Washington’s 2025 legislative priorities: Budget, housing, police - Anlık Haber

The Washington State Legislature 2025 session kicks off <a>today</a> with a new host of bills and other major issues lawmakers need to tackle before adjourning in late April.

Ahead of the session, you can find a list of some of the pre-filed bills lawmakers have already introduced and may be considering this year. They include <a href=”https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?billnumber=5067&year=2025″>reducing the blood alcohol concentration limit from 0.08 to 0.05</a>; <a href=”https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?billnumber=5098&year=2025″>adding more public places</a> to the lists of locations where guns and weapons are prohibited; and a <a href=”https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?billnumber=5010&year=2025″>proposal to fund cameras for election drop boxes</a>, after a ballot box was set on fire in Vancouver last year.

Here are some of the issues Cascade PBS will be watching during the 105-day session:

The budget

As it is an odd year numerically, lawmakers need to work on a new biennial budget for the state. Expect a lot of negotiating and reconfiguring this year as Washington faces a budget shortfall of potentially $10 billion to $16 billion over the next four years.

As usual, Democrats and Republicans do not see eye-to-eye on how to shore up the 2025-27 budget.

While Democratic leaders do believe some cuts that can be made for certain programs, House and Senate Democrats have said they are in support of creating new sources of revenue, especially in the wake of voters upholding the capital gains tax on the November ballot.

“The voters gave us clues about where we should do that,” said Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, <a href=”https://www.king5.com/article/news/politics/new-taxes-new-lgbtq-legislative-leaders-washington/281-f9644a9e-df32-4ee6-a19d-9569da214c00″>in a December interview with KING 5</a>. “We should be taxing rich people and companies that can afford to pay more and that fairly should be paying more to support the services that we all benefit from as a community.”

And at least one lawmaker, Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, supports creating a <a href=”https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2024/12/23/democrat-senators-email-reveals-tax-ideas-wa-lawmakers-may-debate/”>new “wealth tax”</a> for the state’s highest earners, a proposal she also introduced last year but that did not pass.

Other proposals may be on the docket this year as well. In December, <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/briefs/2024/12/gov-jay-inslees-final-budget-proposal-includes-new-wealth-tax”>Gov. Jay Inslee released a budget proposal</a> to the Legislature calling for a 1% wealth tax on residents who make more than $100 million a year. He also proposed an increase in the state’s B&O tax, which would temporarily tax businesses with an annual income over $1 million at 20%. A 10% B&O tax would also be levied on some businesses in 2027 under the proposal.

But Republicans disagree on the need for more revenue sources, with Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, noting that he believed the deficit is the result of a spending problem and that tackling the budget should be addressed by cutting unnecessary items instead of raising new taxes.

Other Republicans, such as Washington GOP Chairman Jim Walsh, claimed on the social media platform X that the state does not have a budget crisis, instead saying that the deficits are “projections and scare tactics” used by Democrats to fearmonger.

Democrats could see pushback from their own party as well, as incoming Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson said in a December interview that he <a href=”https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/gov-elect-bob-fergusons-early-approach-to-fix-wa-10b-budget-deficit/”>was not ready to support any tax increases</a> quite yet. Instead, Ferguson has proposed other ideas to trim the state budget, such as potentially cutting a state agency altogether, although he declined to say which one. Also, Ferguson’s transition team includes a subcommittee on reducing state spending.

More money for cops

Several bills have been pre-filed that aim to fund the hiring of law enforcement officials in the state.

During his campaign, Ferguson proposed a $100 million grant program to support local governments’ hiring of more law enforcement officers. He <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/politics/2025/01/wa-cop-shortage-persists-statewide-lawmakers-gear-olympia”>affirmed his commitment</a> to that campaign promise at a press availability and in a <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/briefs/2025/01/fergusons-budget-priorities-list-both-cuts-new-spending-wa”>budget priorities statement</a> on Thursday.

A <a href=”https://www.chronline.com/stories/bipartisan-bill-seeks-100-million-for-washington-state-law-enforcement-hiring,370530″>bipartisan proposal introduced in December</a> by Sen. Jeff Holy, R-Cheney, would take $100 million from the state’s general fund to support the hiring of local and Tribal law enforcement officers for a grant program. Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, is also signed on as a <a href=”https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=5060&Year=2025&Initiative=false”>co-sponsor of the bill</a>.

Another proposal, introduced by Rep. Amy Walen, D-Kirkland, would authorize counties and cities to impose a sales and use tax as a credit against the state sales and use tax to provide funding to attract and retain officers.

Housing

Building on the past several years of success with bills to increase the housing supply in Washington, lawmakers have dropped bills to continue that success.

Rep. Andrew Barkis, R-Olympia, has reintroduced <a href=”https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?billnumber=1096&year=2025″>a bipartisan bill to allow lot-splitting</a>, which would allow the division of a single residential lot under certain conditions. It passed the House in both 2023 and 2024, but hit snags in the Senate.

While efforts to pass legislation that would have prevented landlords from raising tenant rents more than 7% in a year did not succeed in 2024, a similar bill has been forward this year. In lieu of statewide renter protections, last year <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/news/2024/12/wa-cities-expanded-renter-protections-state-efforts-stalled”>many cities like Spokane and Olympia</a> passed other policies to help renters, although state law prohibits cities from passing their own policies on rent control. A recent Cascade PBS/Elway Poll showed that <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/politics/2025/01/poll-wa-voters-want-2025-legislature-focus-their-pocketbooks”>68% of Washington voters</a> are in favor of limiting the amount landlords can raise the rent.

Expect to see more housing bills introduced as the Legislature gets into full swing.

More gun control measures

Democratic lawmakers have taken major steps in the past few years aiming to curtail gun violence by passing a ban on assault weapons, banning “high capacity” magazines, and placing limitations on where people in the state can have guns.

Now, Democratic lawmakers are looking at other options for the upcoming session.

Rep. Darya Farivar, D-Seattle, is co-sponsoring legislation with other Democrats to limit the bulk purchase and transfers of firearms and ammunition, which would prevent firearms dealers from delivering more than one firearm to a purchaser in a 30-day period. Additionally, the amount of ammo a purchaser can buy in a 30-day period would be limited: no more than 100 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition, or more than 1,000 rounds of any other caliber of ammo.

The advocacy group Alliance for Gun Responsibility released their policy agenda in December, which noted that they are pushing for a “permit-to-purchase” system in the state. <a href=”https://www.theolympian.com/news/politics-government/article272340658.html”>A similar proposal in the Legislature failed to pass last year</a>.

Topics: <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/budget” hreflang=”en”>budget</a>, <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/housing” hreflang=”en”>Housing</a>, <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/police” hreflang=”en”>police</a>, <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/politics-0″ hreflang=”en”>politics</a>, <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/washington-legislature” hreflang=”en”>Washington Legislature</a>

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