(Photo: Jovelle Tamayo for Crosscut) It’s a high-stakes year in the Washington state Legislature. If you’ve been reading the news, you’ve probably heard about proposals to provide pandemic relief, tax the rich, protect tenants from mass eviction and more. But some transformative bills have been flying mostly under the radar. One of them, Senate Bill 5188, could create a Washington state public bank.
If this bill succeeds, our state will be poised to establish the second public bank in the nation. The first opened its doors in North Dakota all the way back in 1919.