A Lefty's Guide To What The Fuck Happened In the 2025 Washington Legislative Session
- Hannah Krieg
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
After 105 days of back-room wrangling, egomaniac managing, and budgetary bloodbath, state lawmakers wrapped up Washington State’s 69th legislative session early Sunday evening. But for a State boasting a Democratic majority in both Chambers and an alleged Democrat sitting in the Governor’s Office, Washington state progressives, lefties, otherwise disaffecteds walked away with very few big ticket wins. Here’s the highlight (and the lowlight) reel.
Wealth Tax Walk Back: Democratic lawmakers chickened out on their big, bold $4 billion wealth tax. Hate that? Blame Gov. Bob Ferguson. Control freak Ferg struggled to accept the concept that the legislature wields legislative power, not him. So early this session, he admonished the Democrats for relying on an untested tax to balance the $16 billion budget. The Democrats plotted a workaround behind the scenes, but ultimately capitulated to Ferguson, quietly killing the wealth tax and replacing it with $12 billion worth of other, more familiar revenue streams and $4 billion in cuts, a wealth tax sized crater in the budget. But then Ferguson moved the goal posts — turns out, he feared more than just the novelty of the wealth tax, he feared taxing corporate powerplayers and the ultra wealthy at all. Ferguson publicly scolded the Democrats again, but the chess master failed to illustrate his own, winning strategy.
Hail Mary: In the end, the legislature passed a $78 billion budget sans wealth tax. But still, the wealth tax appears well positioned for the next session. Sen. Noel Frame (D-Seattle), in a surprise move, called a vote on her ever-contracting-and- expanding wealth tax proposal on the last day of session. The proposal, about half the size of her original $4 billion wealth tax, but much larger than Ferguson’s pre-approved test balloon tax, passed with flying colors after many of her colleagues spoke in passionate support of taxing the rich on the Senate floor. Every Senate Democrat voted to pass her wealth tax except for Sen. Marko Liias (D-Edmonds) and Drew Hansen (D-Bainbridge). The wealth tax had not gained any traction in the other Chamber. The House probably could have kicked into overdrive and forced a vote on the popular measure — the night was young! But House leadership decided to call it a day instead.
Second Most Regressive In The Nation, Baby: Democrats abandoned the wealth tax, returning to Washington lawmakers favorite way to generate revenue: further crushing working people under the weight of the State’s regressive tax code. Lawmakers hiked fees on the Discover Pass, court filings, and more. They also taxed “joy” as House Minority Leader Rep.
Drew Stokesbary (R-Auburn) likes to frame it, by raising taxes on nicotine products and gas. I’ll dive more into this later in the week, so stick around.
Wins For Working People: It wasn’t all bad!
Democrats scored a historic victory, passing a rent stabilization policy that will cap rents at the lesser of 7% plus inflation and 10% on the final day of session after soap opera level drama all session.
They also brokered a modest compromise on a policy to give striking workers unemployment benefits — the Senate wanted to give striking workers 12 weeks of benefits, the House wanted four, they settled on six.
And finally, the legislature approved a budget without any furloughs, which sounds like the absolute lowest bar in history, but Ferguson really tested State workers patience with his furlough scheme. A win’s a win.
Republicans Get Wrecked: I’m not sure how the Republicans show up to work every day knowing how little power they wield. Must be maddening. Maybe they should just give up (please do)! Anyway, this session Republicans took some major Ls.
Republicans got their asses handed to them when the Democrats scraped most of the blatant anti-queer, anti-trans elements out of the Parent’s Bill of Rights initiative the hedge fund CEO Brian Heywood thrust upon us last year.
The gas tax hike marks yet another major loss for Republicans that will probably have to hear about for the rest of our lives.
The Democrats also pulled tricky maneuver to target Tesla with a tax on an EV subsidy
But at least they got their way on a thorny debate over closing two schools for disabled people that advocates wanted to see shuttered after years of abuse.
Blue State Who? But the session wasn’t all dunks on Republicans. Democrats also betrayed their own base. Just a few years after making abortion access the centerpiece of their policy agenda following the fall of Roe, Democrats, in their budget cut frenzy, slashed funding to abortion access by 55%. This cut feels especially devastating to reproductive justice advocates under threat of the Trump administration. Right now, Washington needs to ramp up capacity in anticipation for abortion care refugees, not stifle it. I guess the Democrats would rather collude with Trump on his forcible birth plot than tax the rich. grumbles about corporate duopoly
A Session of grief: Washington lawmakers endured several instances of personal loss this session. Titan of the Tri-Cities who served her district in the legislature for 23 years, former Rep. Shirley Hankins, died at 93 in January. In March, the legislature lost a giant in Washington State politics, Rep. Frank Chopp, a few months into his retirement after 30 years of lawmaking in Olympia. Sitting-Senator Bill Ramos also unexpectedly passed away in the homestretch of the session. His colleagues covered his desk in flowers and displayed his portrait in Senate Chambers for the remainder of the session. On the final day of session, both Chambers sent their condolences to Sen. Chris Gildon (R-Puyallup) whose wife Autumn passed away over the weekend.
All told, working people fought and won some important victories. But for the most part, the wealthiest Washingtonians walked away smiling — and until movements outside Olympia turn up the pressure, that probably won’t change.
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