started last week and we are already busy working on new bills. There are many important issues this year, including the state and transportation budgets. We will be working hard to fully fund education and fund much-needed infrastructure investments.
Housing
There are numerous bills that I am working on and I will keep you updated on their status as session progresses. One of the bills that I am the most excited about is HB 1460. This bill protects tenants from having eviction attempts show up on screening reports for landlords. Right now, even if a tenant has been wrongfully evicted and cleared in court, an eviction attempt shows up on screening reports, which hurts their chances of getting housing. If you would like to learn more about the bill and other housing bills, visit Crosscut.
The State Budget
Every two years, the Legislature writes the state budget. The operating budget pays for day-to-day expenses like teacher salaries, health care for low-income families, and prisons. You can read in more detail how the state budget works here.
While our state is slowly recovering from the recession, revenue is not keeping up with the demand for state services. Republican lawmakers say state revenues are up $3 billion from last biennium. While that is true, it’s only half the picture. Our projected expenses are up—way up—more than $3 billion.
Imagine getting a $50 per month raise from your boss. But then your boss increases your health care premiums $75 per month.
It’ll cost about $3 billion just to continue government operations the way they were the last two years. But just continuing what we’ve done before will not be good enough.
The State Supreme Court held the Legislature in contempt of court in the McCleary case last year. We need to invest at least $1.3 billion more in K-12 education for McCleary-related expenses to meet our legal and moral obligations.
Also, voters passed an initiative for smaller class sizes which costs an extra $2 billion. We also need significant improvements to our mental health and foster care systems. And we have over 120,000 teachers and state employees that have had their paychecks frozen for six years, reducing their buying power by 16 percent. Good teachers are leaving for other jobs.
The recession hit everyone hard, even the state. We cut $12 billion in state spending since 2008. We cannot cut billions more and expect positive outcomes. In the end, we’re probably looking at some level of spending cuts to go along with some new revenue in order to balance our state budget.
Transportation
House Democrats led the way last biennium by passing a transportation package that would have built much-needed infrastructure, reduced traffic congestion, and repaired crumbling roads and bridges.
As Gov. Jay Inslee said, traffic gridlock is so bad now, people are reading War and Peace while they’re stuck on I-5.
A transportation package would help fix that gridlock while creating jobs and giving more options for those who can’t afford a car. It also would have funded projects in our neighborhoods like improvements to the I-5 Marysville interchanges.
Unfortunately, the Senate refused to vote on this critical legislation. Failing to provide the infrastructure necessary to move goods and people quickly threatens our global competitiveness and our ability to create jobs for Washington residents.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
I will continue to push to find solutions to traffic gridlock and more options for getting where you need to go, because that will help people and businesses today while creating jobs and building a better Washington for our kids and grandkids.
Contact Me!
Please don’t hesitate to contact me as session moves along. There are a wide variety of bills introduced every year and I appreciate hearing from constituents about what is important to them. My Legislative Aide, Jordan Smith, can be reached at jordan.smith@leg.wa.gov or 360-786-7864. You can also always email me at june.robinson@leg.wa.gov