Dear friends and neighbors,
I wanted to kick things off with a thank you to everyone who came to the 27th district town hall last weekend! We had a lot of questions and conversation about the state budget and how we can protect Washingtonians impacted by federal actions. After a long stretch of late nights on the House floor, I was very grateful to be back home and to have a chance to connect with you.
I am privileged to serve you all. I take this work seriously, and while there’s always hard work to be done, that’s been doubly true this year. Hearing from you all last weekend has given me clear direction and helped re-energize me for the work ahead. Thank you.
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As I mentioned, in the days leading to the House of Origin cutoff we spent a lot of time on the House floor passing good legislation. I wanted to highlight a few of the bills that made it through:
- HB 1217, rent stabilization, is one of our biggest priorities. It would cap rent increases at 7% a year, making housing costs more predictable for renters while allowing landlords to keep up with costs. It was heard in the Senate Housing Committee yesterday.
- HB 1163 would establish a permit to purchase for firearms. This will help curb illegal gun trafficking; other states with this policy have seen significant reductions in gun violence.
- HB 1314, which will make it easier to build early learning facilities by providing grants and loans, helping us address our childcare crisis.
- HB 1696 expands our historic Covenant Homeownership program, helping more people whose families were denied opportunity because of racist restrictions buy their first home.
- HB 1321 will block unauthorized militias from entering our state without authorization from the governor or president. While the federal government has preemption over federal activation, this prevents other states from sending their national guard into Washington without permission. Similar laws exist in Idaho, North Dakota, Texas, Maryland, and more.
These are a couple highlights, but there’s a lot more. If you’re interested, you can find a larger list here, and as always please feel free to reach out to my office with any questions, comments, or concerns.
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I heard from many of you at the town hall about different priorities for the budget, I also heard loud and clear the message that an all cuts budget is unacceptable.
We’ve worked hard over the last 3-4 months to identify savings in our budget, but we’ve also been hard at work on proposals that would help balance our tax code, ensuring everyone pays their fair share. Over the next week you’ll start to see much of that work.
House Democrats will be rolling out our Operating and Transportation budgets next Monday, and will be announcing potential revenue options on a similar timeframe, if not before. I’ll have a bigger update about these proposals in my next e-newsletter.
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As you might imagine, with over 400 attendees there were some questions that we didn’t get to during the town hall, but we still have the question cards! I’ll save some space in my next couple e-newsletters to answer some of those questions, starting with two today:
From Sugar S.- “What is your vote for 1483 Right to Repair?” I actually talked about this one in my last e-newsletter, but I’m incredibly supportive and was happy to vote for it on the House floor.
From Maria- “We understand that the Keep Washington Working Act restrict local authorities in enforcing federal immigration law, but how can we assure the Latino community as they have fears?”. Earlier this session I put out a statement about the threats our immigrant, refugee, and undocumented community members are facing, it talks about some of the work we’ve done (like the Keep WA Working Act), and reaffirms my commitment to adding any protections we can at the state level, which includes supporting HB 1321 (details above). The Washington Commission on Hispanic Affairs has also put together a rapid response hub with more information. The fear that our Latino community is facing in this moment is real, and I know they are not the only community impacted by these executive orders. I, and my colleagues, will do everything we can to keep our residents safe, regardless of immigration status.