Friends and neighbors,
With fall setting into our community, the 2022 legislative session is just around the corner. While plenty of work is happening behind the scenes to prepare legislation that will benefit our entire state, we still have a couple more months before the Legislature fully kicks into gear.
In the meantime, I wanted to highlight a couple of things I’m paying attention to in the last few weeks – from national legislation to local news.
National Infrastructure Bank Bill
Throughout my tenure in the Legislature, one of my top priorities has been to pass legislation to create a comprehensive public bank for Washington. The primary goal of creating a state bank is to increase the state financing capacity while lowering costs to invest in our state – not Wall Street. While the work in Washington is still ongoing, a National Infrastructure Bank (H.R. 3339) bill has been introduced at the federal level.
This is a natural expansion of my state bank proposal but for the entire country. The legislation shows the power of public banking, and the positive impact of investing in our communities rather than corporations. Investments in high speed rail, ubiquitous access to high speed broadband, building publicly owned social housing, building sustainable energy systems, modern urban and freight transportation infrastructure and more are essential to the future of our communities, and would be greatly expanded under this proposal.
Head here to learn more about HR 3339 and ongoing efforts at the federal level!
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Tax Town Halls
We are moving towards addressing the unfair tax structure in our state, but there is still plenty of work to do to create a more equitable tax code for our lower-income neighbors.
While the Tax Town Halls for our District happened last week, you can still weigh in at this link, and you can always reach out to me with ideas about how we can best work together to improve the lives of our neighbors. To watch a recording of one of the town halls, click the photo above or head to this link. Your input is crucial to the process, and towards building the future of your community.
Redistricting is underway
The redistricting process is still ongoing as negotiations for future legislative and congressional maps are underway. This once-a-decade process is crucial to the future of our region, and your input is an essential part of the process.
Head here to provide input and learn more!
News to watch
This week a federal judge ruled that the for-profit operator at the Northwest ICE Processing Center (formerly the Northwest Detention Center) was violating Washington’s minimum wage laws by paying detainee workers only $1 a day. A jury in the case decided that workers must now be paid minimum wage, or $13.69 an hour for their labor.
During the 2021 session, we passed HB 1090 to end Washington’s use of private for-profit prisons. On top of this legislation, the recent ruling is a crucial step towards prioritizing people’s rights over corporate profits.
You can read more background about the case here.
In other news, the state Supreme Court recently ruled that the tax we passed a couple years ago on highly profitable Wall Street banks is constitutional and can go forward. This bill was based on a couple of my past bills that created a windfall profits tax on certain oil and pharmaceutical corporations. Read more about the legislation here.
Stay in touch
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to my office. Even when we aren’t in session, it’s so helpful to hear your thoughts on our community. You can connect with us at Bob.Hasegawa@leg.wa.gov.
In solidarity,
Bob
