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Returning to your Inbox: Legislative Updates, The Page Program, and Open Enrollment for Health Plans
Dear friends and neighbors,
The election results were certified yesterday, and with that I can resume our regular official legislative updates! You might remember from earlier this year (or, for long-time readers, previous election years) that during the election there are restrictions on our official communications — things like this e-newsletter or my official Facebook. These rules help keep elections fair by making sure that incumbents can’t use public resources for their campaign. I’m grateful for the many ways that we protect election security in Washington state, and these rules are just a small part of that.
I also want to say again what an honor it is to serve you all in the legislature. The trust you’ve placed in me is a guiding light as I make decisions down in Olympia. Thank you.
With that, I’m excited to be back in your inbox with a couple of small updates.
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The House Page Program is accepting applications for next session, and I’d love to sponsor students from our district. If you know a student who is at least 14 years of age, but has not reached their 17th birthday, we would love to have them come to Olympia for a week to learn more about how our state government works. Students page for one week at a time, attending a Page School to learn more about the legislative process. They also support the operations of the House during floor action and other daily tasks.
Pages receive a stipend for their time and can earn community service hours. This year is a long session (more on that difference in a later newsletter!), so we’ll be accepting pages from Jan. 12, 2025 – April 25, 2025.
The program is open to all and I welcome applications from students of all backgrounds who live in or attend school in the 27th District. Several years ago, a scholarship program was established to encourage any student, regardless of income level, to apply for and participate in the Page Program. The scholarship offsets the costs of traveling to and staying in Olympia.
You can learn more about the program here, and apply for the program here.
You can also check out this interview I did with Viviane, who paged in the House during the 2023 session.
I’m looking forward to meeting this year’s 27th LD pages!
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The open enrollment period for Washington Healthplanfinder has begun! If you are uninsured you can find a health care and dental plan for you and your family, now through Jan. 15, 2025.
Some households at a lower or middle income level may qualify for plans with premiums as low as $10 a month. Households that receive federal tax credits and participate through the Cascade Care Savings plan pay an average of $70 per month. You can get a more detailed estimate here.
Insurance questions can be complicated, but there are people available to help. Enrollment centers provide help for free, and there are locations available in Tacoma and broader Pierce County. The Washington Healthplanfinder is available to everyone, regardless of immigration status.
If you’ve got questions, check out their FAQ (also available in Spanish here).
I want to mention that included in these options is our public option plan. We established Cascade Care in 2019, and in 2021 we were the first state in the nation to offer a public option plan (Cascade Select). In 2024, this plan had significantly lower premium increases than other non-Cascade plans, and was the most affordable silver plan in most counties it was available. I’m proud of the fact that we’ve led the nation on this.
Strengthening our state’s safety net was one of the priorities you all identified in my survey last year, and that work will continue this session.
Goodbye . . . for now
Dear friends and neighbors,
I’m reaching out with a final update about our work this session. Folks who have received these emails from me for a while will remember that during election years there are increased restrictions on official legislative communications. This includes e-newsletters, social media accounts like my official Facebook, press releases, and other similar communications tools. The rules are designed to help foster fair elections, ensuring that incumbents can’t use public resources for campaign purposes. These increased restrictions are in place starting Monday, May 6th, and continue until the election results are certified this fall.
While I won’t be sending out e-newsletters or posting on social media, you are still welcome to reach out to our office whether it’s to raise concerns about a topic or to get help accessing state resources. I’m still able to respond to your messages and our office can help you get the support you need.
With that, here’s the last update on our work during the 2024 legislative session.
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As a legislator, and as a parent myself, I believe we have an obligation to the young people in our state. This includes funding K-12 education, preventing gun violence, cleaning up our air and water, and a whole lot more. It also includes fixing a system that has frequently excluded many of our youth – LGBTQ+ students, students for whom English is a second language, students of color, and more.
You’ve likely seen national coverage about how a small minority of people (in some cases even just one person in a district) have worked to remove books from school libraries just for mentioning LGBTQ+ people, or for talking about racism and the impact it has. Here in Washington, we think public resources shouldn’t be subject to the whims of one person, but should be managed by the community. That’s why we passed legislation to involve the community in these decisions and prevent school boards from using discrimination to ban or remove books. (HB 2331)
Dual language education is another way we can make our schools more accessible and encourage better outcomes at the same time. Increased dual language education gives English language learners additional support and helps all our students become bilingual, whether English is their first language or not. (HB 1228)
We know our LGBTQ+ students are particularly at-risk (the statistics on this are hard to read) and as leaders we have an obligation to do better. This year we passed legislation that will require school districts to adopt age-appropriate curriculum that includes the contributions, histories, and perspectives of people who have historically been left out of the history books like our LGBTQ+ community. (SB 5462)
Most of the work we do is bipartisan, and I’m very proud of that, unfortunately HB 2331 and SB 5462 both passed on party lines. As I said in an article for OutNW earlier this year, it matters who sets the agenda. It matters for our kids, and it matters for the future of our state.
For those of you who followed this session you also saw that we passed an initiative, the parental bill of rights, that might feel in conflict with the values I mentioned above. I want to pass along some thoughts about why we did that, and what you can expect.
Initiative 2081 largely re-states current law and common practice. If you read the language, you might be concerned that it could amend protections we’ve passed for our LGBTQ+ youth or for youth seeking reproductive care or behavioral health treatment. Our best legal analysis is that it does not. We are watching our school districts closely to ensure that none misinterpret the language, and if any do, we will step in immediately to challenge them in court and/or to make necessary changes to the law. We passed this initiative in part because it makes no substantive changes, and because we wanted to avoid the additional hatred aimed at our LGBTQ+ youth that would likely come with a statewide campaign this year.
If you want more information about I-2081 you can read an opinion piece that Sen. Pedersen and I had published in the Seattle Times here (Note: this is the language of the piece as we submitted it to the Times. They made some edits prior to publication that I believe change the message, which is why I’m including the language as we submitted it here).
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We know that building a better future starts with our youth, but it doesn’t end there. We also worked this session to reduce the inequalities that women, people of color, people with disabilities, people with different religious beliefs, and many other Washingtonians face.
We expanded the WA Equal Pay and Opportunities Act to include gender, race, disability, sexual identity, immigration or military status, and more. This act prevents employers from discriminating against employees or prospective employees, and the expansion means people don’t have to decide whether they were being discriminated against for one particular identity over the other when seeking a remedy for the discrimination. (HB 1905)
We established a hotline that makes it easier for individuals who have experienced hate crimes to report those crimes. We’ve seen a dramatic increase in reported hate crimes in Washington state, and this hotline will help centralize those reports, provide support for victims, and direct cases to law enforcement when requested. (SB 5427) We also closed a loophole that prevented hateful vandalism or destruction of property from being charged as a hate crime if the targeted area was public property. Hate crimes by definition target entire communities; hateful vandalism is no less offensive on a library or school, and it should be taken just as seriously. (SB 5917)
While these bills received some bipartisan support, the final votes were largely along party lines.
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 In my opening remarks this year I said that as long as I’m Speaker of the House, we will protect every person’s bodily autonomy. This year we held to that promise, expanding protections for the health care professionals that prescribe medications like misoprostol and mifepristone. (HB 2115) This builds on our significant work last year to protect access to abortion and reproductive care. Since 2016 Republicans in the Legislature have sponsored over 40 anti-choice bills restricting access to abortion and reproductive health care. We have blocked every single one and will continue to do so. When the decisions you make for yourself do not impact the health or safety of others, no one but you should be making them. |
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It’s an honor to serve you in the Legislature and I’m continuously grateful for the opportunity you all have given me. Thank you.
2024 Session Victories: Funding for Local Projects
Dear friends and neighbors,
We talk a lot about the different budgets in our newsletters, but we wanted to update you all on what those investments will mean in our community. Most local projects are funded out of the Transportation budget (which Rep. Fey, as the House Transportation Committee Chair, leads on) and the capital budget, our state’s construction budget. If you’re curious about the differences between the Operating, Transportation, and Capital budgets you can get more information here.
For now, a quick summary is that the Transportation budget funds all things transportation: public transit, roads, sidewalks, bike paths, ferries, and other transportation infrastructure. The capital budget is the state’s construction budget, and goes towards things like construction and renovation, including housing, K-12, early learning, and higher education buildings, and community projects.
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Important Transportation Projects in the 27th Legislative District
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Other Climate Commitment Act Projects in the 27th Legislative District
The Climate Commitment Act is a landmark piece of climate legislation. Not only does it use market-based solutions to help lower emissions in our state, it also helps fund projects that clean up our air and water. If you want to learn more about what the CCA is doing statewide, check out this site. In addition to the transportation projects mentioned above, the CCA is also helping fund:
- Replacing the gas boilers on the UW Tacoma ($8.4 million)
- Decarbonizing the Tacoma Fleet Maintenance building, which will help prevent 230 metric tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere annually, or about 9% of the City of Tacoma’s total commercial building emissions. ($750,000)
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Important Capital Projects in the 27th Legislative District
- The Multicultural Child and Family Hope Center is in the final phase of construction. State funding will help them introduce 15 new classrooms, creating a total of 205 childcare slots and 15,075 square feet of childcare space. This location is dedicated to serving families with a lower income, kids with an Individualized Education Program (IEP), or those facing other risk factors. ($515,000)
- The City of Ruston Community Center received funding to help replace the roof and complete ADA improvements. ($360,000)
- Bethlehem Baptist Church is converting units into permanent affordable housing. ($424,000)
- The Tacoma Metro Parks People’s Community Center funding will support the design for replacement of the 45-year-old building – currently the oldest of the four active community centers and facing failing systems. ($400,000)
- The Tacoma Metro Parks South End Community Center received funding for a feasibility study looking at siting, program needs, and design concepts for a new community center in Southeast Tacoma. ($200,000)
- The City of Fife Sheffield Trail will complete the design and right-of-way acquisition for Phase Two of the project. ($100,000)
- Foss Waterway Seaport received funding to complete the esplanade and allow safer and better public access to the waterfront. ($185,000)
- Greater Christ Temple Church received funding for S. Yakima Ave Senior Housing. ($400,000)
- City of Ruston projects including the Winnifred Street improvement project, right-of-way soil testing, land acquisition, public outreach/planning, and site preparation costs for the Ruston Park Remediation Project. ($1,109,000 – funding from the Model Toxics Account)
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Important Operating Projects in the 27th Legislative District
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You can find more information about each of the budgets, including maps, charts, summarized descriptions, and more at fiscal.wa.gov. You can also always reach out to our offices with any questions that you have, we appreciate hearing from you and are happy to help! You can contact Speaker Jinkins here, and Rep. Fey here.
Sincerely,
2024 Session Victories: Let’s talk housing
Dear friends and neighbors,
I’m back with another update on our work this session, this time with a focus on housing. First, though, I wanted to pass along a quick reminder about the 27th Legislative District telephone town hall at 5:30 tonight! I’ll be joining Rep. Fey and Sen. Trudeau to answer your questions. You can join by calling 877-229-8493 (toll-free) and then entering PIN # 116282. You can find more info about the event here.
I look forward to taking your questions and talking more about our work this year,
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 I’ve consistently heard housing is a high priority for our community, from getting people housed to building more housing to making housing more affordable. This is a big deal across the country right now, and our community is no exception. Last year we made significant progress by expanding middle housing options, righting some of the wrongs of the past with the Covenant Homeownership Act, and removing regulatory barriers for people building Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs).
This year we built on that progress. I’ve mentioned the co-living bill we passed which will legalize more kinds of affordable housing, things like apartments with shared kitchen spaces or other similar setups. We also created a loan program that will help speed up the construction of affordable housing, and requested changes to the housing code to make it easier to build triplexes, quads, and other multiplex housing options. My Senate seatmate, Sen. Trudeau, also sponsored (and passed) legislation that will remove hurdles and increase incentives for converting existing commercial structures into housing. We also worked hard this year to pass rent stabilization, which would have given renters the same stability and predictability that people like me have with a mortgage. Unfortunately, the bill died in the Senate. We can’t expect people to budget away the impacts of dramatic rent increases. Last year at one of the coffee hours I hosted, I heard from a constituent whose rent has gone up 70% in the last two years. That’s not sustainable, and we need to do something about it. I know we’ll be continuing to work on this idea over interim, and I’m hopeful we will bring more predictability and stability next session. Beyond individual legislation, we’re also making investments in our operating and capital budgets. In our supplemental operating budget we’re protecting and expanding services at the local level for housing programs and people experiencing homelessness. This includes $3 million for the City of Tacoma to prevent the closure of 307 temporary and emergency shelter beds. Thanks to the Climate Commitment Act, we’re also able to invest $150 million in clean energy credits for households with lower incomes. We also invested in supporting tenants rights and increasing opportunity for people historically excluded from homeownership. In our capital budget we’re adding $127.5 million for the Housing Trust Fund, which helps build more affordable housing across the state. We also invested in projects to build more housing in our community, things like the Bethlehem Baptist Church project converting units into permanent affordable housing. We’re experiencing a housing crisis. It’ll take work on all fronts to help get people into housing and keep people housed. We made a lot of progress this year, but there’s more to do. In the meantime, please continue to reach out to my office when you need help accessing state programs or want to talk about your experiences. The stories I hear from constituents truly help guide my work in Olympia. |
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I’d also like to let you know about another event coming up, a screening of “It’s Basic” – a documentary about universal basic income programs launched in cities across the country, including Tacoma. The screening will be on Friday, April 12th at 4PM, and I’ll be serving on a panel afterwards with Mayor Woodards, Council Chair Mello, United Way of Pierce County President/CEO Dona Ponepinto, and recipients from the GRIT 1.0 guaranteed income program. You can learn more about the event or reserve a spot here.
2024 Session Victories: Community Safety, Behavioral Health, and Responding to the Opioid/Fentanyl Crisis
Dear friends and neighbors,
In my final e-newsletter of 2024 session, I mentioned that I’d be doing a deeper dive in subsequent newsletters into some of the great work we were able to accomplish this year. For this edition, I want to highlight what we did to increase community safety, grow behavioral health, and respond to the opioid and fentanyl crisis.
I’m kicking off with these in part because they were some of the top issues that you all highlighted in my constituent survey last fall, and that feedback helped inform our work this session.
Over the next month I’ll be highlighting our work in other areas, so stay tuned. As always, please reach out to my office if you have any questions-
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I’ve heard from many of you with concerns about community safety: concerns about gun violence prevention, funding and oversight for law enforcement, and what we can do to reduce crime and help ensure everyone feels safer.
In 2022, we passed legislation to address explosive growth in catalytic converter thefts. Our approach is working. Catalytic converter thefts have gone down by 77% since passage of this legislation. This year we continued to build on our successes. We passed legislation this year that will help further deter this type of theft and keep it on the decline. We also expanded protections for our kids, ensuring that fabricated sexually explicit images that use a child’s likeness are punishable under the same statutes that criminalize child pornography. Additionally, we expanded definitions for crime victims and witnesses to ensure that everyone gets the support and services they need.
We continued our work on gun violence prevention, passing a set of bills that will work together to help keep us safe and keep guns out of the hands of those determined to use them to harm others. This includes HB 1903, which will help ensure that stolen firearms are reported to law enforcement before they can be sold illegally or used in violent crimes; HB 2118, which will help prevent gun theft by requiring gun stores to secure their inventory; and HB 2021, which will allow the Washington State Patrol to destroy seized firearms, a permission already given to all other law enforcement agencies in Washington state and which the agency has specifically asked the legislature to give them.
We continue to invest in expanding basic law enforcement training academy’s across the State. In addition to expanding training classes at the primary training site in Burien, we’ve expanded training sites to Pasco, Vancouver and are working to open a site in northwest Washington. The results have been transformative. We also heard from our cities and counties about challenging budget limitations, which is why we allocated $8 million for the state to take over the full cost of our basic law enforcement academies where new officers are trained.
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We also knew we needed to make significant investments in behavioral health to help address the opioid and fentanyl crisis that is affecting so many people in our community and across our state. This year we invested $215 million in opioid and substance use disorder response and prevention, which includes $156 million for increased medication for opioid use disorder treatment, programs, and supplies, $16 million to support families and children safety, $10 million to support child-welfare and school-based prevention and intervention, and $6 million in outreach and support for our tribal partners.
We passed legislation that will help ensure there is age-appropriate education about the dangers of fentanyl in our K-12 schools, in our post-secondary education systems, and statewide through the Washington State Department of Health. We’ve ensured that life-saving overdose prevention medication will be more accessible for everyone, and substance use disorder treatment will be more accessible and responsive state-wide. We also passed legislation to help support young adults leaving treatment to ensure that they’re set up for success.
This is a crisis, and we’re taking it seriously with landmark investments and bipartisan legislation covering prevention, treatment, support, outreach, crisis response, and more.
Legislative Update: Sine Die – The Last Day of Session
 Dear friends and neighbors,
Today is Sine Die (pronounced sigh-knee die), the last day of the 2024 Legislative Session! It’s called that because when we adjourned for the last time tonight, we did it without setting a day to come back – sine die is Latin for “without a day.” Short sessions go by quickly, and this year was no exception. However, we were still able to get a lot done over the past 60 days: we passed supplemental budgets to address our changing needs and sent 373 bills to the governor’s desk. I’m proud of the fact that 236 of those received unanimous votes, and most had strong bipartisan support. I’ll have more detailed updates about our work in the coming weeks, with newsletters focused on some of our priority areas, like housing, child care, behavioral health, and climate action. For now, I’m very excited to be back home and look forward to connecting with you all in district. |
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As I mentioned, more updates to come, but I did want to touch on some highlights. When I kicked off this session, I talked about how optimistic I was about the work we’d be able to get done, as I reflect on the last 60 days I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished.
Our supplemental operating budget increases funding for K-12 education, housing, food assistance, and more. We’re investing a record amount in responding to the fentanyl and opioid crisis, and we’re continuing to fight climate change by supporting the transition to clean energy.
Our supplemental transportation budget makes smart changes to ensure that we’re not leaving any projects behind while we balance the significant increases in cost. The budget also keeps our commitments for infrastructure, fish passageways, and more.
Our capital construction budget is taking advantage of funds from the Climate Commitment Act and the capital gains excise tax (paid by only 3,354 households in all of Washington state during 2023) to invest heavily in child care, housing, clean energy, and salmon recovery.
We passed HB 1998, which creates more flexible housing options by legalizing co-living situations like apartments with shared kitchen spaces. These will help address the housing crisis and better support multi-generational housing.
We passed HB 2195 will fully fund the construction of new early learning facilities and provide a grant program to help get these facilities ready to open.
We passed HB 1368, which will help make zero emission school buses more affordable for districts across the state, especially in communities that have been the most impacted by climate change.
Finally, we passed HB 1929, which will help support our youth exiting behavioral health treatment, ensuring they have a roof over their head and access to the support they need to thrive post-treatment.
Legislative Update: Budget Rollouts and Town Hall Thank-Yous
Dear friends and neighbors,
I wanted to kick things off this week by thanking the people who attended our town hall last weekend. We had some good conversations about housing, public safety, behavioral health and the other work in front of the legislature this session. I was also grateful for the chance to talk about our budget proposals (which I’ll go into more detail on later) and to hear from you about your priorities and concerns as we approach the end of session.
These town halls (and the survey I sent last fall and constituent conversations hosted throughout the district last summer) are incredibly helpful and informative for me. It’s truly an honor to represent you in Olympia, and all the phone calls, emails, meetings, encounters out in the community and more, help me to better represent you all. Thank you.
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This week we rolled out our proposed budgets for this session. Our state runs on a two-year budget cycle and has three different budgets: the operating budget, which pays for the day-to-day work of the state; the transportation budget, which pays for roads, sidewalks, public transportation, and more; and the capital budget, which is the state’s construction budget. This is the second year of the cycle, so these are supplemental budgets that build on our investments from last session.
There’s more information about each proposal below, and in the coming days we’ll be working with the Senate to negotiate a final agreement on each.
The supplemental operating budget proposal focuses on re-investing in Washington families. We increase funding for special education, put more money towards housing affordability, and increased food supports for families across the district and state. We also continued our work to combat the climate crisis, make post-secondary education more affordable, and strengthen our public health systems. You can learn more about the budget here.
Our supplemental transportation budget balances the significant increases we’ve seen in project costs with the need to get things done. Many of our projects are moving forward as expected, though some will need to be re-bid. However, this budget still makes strong investments in the preservation and maintenance of our existing infrastructure, in improving traffic safety, and in correcting fish passages. You can read more about the budget here.
Our supplemental capital budget invests in building more affordable housing, childcare centers, behavioral health treatment options, and more. It also funds projects to develop clean energy, help our salmon recover, and clean the air in our public schools. You can learn more here.
Legislative Update: Floor action and a Town Hall
 Dear friends and neighbors,
We’re wrapping up the fifth week of this year’s legislative session, and we’re coming up on a big deadline – the House of Origin cutoff – next week. That means that we have until next Tuesday, February 13th, to pass House bills and send them over to the Senate (that also means the Senate has until then to pass their bills and send them our way). We set up these deadlines at the beginning of session to make sure we can complete our work on time, but I’m always impressed with how fast the time goes before each cutoff. Because we have a limited amount of time left to send things over to the Senate, we’ve been on the House Floor voting on bills most of this week. At a high level, we’ve passed 70 bills so far this session. I’m particularly proud that of those, 44 have been unanimous and 60 have received strong bipartisan support. People who follow me on Facebook have heard this already, but despite what you might hear, a lot of the work we do in Olympia is bipartisan. The vast majority of the bills we pass get strong support from both sides of the aisle. Some examples from this week include:
I’ll have more updates about our work in my next e-Newsletter, |
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We’ve got a town hall coming up next week! Join us on February 17th from 9:30 AM-11:30 AM at the Tacoma campus of the Evergreen State College (1210 6th Ave. Tacoma, WA 98405). If you’re taking public transit, we’ll be on Route 1 (6th Avenue – Pacific). Come ask questions and get an update on our work this session!
You can also submit questions in advance here.
Hope to see you there!
Legislative Update: Floor Action, Congrats to Tacoma Public Schools, and Protecting Reproductive Health
Dear friends and neighbors,
Hello from Olympia, where we’re wrapping up our third week of this year’s legislative session. This year is a short session and it’s going by quickly, but we’re taking advantage of the time we have. We’ve already passed 32 bills off the House floor, half of which have passed unanimously. This includes:
- Giving law enforcement agencies a wider pool of candidates by allowing lawful permanent residents to serve in these positions (HB 1530)
- Removing the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue for that abuse in civil court (HB 1618)
- Expanding access to anaphylaxis medication in our schools to help students that have allergic reactions get immediate care (HB 1608)
- Raising awareness about dual credit opportunities where high school students can earn college credit alongside their high school credit, giving them a jump start and reducing their potential student debt (HB 1146)
This is really just the tip of the iceberg, if you’re curious about what else we’ve passed you can learn more at leg.wa.gov, you can also check out bills by issue area here.
I also want to recognize Tacoma Public Schools for hitting a new record with a 91.1% graduation rate! This is the result of a lot of work done by our students, teachers, staff, and administrators over the years, and I’m so grateful for their commitment to our youth.
I’m thinking about how this news is connected to some other recognition we’ve received recently – Washington has been named the safest state for high school students, in no small part thanks to the steps we’ve taken support our students and protect them from gun violence. We were also recently recognized as one of the best states in the nation for working parents. These things are all connected, and while we’re celebrating the recognition we know there’s still more we can do for students and working families across our state.
We’ve got 41 days left this session, and I’m looking forward to what else we can accomplish.
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Earlier this week we also recognized the 51st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. I am proud of the work that Washington has done to protect access to reproductive care like abortion, and I continue to believe that Washington serves as a beacon of light for people impacted by draconian, anti-choice laws in other states.
However, the fight over reproductive health is happening everywhere. In the last eight years Republicans in the Washington State Legislature have sponsored over 40 bills to restrict access to abortion and reproductive care. We have stopped those bills every time.
We also know that just stopping those bills isn’t enough; we have to ensure that our protections for people seeking reproductive health care meet the moment. That’s why last year we passed bills that strengthen protections for people seeking reproductive care, and this year we’re working on legislation that will fine tune some of those protections.
Legislative Update: Kicking off the 2024 legislative session
 Dear friends and neighbors,
Earlier this week we kicked off the 2024 Legislative Session! Our legislature works on a biennial/two-year calendar, and we alternate between short sessions (60 days) and long sessions (105 days). This is a short session, and the second year of the biennium. One of the neat things about the second year of a biennial system is that bills we were unable to get to last session are automatically up for consideration again this year. Because of that, we’ve been able to get right to work and pass bills off the floor starting day 1, I’ll highlight some of those bills later in this newsletter. The first day of session also brings with it a host of ceremonial activities and long-time traditions. Monday morning I talked with Mike McClanahan at TVW about our goals for this session, you can watch that interview here. As Speaker of the House, I also have the privilege of doing the opening address on the first day of session, during those remarks I got into more detail about the work we’ll be doing over the next 60 days. You can read those remarks or watch them here. I’m optimistic and determined about this session. The people of Washington state expect us to work together and get things done, and I’m ready to do that. As we’re looking at the issues we need to address this session it’s clear how connected everything is, housing and behavioral health, child care and our workforce, the climate and our economy. Our challenges don’t exist in silos, and we cannot solve them in silos. For the next 60 days we’ll be pushing hard to make positive change for people across our state, and I’ll keep you posted on our work. |
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Short sessions go by quickly, but we’re committed to using every second we can to help make our state a better place. That’s why we had legislation ready for a vote on the floor starting day 1. We know the threat that climate change poses, so we passed legislation to help our local jurisdictions respond to extreme weather events (HB 1012). We know that the housing crisis is deeply impacting people across our state, so we made it easier to build more housing (HB 1245). We know that we have to protect kids from abuse, exploitation, and trafficking, so we passed legislation prohibiting marriage for minors under 18 years old (HB 1455). There’s lots of work to do, and much more to come over the next 55 days.