Note: The following e-newsletter was sent to Sen. Jeff Wilson’s subscribers March 5, 2025. To subscribe to Sen. Wilson’s e-newsletters, click here.

With my House seatmates, Rep. Jim Walsh, left, and Rep. Joel McIntire, right.

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I hope you will be able to join us online for our town hall meeting Thursday, March 13. This is your chance to learn about the 2025 legislative session and ask questions of your lawmakers – all from the comfort of your own home.

I will be appearing with my seatmates in the 19th District, Reps. Jim Walsh and Joel McIntire, for a discussion about the 2025 legislative session. You’ll be able to participate in the conversation and tell us what you think. That’s my favorite part.

This meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. and lasts an hour. To participate, you will need to register in advance by clicking here. We’ll provide you with a sign-in link.

We have plenty to talk about. Like proposals for staggering tax increases, ‘progressive’ plans to impose enormous costs on business and new programs to impair public safety. We’ll also be talking about sensible ways to increase the supply of affordable housing and put state spending back on track. So register today and mark your calendar. I’m looking forward to seeing you on the Internet!

WHAT: Virtual town hall meeting

WHEN: 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 14.

WHERE: On your computer, tablet or smartphone.

HOW: Register here to obtain sign-in link: https://tinyurl.com/19thtownhallmeeting

At session midpoint:

Woodstove and initiative bills fail, but other bad ideas advance

Eight bills I have introduced remain in play

Action moves to the House and Senate floors as we reach the halfway mark of the 2025 session.

Thursday, March 6 is the midway point of our 2025 session, and this is a great time to take stock of how the Legislature is doing so far. We have passed the first deadlines of the legislative session, for the passage of bills from committee, and we are beginning to see which bills will survive for further consideration before we adjourn April 27. This also is the point where our attention turns to the budget. You’ll gasp when you see all the new taxes that are being proposed. Here are a few highlights at session’s midpoint:

‘Initiative Killer’ bill fails in committee: One of the biggest surprises of the session came last Friday when majority Democrats failed to muster the votes in committee to pass a bill placing sharp restrictions on the initiative process. SB 5382 would have imposed onerous new requirements on signature gathering and signature checking in the name of a non-existent election security problem. The main result would have been to make it much harder for the people to qualify initiatives and referendums for consideration. This would reduce the people’s opportunity to challenge a Legislature that goes too far, as they did last year when they collected 3.2 million signatures and qualified seven initiatives. Apparently this is the problem this bill aimed to solve. It would have impaired the people’s ability to fight back by curtailing a cherished constitutional right. Why did our colleagues have second thoughts? It may have had something to do with testimony from current and former secretaries of state, our state’s top elections officials. They told us the bill served no useful purpose and that it almost certainly would be ruled unconstitutional by the courts.

Woodstove regulation founders: Ecology came to the Legislature this year with a proposal to regulate wood-burning stoves at the state level, duplicating federal regulation that already does the same thing. The excuse was that the state can’t trust the federal Environmental Protection Agency to enforce its own regulations, and the feds might pull back in the future. On the basis of this speculation, SB 5174 would have launched a program of redundant regulation that would have increased costs for manufacturers and consumers and would have driven many stoves from the Washington market due to the cost of compliance. The bill died in committee when Ecology conceded that a year with a multi-billion-dollar shortfall is a terrible time to launch a costly new program with no real justification.

Emergency powers reform fizzles: Republicans were delighted this year when our new Democratic governor pledged to work with us on reasonable restrictions to the governor’s emergency authority. I was proud to be the lead co-sponsor on SB 5434, which gives the Legislature a means to end a declaration of emergency that drags on too long. Unfortunately, Democratic members looked askance at the governor’s decision to cooperate. So in the Senate State Government, Tribal Affairs and Elections Committee, where I am the ranking member, Democratic members hung an amendment that undermines the entire concept. Rather than strengthening the power of the people, the bill now weakens it, by eliminating requirements that the Legislature reauthorize certain emergency proclamations every 30 days. This hot mess of a bill may not even make it to the Senate floor for a vote, and if it does, we have to wonder who would vote for it. Certainly not us.

Eight bills remain in play: This year I introduced 28 bills, and I am pleased to report that eight of them remain alive for further consideration. Three have already passed the Senate, four are awaiting votes on the floor, and one remains eligible for consideration in committee because it has a budgetary impact. Several of these are continuations of work I started in previous sessions. These bills are:

SB 5000, making “The Evergreen State” our official nickname. Passed Senate – you can read about it here,
SB 5033, launching a study of PFAS contamination in biosolids. Are these “forever chemicals” turning up in substances we use to fertilize crops? You can read about last year’s proposal here,
SB 5049, adopting a more flexible meeting schedule for the Legislature’s “Sunshine Committee,” part of an effort to revitalize the panel overseeing public records issues. You can read about last year’s proposal here,
SB 5365, allowing libraries to be funded by parks and recreation districts. Passed Senate,
SB 5552, creating a new building code for kit homes. Passed Senate Tuesday. You can read about it here,
SB 5746, creating an advisory committee to deal with vandalism and theft of electric vehicle charging equipment,
SB 5748, authorizing cities and counties to replace development impact fees with a sales and use tax strictly limited to impact-fee purposes, not to exceed 1 percent. Bill remains in the Senate Ways and Means Committee but remains eligible for consideration; and
SB 5749, creating “housing opportunity zones” in disused malls and other commercial spaces, streamlining the approval process for housing conversions.

But wait — there’s more!: Other controversial bills that will be debated in the weeks ahead include proposals to reduce and lighten sentences for convicted adult felons and juvenile offenders, unemployment insurance for striking workers, rent control and a measure gutting last year’s parental rights initiative.

Budget and taxes, coming right up: Next comes the part of the session where we consider state spending and the taxes that pay for it. Look out for floor fights! This year we have a $6.7 billion shortfall caused by our majority colleagues’ irresponsible spending over the last several sessions. They want us to believe the problem is even bigger than that, because they want to pay for state employee salary increases and other things we really can’t afford. You’ll be staggered by all the new taxes our friends are proposing. A list appears below. And that’s just the operating budget. There’s also a proposal to replace our state’s gas tax with a “road usage charge,” a proposal that will hit hardest at rural regions like ours, where we drive longer distances.

We’ll be doing battle on these issues until we adjourn. I don’t think we’ll be getting any rest until we leave Olympia for the year.