Note: The following e-newsletter was sent to Sen. Leonard Christian’s subscribers March 13, 2026. To subscribe to Sen. Christian’s e-newsletters, click here.
Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck brings down the final gavel in the Senate to end the 2026 session at 8:23 p.m. Thursday.
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
The 2026 legislative session has ended, and the best thing about it is that it is over. Under control of an unchecked Democratic majority, this year’s Legislature enacted numerous laws that will increase the power of government over the people and make life in this state more expensive. This effort culminated in the signature bill of the session – no doubt the worst bill of the last century — forcing an income tax on the people of Washington over their dead-set opposition.
Though this income tax would start as a tax on high earners and the small-business owners unfortunate enough to be caught in its net, if it is signed into law and survives court challenges, we can be sure it would soon be extended to all of us. This is because our colleagues also approved an $80 billion budget so out of whack that even if the income tax survives, we can count on deficits as soon as next year, together with new pressure for higher taxes. We can expect an effort to expand this new income tax as surely as night follows day.
Adding insult to injury, the income tax bill contains a “necessity clause” preventing the people from filing a referendum to overturn the tax. This means that that if concerned citizens want to do anything about it, they would need to file an initiative, which requires double the signatures. I doubt this would stop anyone, but it certainly demonstrates the majority’s disdain for the people we serve.
There were a few positive developments this year. We won funding for local projects, including a $400,000 appropriation for the proposed $25 million Spokane Valley ice arena and $258,000 for accessibility amenities at Spokane Valley’s Balfour Park. The North-South freeway remains on track for completion in the 2029-31 biennium. The operating budget restores $65 million cut last year from our state’s wildfire reduction program, and ensures this innovative and very successful strategy will continue.
Other bright spots? Well, if you think the bills that passed this year are bad, you should have seen the ones we defeated. But that’s just a temporary reprieve. Odds are they’ll be back next year.
A turnaround we didn’t need
The overall result of this year’s session was to take our state so far down the wrong path we’re going to have a tough time finding our way back. This is really one of the most astonishing turnarounds in American political history. When our Democratic colleagues took full control of the statehouse in 2018 – the House, the Senate and the governor’s office – they inherited a state with sound finances, moderate taxation, an attractive business climate and a sensible approach to social issues and crime. In less than a decade, by holding true to their principles, they have managed to blow it all up.
State spending has doubled in the last 10 years. Crime is up, homelessness is up, taxes and cost of living are up, and thanks to new climate taxes on gasoline, we have the second-highest gas prices in the country. In 2017, CNBC ranked Washington as the No. 1 state for business climate and support for job growth. Today we rank Number 41. The Tax Foundation reports that we have slipped from No. 5 in tax competitiveness in 2014 to 45th. Costly state regulations make us the fifth most expensive state for housing. And so on. In every important metric we have fallen.
Our decline has already begun, and now it accelerates. Business organizations are warning of mass exodus. Forty-four percent of business owners say they are considering leaving. Las Vegas real estate agents say they are being swarmed by Washington refugees. And how about Starbucks’ announcement last week that it is building a new corporate headquarters in Tennessee? For now the company is saying they’ll keep their Seattle offices, but do you really think they need two headquarters?
So much for our prosperity of the last 40 years. The most perplexing thing is that Washington did this to itself. This had nothing to do with the federal government or national economic conditions. The problem is that some people wanted things this way. Then they got themselves elected to the Legislature, and the rest of us didn’t have the votes to stop them.
This week Jason Mercier of the Mountain States Policy Center came up with the best metaphor of all – the final scene of the movie Planet of the Apes, when our hero comes across the ruined Statue of Liberty, realizes he’s been on the planet Earth the entire time, and exclaims, “You maniacs! You blew it all up!” The day after adjournment, there are many of us who are feeling like Charlton Heston.
Planet of the Apes: “You maniacs! You blew it all up!”
Worst bills of the year
Budget, taxes, agenda-driven legislation take state in wrong direction
Here’s a quick recap of the year’s legislative-policy highlights.
SPENDING TO THE MAX: This year’s supplemental operating budget bill, Senate Bill 5998, brings state spending for 2025-27 to $80.2 billion. It continues the trend of dramatic spending increases under current legislative leadership — an 11.3 percent increase from the previous biennium, nearly double the rate of inflation. Worth noting is the fact that it spends about $5 billion more than the state expects in tax revenue, by spending down state reserves, taking money from the state Rainy Day Fund and pension funds and utilizing other accounting maneuvers.
Yet for all this new spending, this budget cuts programs that people hold dear — like the state’s Working Connections childcare program, which provides childcare subsidies for low-income parents, and K-12 education, which has seen its share of the budget shrink to 42 percent, lower than it was in 2012 when the state Supreme Court issued its ruling in the McCleary case forcing greater spending on public schools.
If current spending patterns continue, the budget sets us up for an enormous deficit next year. The next budget will balance only if the next Legislature can keep spending increases to 2.4 percent. The problem is that the average budget growth under Democratic leadership has been 15 percent, and the majority has shown no interest in restraint.
OVERRIDING THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE: Senate Bill 5974, the “anti-sheriff bill,” gives an unelected board appointed by the governor the ability to remove elected county sheriffs from office when they don’t toe Olympia’s line. The measure aims to quash independent thinking on policing, non-cooperation with federal immigration officials, and other top-down policies favored by the Legislature and Olympia bureaucracy.
GOVERNMENT-SANCTIONED FISHING EXPEDITIONS: Senate Bill 5925 greatly expands the attorney general’s ability to go after businesses, individuals, non-profit organizations and law enforcement agencies, by expanding its power to make “Civil Investigative Demands.” The AG’s office would be allowed to demand records and compel testimony without proof of a crime, in hopes of finding a violation that might lead to charges.
DOUBLING DOWN AGAINST ICE: A 2019 law already prohibits Washington law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, a policy now being tested in the courts in an Adams County case. Senate Bill 5855 escalates the war on feds by prohibiting immigration agents from wearing masks when in Washington, sure to raise constitutional questions regarding federal supremacy.
ENDING TAXPAYER PROTECTIONS: House Bill 2442 dramatically expands the ability of cities and counties to raise taxes and fees by loosening longstanding safeguards for taxpayers. Among other things, the bill ends requirements for voter approval and removes limits on tax increases and their duration, and erodes voter oversight and accountability.
EXPANSION OF TAXPAYER-FUNDED ABORTION PROGRAMS: Senate Bill 6182 taxes health insurers to support Washington abortion clinics. Senate Bill 5917 allows the state to redistribute an enormous stockpile of abortion pills it purchased starting in 2023, free of charge, to clinics in the state of Washington and possibly across state lines.
BILLS THAT DIDN’T PASS are just as troubling – and any of them might be reintroduced next year. Other agenda-driven legislation included bills to restrict the people’s right of initiative (Senate Bill 5973), prosecute violations of civil environmental laws as felony crimes (Senate Bill 5360), prevent law enforcement from shutting down homeless camps on public property (House Bill 2489), weaken Washington’s “Three Strikes” law (Senate Bill 5945) and give state government the power to interfere in local-government permitting processes for housing in the name of protecting tribal cultural resources (Senate Bill 5609).
Reminder: Town hall meeting March 28
We’ll have plenty to talk about when I get home to Spokane Valley! I’m looking forward to discussing it with you at our town hall meeting on March 28. This town hall will start at 10 a.m. at CenterPlace Regional Event Center, 2426 N. Discovery Place. I hope you’ll be able to make it!
A final roundup
With my fellow members of the Senate Republican Caucus — working for you in Olympia!
Newsletter goes monthly
This is my last weekly e-newsletter of the 2026 legislative session. We’ll be back in April as we move to a monthly schedule for the interim. I hope you’re enjoying these updates from Olympia as much I enjoy offering them. And please stay in touch. The session may be over, but I am here to serve you year-round.
Thanks for reading,
Leonard Christian
4th Legislative District
Contact me!
If you have a comment about state government, or a concern with a state agency, I hope you will reach out to my office. My most important duty is to serve you.
Mailing address: Post Office Box 40404, Olympia, WA 98504
Email: Leonard.Christian@leg.wa.gov
Phone: (360) 786-7606
Leave a message on the Legislative Hotline: 1 (800) 562-6000