The election results in Washington state are now certified, and we have a clear picture of which lawmakers will be in Olympia for the start of the legislative session in January.
Democrats have had a majority in Olympia since 2018 and still have control of the legislature after November's election. Democrats even picked up a couple more seats to expand the majority, there are a lot of new faces and some important changing dynamics for both chambers.
Joining KNKX Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick to break down what happened in the election and what could happen this session is Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay.
Click “Listen” above to hear their conversation, or read the transcript below.
Transcript
Note: This transcript is provided for reference only and may contain typos. Please confirm accuracy before quoting.
KNKX Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick: Jeanie, it's good to have you here.
Olympia Correspondent Jeanie Lindsay: Hello. Good to be here.
Kendrick: Let's start with a recap of which seats Democrats have picked up and how this might influence the upcoming session.
Lindsay: Right. Democrats flipped a seat in the 26th Legislative District, which is around Gig Harbor, and they flipped a Vancouver Senate seat, which is being vacated by a Republican, but the result there was so close that it's gone to a recount.
Now, the Democrats I just mentioned might not be the most leftist progressives in the Democratic caucuses, but there's going to be a lot of newcomers who are replacing outgoing senators there, and that will likely make the group a little more left leaning on the House side.
There are plenty of newcomers there too, including Shaun Scott, who is, I think the Legislature's first Democratic Socialist, and he's been elected to represent the 43rd district, which covers a lot of the densest areas of Seattle, downtown and in Capitol Hill.
Kendrick: Well, during the last legislative session, there was an effort to pass a rent stabilization bill. Can you remind us what that would have done? And do you think this more liberal group of lawmakers will take it up again this session?
Lindsay: I mean, absolutely, they're already talking about it. It was a big priority for House Democrats last year, and the top line of that bill is that it would have capped the amount a landlord can raise a tenant's rent each year for tenants who want to stay in their homes. And so after that legislation passed the House, it failed in the Senate without even getting a vote, because three Democrats blocked it, and two of those three aren't coming back.
I asked the new Senate Majority Leader for the Democrats, Senator Jamie Pedersen, about how all this turnover might change things for that particular policy, and he says that it's likely that voters elected a Senate where that bill will pass.
Kendrick: All right, it'll be interesting to see what happens there, and this new Legislature, Jeanie will also have to work on closing a pretty big budget gap next session. What's going on there?
Lindsay: Yeah, Washington has a roughly $12 billion deficit over the next four years, and it might even be a couple billion dollars larger than that. It's been described by officials as sort of “a perfect storm.”
This gap is really a shortage of money to pay for programs that have already been promised. Costs have gone up. Revenues aren't coming in as high as lawmakers had hoped or expected, and COVID money from the feds went away.
Critics, especially Republicans, who always want the state to spend less money overall, say that it could have been avoided if they had been more careful when the state was flush with cash.
But we're here now, and the governor is directing agencies to freeze hiring and nonessential travel, and state agencies are also being asked to find places to reduce costs and where cuts could come in, which could mean delaying some services, including in child care, or just cutting others outright.
Kendrick: It sounds like a lot of cuts are expected at this point, but who will have the final say on what gets saved and what doesn't?
Lindsay: Gov. Jay Inslee is going to propose a budget with cuts pretty soon over the next couple of weeks, but incoming governor, Attorney General, Bob Ferguson, he's going to be the one in charge when deal making begins, and he's been described as “hawkish” when it comes to budget issues. So it might be a very different dynamic there. I've been told that he's going to release his own spending plan at some point, and ultimately he's going to be the one holding the veto pen when the budget passes in the spring.
Kendrick: All right, more to come. Jeannie, thank you so much.
Lindsay: Yeah, happy to do it.
