WA lawmakers make final deals on policy, budget proposals

Just two weeks are left in the 2023 legislative session in Washington state and lawmakers still have a number of lingering issues to sort out before the April 23 budget deadline. KUOW's Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay joined Kevin Kniestedt to lay out what they still need to accomplish.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Kevin Kniestedt: The biggest thing that still needs to be settled up is, of course, the two-year budget. How are negotiations shaping up for that?

Jeanie Lindsay: Well, right now, those are mostly on pause, but key budget folks are still working that in the background. We heard this week that the House and Senate will likely take longer to sort out some of the details on the main operating budget, like special education funding, and the transportation budget. They're also trying to piece the Climate Commitment Act dollars together. That's the funding from the carbon emissions auctions that are expected to rake in about a half billion dollars in state revenue a year. House Speaker Laurie Jinkins said this week that Democrats in both chambers are mostly aligned on the use of those dollars, but they need to figure out which line items go in which budget, because they have three that they need to deal with.

The House and Senate construction budget leaders are negotiating right now. But at this point, most lawmakers are pretty focused on passing policy bills through their chambers. They're on the floor full time, having some lengthy debates and discussions on key policy proposals. That's because next Wednesday is the cut-off deadline for all of the Senate policy bills in the House to pass out of the House, and vice versa. But lawmakers have until the end of session, which is April 23, to work out the differences and pass the budget.

Okay, so the budget proposals from Senate and House Democrats weren't wildly different, but there was one pretty significant difference: Gov. Jay Inslee has proposed a $4 billion bond measure for affordable housing. The Senate proposal did not include money for that, but the House's did. So, will it make it into the final budget?

We don't know yet, actually. We've heard the Democrats are really interested in increasing the amount that the state is going to spend on affordable housing, but the way that they want to fund that is still up in the air.

As you said, the House has sort of signaled support for that by building in some of the spending that would be required to support [the governor's] proposal into its proposed budget. But they're talking also about increasing the state's real estate excise tax, which is a tax on real estate sales, in order to pay for that — maybe instead of the the governor's bond proposal. But with budget negotiations mostly on hold, we won't know more until likely the final days of session.

The real estate change has traction in the majority party and for some local leaders around the state, but Republicans are not a fan of expanding or increasing any new taxes. And so, that debate is still ongoing. It's important to note that even if lawmakers do decide to go with the governor's bond proposal, that's subject to voter approval. So, even if lawmakers say yes, we're gonna go for it, Washington voters will still have the final say on whether or not that actually can go forward.

There's also been disagreement over what to do with several public safety issues. For example, lawmakers are considering changes to the state's drug possession law and funding for treatment options. Where does that stand now, Jeanie?

Yeah, so we've heard that the bill has been changed by the House. KUOW's Amy Radil has been covering this. The House version has been scaled back on the legal penalties side, so that bill is really still being worked in the House. It covers a lot of ground, though, and Democratic leadership said this week that there's significant alignment across both chambers on the overall structure of the bill and the philosophies behind it.

They're talking a lot about focusing on treatment combined with those legal penalties and sort of finding the right balance there. So, there's quite a bit of alignment, but the sticking points are in some of those finer details. And in striking that balance, the bill has made it through the House committee process this week, and it's ready to hit the floor, where it will likely be subjected to even more proposed changes, especially from Republicans who prefer the Senate's version — some of those tougher legal penalties. But we might even see some from Democrats who want to see this bill do more to destigmatize and decriminalize people who are dealing with addiction. Nothing's ever for certain, though, and we'll see how lengthy those discussions and debates play out.

Got it. Well, we're also entering that point in the session when bills may be amended or cut entirely, depending on priorities, time, and resources. So, what's on the chopping block?

Yeah, we've seen a few bills die in recent days, including a bill that would have given folks the "right to repair," making tech companies provide replacement parts for folks to repair their devices. There was also the Nothing About Us Without Us Act that would have required the state to do more to include people with lived experience on some of the commissions, committees and workgroups on different issues. That didn't make its way through, even after getting pretty broad support. There's also a bill that would have removed the statute of limitations for filing lawsuits for childhood sex abuse. That bill did not make it out of committee. Folks were concerned that that would open up schools or other entities to claims that they couldn't afford to pay. And then, another bill that would have given the attorney general the power to investigate use-of-force cases by police also didn't make it.