Note: The following e-newsletter was sent to Sen. Leonard Christian’s subscribers April 11, 2025. To subscribe to Sen. Christian’s e-newsletters, click here.
When the cherry trees blossom at the state Capitol in early April, we know that adjournment is near.
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Policy issues got the spotlight in Olympia this week while budget negotiators went behind closed doors to come up with a new plan for taxes and spending. The rest of us are in the dark. This is what we expect at this point of a legislative session, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
With just two weeks to go before our scheduled adjournment on April 27, our Democratic colleagues are rewriting their plan for the biggest tax increase in the history of the state. This is because the governor threatened to veto the last version they came up with. Until our friends emerge from their conclave and present their Plan B to the Legislature, we have no clue what they will propose. You’re probably wondering if you will be taxed to death. Join the club. They say we’ll find out next week. Such is life in the minority.
In the meantime, the rest of us are staying busy with floor action in the House and Senate on the hundreds of bills that remain alive for consideration. Some of the most controversial bills of this year’s session are awaiting votes in the coming days. Three biggies came up in the Senate this week – rent control, a bill to give more authority to public health officials, and a second go-round on parental rights.
Rent control: Solving a problem by making it worse
Our majority colleagues in the Senate Thursday came to the aid of beleaguered renters in Washington state by passing a bill that will make their plight even worse. To combat fast-rising rents, the Senate passed a heavily amended version of House Bill 1217. As it now stands, this bill limits rent increases to 10 percent annually plus inflation, and it lets small landlords off the hook. During Thursday’s floor debate, Republicans worked with moderate Democrats to pass amendments making the bill less onerous, but voted against the ultimate bill. The final count was 29-20, largely along party lines. The bill now returns to the House, where strident majority members hope to restore its harsher provisions.
Because of the amendments on the Senate floor, the current bill is an improvement over earlier versions. Still it does nothing to address the real problem in our state, the fact that we are not building enough affordable rental housing. Indeed, we are not building enough housing of any type. Our housing shortage gets worse by the year, and high demand plus short supply is what drives prices up. If you think that limiting rent increases, restricting potential profits and hamstringing landlords with regulation will get more rental units built, you don’t understand economics. Instead we will see the same sorry result as we have everywhere else this has been tried. Rent increases will be restricted, but renters will face much greater difficulty finding places to live.
What we really have is a math problem. You can limit rent increases but you can’t limit the growth of landlord expenses. It is a mathematical certainty that eventually expenditures will exceed the return. If this bill passes, I am sure I will have to remind people of this a couple of years from now when people start complaining there are no rentals available.
Parental rights: Different bill, same basic problem
Parental rights and local control of our public schools took another beating in the Senate Friday as majority lawmakers passed House Bill 1296 on a party-line vote, 30-19. The measure now returns to the House for concurrence on amendments. This is the House version of the bill gutting last year’s parental rights initiative, and it is every bit as offensive as the version passed in the Senate earlier this session.
Initiative 2081, signed by 454,000 Washington voters last year, countered the ideology-driven mandates being forced on public schools by the Legislature and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. It established that parents have a right to be notified of academic, medical, safety and law enforcement matters involving their children, to have access to school materials and records, and to opt their children out of certain activities. Our majority colleagues decided last year to pass this measure rather than allowing it to advance to the ballot – and that gives them the ability to rewrite it this year with a simple majority vote.
At this point it appears the House bill will be the final vehicle. This bill removes one of the worst provisions of the Senate measure, prohibiting schools from notifying parents during medical emergencies. But in other respects it is worse, allowing the state to withhold up to 20 percent of a district’s constitutionally guaranteed basic-education funding if it doesn’t comply with partisan mandates from Olympia. This bill interferes in the parent-child relationship, allows the state to dictate to schools, and insults the thousands of people who worked to place the initiative before the Legislature. Once again, the Legislature’s current leadership is showing its disdain for the people it serves.
Stifling dissent in the next pandemic
If you liked the way Washington state government responded to the COVID pandemic, you’re going to love House Bill 1531. This bill gives such broad authority to public health officials in times of crisis that within the Legislature it has been nicknamed “Fauci’s Law.” This unofficial name is a nod to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the controversial former national chief medical advisor whose arbitrary and controversial edicts directed the national response to COVID.
This bill declares that public health responses to future outbreaks must be “guided by the best available science,” and directs state and local health officials to promote and implement measures to control the spread of disease. It prohibits local governments from taking actions that get in their way. The Senate’s 31-18 vote Thursday sends this bill to the governor’s desk for his signature.
This bill is so vague that it isn’t clear exactly what powers it grants to public health officials. But it appears to open the door to heavy-handed efforts to quash dissent from official policy. During committee hearings, advocates kept talking about preventing the spread of “misinformation,” which certainly sounds ominous to those of us who believe in free speech. I don’t know about you, but after this last pandemic, I want to hear about all the science, not just the science that the government agrees with.
Spokane Valley pastor leads invocation
I had the honor of welcoming a special guest to the Senate this week. On Wednesday the invocation in the Senate was presented by Pastor Danny Schulz of Sun City Church, which I attend in Spokane Valley. It was terrific to see a familiar face from back home!
Reader poll:
Your views on the governor’s veto threat
Overwhelming support for a do-over on the budget
What do you think of the governor’s demand that majority lawmakers tear up their budgets and start over? In response to last week’s survey question, an astonishing 97 percent of you say he did the right thing.
Last week Gov. Bob Ferguson sent budget-writers in the House and Senate back to the drawing board. They had proposed roughly $20 billion in new taxes, enough to cover their reckless spending in previous years and allowing them to continue the same mistakes in the future.
The governor offered a most unusual rebuke: He told his own party he would veto any budget that drains the Rainy-Day Fund, relies on unrealistic budget projections, substantially increases new spending, fails to enact significant savings, and relies on new taxes that could be challenged and overturned by the courts. What will our colleagues come up with next? Stay tuned.
Thanks to Karl Petersen for serving as a Senate page!
This week I was delighted to host Karl Petersen as a page in the Washington Senate. Karl, 14, is a student in the East Valley School District and the son of Amanda and Vincent Petersen. It was great to meet Karl, and I am glad he enjoyed his experience as a page. This program gives youths from ages 14 to 16 an opportunity to spend a week working in the Legislature. Students get a chance to see how the business of lawmaking really works and earn a small stipend in the process. Applications for the 2026 session open Nov. 1. For more information, click here.
Thanks for reading,
Leonard Christian
4th Legislative District
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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 |