What passed, what failed and how did our legislators vote?
See a copy of the scorecard here.
As noted in the May/June issue of Business Pulse, there were many bills introduced during the 2025 legislative session that impacted businesses and their employees in Whatcom County and across the state.
Thankfully many of the anti-business bills did not advance. However, several did pass and were signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson to become law this year.
Given the number of bills that passed, we divided the 2025 recap into two parts, with the main recap and scorecard below.
The following bills were covered in the previous issue, and can be found at businesspulse.com, starting on Page 48:
House Bill 1217 to enact rent restrictions and statewide rent control
House Bill 1296/Senate Bill 5181 to repeal most of the Parental Rights Initiative (I-2081)
Senate Bill 5004 to mandate school security panic buttons
Senate Bill 5041 to provide unemployment benefits for striking workers.
The final biennial state budget for 2025-2027, as passed by the Washington Legislature and signed by Gov. Ferguson, was $77.9 billion, an 8.2 percent increase from the current state budget expenditures. This growth in state government was the result of the largest tax increase in state history and $4.5 billion in new state spending.
The state was facing an approximate $7.5 billion shortfall/deficit when the session started in January. Gov. Ferguson said throughout session that he did not plan to balance the budget with “significant” tax increases. At the same time, some Democrat legislators wanted to pass new taxes including a wealth tax on assets, a payroll tax on employers based on the salary level for some of their “high-earning” employees, and a bill that would allow state and local governments to increase property taxes by 3 percent each year (an increase from the current 1 percent without a public vote). All three of these proposals failed. Here is a breakdown of the majority of the $12.5 billion in state and local taxes that were passed and signed into law:
• $1.6 billion: Property tax increase authority for some local school districts
• $2.6 billion: Sales tax increase
• $5.6 billion: Business and occupation tax increase
• $637 million: Capital gains income tax and death/estate tax increase
• $385 million: New tax on storage units and other industries
• $281 million: New Tesla tax
Below is a list of the major business and Whatcom County-related bills that were voted on this year and how our legislators in Whatcom County (40th and 42nd districts) voted.
See a copy of the scorecard here.
Dann Mead Smith is the co-founder and co-director of Project 42. He is the former president/CEO of Washington Policy Center and is a regular contributor for Business Pulse. Dann lives part-time in Birch Bay and Seattle.