Dear Neighbors,  

The Senate adjourned its biennial short (60 day) session on March 12. This was another challenging session marked by budget constraints, time limits, and difficult choices. Thank you for reading along this session, and keep reading for budget wins for the district, public bank progress, my bills, and a look at what’s next. 

Budget wins 

After the Senate passed our proposed budget, the House passed theirs. After this, we met to iron out the discrepancies in our documents so we can send the final budgets to the governor for signature. There are some great provisions for the district in both the transportation and capital supplemental budgets.  

Transportation budget allocations  

The transportation budget covers transportation needs for the state, like designing and maintaining roads and public transit. The supplemental transportation budget focuses on preservation of our current infrastructure, including $17 million to the critical 42nd Avenue Bridge, which serves the Allentown community and is the main access to the BNSF Intermodal Hub.  

Capital budget allocations  

The capital budget covers state buildings, public schools, parks, public colleges and universities, and other public land and community projects.  There is some excellent funding coming to the 11th District: 

  • $309,000 to Fort Dent Park bathroom upgrades 
  • $509,000 to Renton Resource Center 
  • $155,000 to Starfire LED lighting retrofit 
  • $500,000 to Renton Street safety 
  • $1 million to Center of Success for affordable housing 

Public bank progress 

There’s a proviso in the final operating budget to create a public bank work group, which would write an implementation plan to stand up a publicly owned state bank. The group will have experts in the field, the director of the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, representatives from the treasurer’s, auditor’s, and insurance commissioner’s offices, and a member from both the House and Senate.  

The plan they craft will have recommendations for the bank’s structure, start-up funds, and implementation.  

This is a massive step forward, and I’m excited for this work to begin.  

My bills 

SJM 8002, my joint memorial requesting Congress take certain actions so Medicare beneficiaries won’t pay more for choosing original Medicare and ensuring they have a choice between the public and private programs, was filed with the Secretary of State. This is the final step for a joint memorial at the state level and states our official position to our federal representatives. Now, copies of the joint memorial will be sent to our congressional delegation and the president. 

Gov. Bob Ferguson signed HB 1408, the House companion to my bill (SB 5460), into law. I discussed this bill recently — you can read more here.  

‘Dead’ bills 

I sponsored several bills, which I plan to reintroduce next year, including:  

  • Establishing health care as a right in our Washington State Constitution 
  • Several bills to lay the foundation for universal health care in our state 
  • Opening conversations about a possible full-time legislature for our state  
  • Addressing working families’ issues at a foundational/systems level because band-aid and reactionary solutions are clearly not working for working families 
  • And many more to protect Washingtonians from federal actions and expand our civil rights.  

Other good legislation 

We passed some excellent legislation this session, despite the challenges.  

  • SB 5892 will prevent federal officials from seizing sensitive voter data from Washington state. This includes social security numbers, drivers’ license numbers, and birthdates.  
  • SB 5855 bans ICE agents from wearing face coverings while interacting with the public in Washington. This means Washingtonians will know who they are interacting with during law enforcement interactions, making the encounters more transparent and safer for everyone.  
  • HB 2242 protects Washingtonians’ health by ensuring our vaccine guidance is rooted in science, not politics.   
  • SB 6162 expands the Senior Citizen Property Tax Relief Program to an additional 30,000 households, so seniors, those with disabilities, and disabled veterans can afford to stay in their homes.  

Millionaires Tax 

After 24 hours on the floor, the House passed SB 6346, better known as the “Millionaires Tax.” On a technical level, this bill taxes income over $1 million. If a household made $1,000,500 one year, they would only pay the tax on that last $500. Everything below $1 million is exempt from this tax. In our district of approximately 170,000 people, an estimated 165 households would pay this tax. 

On a practical level, these funds will be used to fund public defense services, expand eligibility for the Working Families Tax Credit, increase the B&O tax credit for small businesses, increase the general B&O filing threshold, eliminate sales and use tax on diapers, grooming, and hygiene products, and more.  

This creates real relief for Washingtonians and continues the process of flipping our upside-down tax code.   

What’s next 

We head into interim! Interim is both a time to catch up on everything we miss during the legislative session (sleep, work, or anything else Olympia keeps us from) and an opportunity to prepare for the upcoming session.  

I’m looking forward to continuing my work on universal health care in Washington state. The people of Washington deserve affordable and accessible health care, and I’ll remain focused on this issue. We made excellent progress this session, and I’m confident we’ll continue to do so.  

I introduced a bill during week nine of session — SB 6358. Typically, we don’t introduce legislation this late in session because there is no time to hear the bill in committee, but I wanted to start an important conversation about money in politics and elections. This bill is similar to ideas introduced in California, Montana, and Delaware. I think everyone would agree there is far too much money involved in our elections and we should look at ways to keep elections fair by curbing millions, if not billions, of dollars in special interest spending. My intent is to shift power back to people, not corporations, in political campaigns. Corporate political spending was growing before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, which declared that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited, overturning previous restrictions on political spending by corporations and unions. But the decision opened the floodgates to unlimited super PAC spending and undisclosed dark money that is buying our democracy today. Between 2008 and 2024, so called “independent” expenditures reported by outside groups exploded more than 28-fold — from $144 million to $4.21 billion, plus unreported dark money also skyrocketed. 

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If you have ideas for policies I should introduce next session or improvements to any bill you saw this session, please reach out! I’m sure you’ve thought, “There ought to be a law to …” 

Contact 

Below are some great ways to contact and keep in touch with my office.  

Phone: 360-786-7616 (during regular business hours; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) 

Email me! 

Sign up for my introduction sheet distribution list to see the new legislation introduced every day.  

If you’d like to schedule me to speak with your organization to talk about my important initiatives on public banking, social housing, universal health care, or other issues, please schedule something with my legislative office manager and scheduler, Sarah Reuben, at sarah.reuben@leg.wa.gov. 

Thank you for reading and following along this session and trusting me in this role to represent our 11th District.  

Talk to you soon.
Bob