OLYMPIA, Wash. — Legislators have one week to finish up their business in Olympia and their “to-do” list is quite lengthy.
Public safety bills and those dealing with social issues are still on the table, but the only requirement for legislators is to pass a two-year budget, and on Friday, the House took a step towards putting a tax increase into that new budget.
The House Finance Committee passed a bill to raise the state’s real estate excise tax, the tax charged to homeowners when they sell their homes. Supporters say the increase would raise $200 million a year for the state to go towards building more affordable housing.
”We understand that revenue is functionally taxes takes on people, its taxes on businesses, we take it very seriously, and at this moment we have a very serious crisis with housing and I believe this is a tool we can use as a state to address it,” said Rep. April Berg, D-Mill Creek.
Those in opposition argued the tax will impact the affordable housing crisis negatively.
“People that are moving, because they’re trying to get a job, and they’re trying to move up, now a higher cost to sell their home means they’ve got less money to put down on the next one. And this does affect affordable housing,” said Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama.
It’s not clear if that tax increase will be part of the final budget proposal, but if it is the governor told KING 5, he would likely support it.
Along with the budget, legislators have two public safety bills that need to be finalized, police pursuits and drug possession laws.
For a lot of people, these two issues are more important than anything else lawmakers deal with this year.
Since 2021 when the state put the toughest limits in the country on when police can pursue someone, police have been pleading with lawmakers to allow for more pursuits. There was a bill early in the session to roll back those restrictions, but a version some critics say is too watered down appears likely to pass. It would allow for more chases, but still not for crimes like car theft and burglaries.
“Pursuits are inherently dangerous. If we’re going to be allowing vehicular pursuits for property crimes where no one is physically injured, that’s going to result in some mayhem and death,” said Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland.
On drug possession, there was talk of making drug possession a felony again, even complete legalization this session, but those have been narrowed down to two options. The Senate passed a bill making drug possession a gross misdemeanor but the House opted for a more lenient misdemeanor with an emphasis on treatment in both cases. But, police argue the threat of jail time needs to be in months not days as the House version proposes.
“We think the house version with a misdemeanor penalty is going to result in more people taking those few days in jail, far fewer people getting into treatment. It’s the wrong direction,” said Steven Strachan with the Association of Sheriffs & Police Chiefs.
Legislators made a lot of folks happy by scrapping the study that looked at a potential new airport, but not everyone at the Capitol was happy about it.
If you’ve been to Sea-Tac lately you know it’s having a hard time keeping up with the growth of western Washington, but because of all that growth, there aren’t many places left to put a new airport.
“You don’t see me with my hair on fire all that often, but you might today,” said Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent.
Back in 2019, she got a bill passed to come up with a committee to identify potential sites for a new major airport. She said Sea-Tac is dangerously close to reaching capacity. That committee came up with three possible locations, two in rural Pierce County and another in Thurston County.
Residents in those communities wanted no part of that citing concerns about the environment, traffic and property values. They said they didn’t get to have a say in the matter because the study was conducted during the pandemic.
Now, legislators are backing a bill to scrap that study and start all over with more public input and perhaps looking at expanding existing smaller airports, like what’s happened at Paine Field. Keiser said the state has to face the facts.
“We have some flights that go from Sea-Tac, short-haul flights to Portland. Alaska Airlines has 15 flights a day, Delta has seven flights a day, but the airport has 1,000 flights a day, it’s a drop in the bucket,” Keiser said.
Finally, in something that had more agreement, it looks like the state will be getting an official state dinosaur, the Suciasaurus rex. Four years after a fourth-grade class came up with the proposal, it finally passed off the floor of the House and Senate.