Washington State Legislative Update 

Week of April 7 – 11, 2025

With the passing of the Tuesday, April 8 deadline for bills to be voted out of fiscal committees, the legislative process now enters its next phase. Both the House and Senate will shift their focus to floor debates, caucus, and conference committee negotiations as they work through the last two weeks of the 2025 regular legislative session. The next deadline of consequence is the Opposite Floor Cutoff on April 16 by which bills must be voted out of the opposite chamber.

Although the broader legislature remains focused on voting on policy bills through April 16, budget negotiations are ongoing behind the scenes. Fiscal leaders are grappling with how to reconcile their funding priorities with concerns raised by Governor Ferguson last week, especially around proposed revenue measures. The central challenge is finding common ground between legislative goals and the governor’s push for reduced spending and less new revenue.

Rent Cap Legislation Advances

One of the most consequential – and certainly one of the most oxygen-consuming legislative showdowns of the week centered around HB 1217 (Alvarado, D-34). This bill, which seeks to implement a cap on rent increases along with a suite of other housing-related provisions, ignited significant debate and mobilized a wide array of lawmakers, advocates, and stakeholders, with communications flooding into legislative email boxes. The legislation is a flashpoint in the broader conversation about housing affordability, laying bare the deep divides on this issue across the state.

When HB 1217 reached the House floor on March 10, 83 amendments were offered—most of them put forth by the minority party in an effort to slow down the legislative process and dissuade democrat leadership from advancing the bill. Despite the procedural roadblocks, the bill cleared the democrat-led House and proceeded to the Senate, where it continued to stir debate.

On Tuesday, the bill passed through the Senate Ways & Means Committee, with only one democrat—Senator Cleveland (D-49)—casting a dissenting vote. The very next evening, it was pulled from the Senate Rules Committee and brought to the floor for a vote the following day on Thursday afternoon. With such little turnaround time, only 34 amendments were proposed, though many were ultimately withdrawn during debate.

Throughout its journey, HB 1217 has been a lightning rod not only for partisan criticism but also for deeply emotional intra-party conflict among democrats. On the Senate floor, Senator Shewmanke (D-42) offered an amendment to raise the rent cap from 7% to 10%+CPI. This passed with Senators Cleveland (D-49), Cortes (D-18), Liias (D-21), Lovick (D-44), Salomon (D-32), and Shewmake (D-42), supporting. The Liias (D-21) amendment exempts single family homes if they aren’t owned by a real estate development trust or company. Senators Cleveland (D-49), Cortes (D-18), Krishnadasan (D-26), Liias (D-21), Salomon (D-32), and Shewmake (D-42) voted in support. Ultimately on final passage, the only democrat to vote no to the bill as amended was Senator Cleveland (D-49). The bill will now return to the House for further negotiation.

Brian Heywood Submits Property Tax Initiative

On Tuesday, the founder of Let’s Go Washington filed another measure, this time aiming to reduce the allowable property tax increase from 1% to 0.5%. Local governments—such as cities, counties, fire districts, and school districts—often rely heavily on property taxes to fund services. Jurisdictions needing more than 0.5% increases would then need to seek voter-approved levy lid lifts more often and with less revenue, local jurisdictions might need to reduce spending. For this initiative to be certified, petitions must be submitted no later than 5pm on July 3, 2025, and must contain the signatures of at least 308,911 registered voters (386,000 are recommended to allow for invalid signatures).

This new initiative may join another proposal introduced by Heywood, which seeks to repeal SB 5181. SB 5181 is a bill that modifies the parental rights initiative previously passed by the legislature last year. As of now, SB 5181 has not been passed into law. For either or both of these measures to appear on the November ballot, they must gather a sufficient number of valid voter signatures and submit by the deadline of July 3.

Final Steps for a Bill: Concurrence, Conference, Enrollment & Signatures

If the bill has been amended by the second house, the first house has to decide whether it will concur in the amendments or not. Leadership decides which bills returned from the second house will be discussed and places those bills on the concurrence calendar (House) or concurring calendar (Senate). If the first house concurs in the amendments, the bill has passed the Legislature.

If the first house disagrees with the second house, it can ask the second house to recede from the amendments. If the second house recedes, the bill has passed the Legislature.

If the two houses cannot resolve their differences, one of them can ask for a conference committee. Members from each house meet to discuss the differences. If they agree on what is to be done, the conference committee makes a report. Both houses must adopt the conference committee report for the bill to pass the Legislature. If one house does not adopt the conference committee report (whether by vote or inaction), the bill has not passed.

Once a bill has finally passed the Legislature, it is enrolled. A certificate proclaiming that it has passed is attached and, if necessary, the amendments from the second house or conference committee are incorporated into the body of the bill. The bill is signed by the Speaker of the House, the Chief Clerk of the House, the President of the Senate, and the Secretary of the Senate and is sent, sometimes a few days later, to the governor for his action.

Bills that are delivered to the governor more than five days before the Legislature adjourns have five days to be acted on. Bills that are delivered fewer than five days before the Legislature adjourns have 20 days to be acted on by the governor. Both are counted as calendar days, not business days. Sundays are not counted, but Saturdays and state holidays are counted. If you would like to receive notice of batch bill signings, please contact Sheila.Johnson-Teeter@GOV.wa.gov. To attend a bill signing, you must be invited by the legislation’s sponsor.

Important Dates:

  • Monday, January 13 – First Day of Session
  • Friday, February 21 – Policy Committee Cutoff, House of Origin
  • Friday, February 28 – Fiscal Committee Cutoff, House of Origin
  • Wednesday, March 12 – House of Origin Floor Cutoff
  • Wednesday, April 2 – Policy Committee Cutoff, Opposite House
  • Tuesday, April 8 – Fiscal Committee Cutoff, Opposite House
  • Wednesday, April 16 – Opposite House Floor Cutoff
  • Sunday, April 27 – Sine Die

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Brynn Brady

Ceiba Consulting, Inc.

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