OLYMPIA — Rattled by national events and responding to crises closer to home, Washington's majority Democrats muscled through major legislation during the session that came to a close Sunday.
After years of attempts, they passed a ban on sales of AR-15s and dozens of other models of weapons, responding to the unending series of mass shootings throughout the country.
They stiffened protections for abortion rights and stockpiled thousands of doses of abortion medication after the Supreme Court knocked down Roe v. Wade.
They passed sweeping legislation allowing for duplexes and fourplexes throughout most of the state, and poured hundreds of millions of dollars into programs to combat the crisis in housing affordability and homelessness.
But the 2023 session also ended with a dramatic failure. Lawmakers couldn't reach a deal on criminal penalties for drug possession — voting down a negotiated compromise proposal and setting the stage for a possible special session in the coming months.
Before that setback, Democrats largely framed the session as a success.
"I think we accomplished most of what we came here to do," said state Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, pointing to the abortion and gun laws, and to boosted special education spending. "It was certainly more fun than the previous two years."
The session was the first since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to see legislators return to the Capitol for in-person committee hearings and floor debates. Pedersen and others credited that for the pace and breadth of legislation that was passed.
"It made a huge difference just to be able to turn to someone you are sitting next to and say, 'Do you want to work on this together?' — which you can't do on Zoom," said state Rep. Gerry Pollet, D-Seattle.
Lawmakers wrapped up their work Sunday by adopting a $69 billion operating budget for the next two years that funds pay raises for teachers and state employees, and devotes new money to mental health, emergency housing and rental aid.
It was the sixth year in a row that lawmakers finished their budget work and adjourned on time, a task made easier by dominant Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. Lawmakers passed more than 450 bills, and by Sunday, more than 150 had been signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee.
While Republicans were vastly outnumbered and unable to block action on gun restrictions and other laws they vehemently opposed, there were areas of bipartisan agreement, such as on massive state construction and transportation budgets passed with widespread support from both parties.
Here's a look of some of the major decisions made by Washington's lawmakers during the 105-day session:
Housing
In what leaders, including the governor, called the most important focus of the session, legislators took on the housing crisis with policies aimed at boosting the supply of places to live and a budget containing about $1 billion in spending. In the end, though, they brushed aside Inslee's big housing proposal.
House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, pointed to housing as one of the areas of bipartisan agreement this session.
"We had a really great Venn diagram with some of what the Republican values were," Jinkins said, when it came to increasing the supply of housing.
Legislators passed a landmark bill to allow multifamily housing in nearly every part of the state, intending to boost the number of duplexes and fourplexes in neighborhoods now reserved for single-family homes. And they approved legislation to assist people affected by the legacy of racist housing covenants that kept nonwhite people out of certain neighborhoods for generations. That bill offers help with down payments and closing costs.
But lawmakers didn't agree on some other major housing bills, including one that would have allowed property owners to split their lots and another to promote more housing development near transit stops.
And a significant proposal that lawmakers all but ignored was one Inslee championed in December. He had proposed borrowing $4 billion to fund a housing construction push, but that got very little traction in the Capitol. Instead, lawmakers agreed to put $400 million in the state's construction budget toward the state's Housing Trust Fund, which finances affordable housing development.
Despite the rebuff, the governor praised lawmakers for the focus on housing. "This was a year we needed to go big on housing, and that's exactly what legislators did," he said in a statement.
Abortion
Democrats mounted a multipronged response to the fall of Roe v. Wade, passing policies to secure the health data of patients and to protect Washingtonians from prosecution and civil cases filed from out of state for seeking an abortion. However, lawmakers didn't pass a change to the state's constitution that would enshrine the right to abortion and contraception.
In early April, amid uncertainty over access to the abortion pill mifepristone, Inslee directed the Department of Corrections to stockpile the drug. Lawmakers pushed through a bill to allow the state to distribute the pill through its pharmacy. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to allow access to the drug while lawsuits over its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration go on.
Guns and Police Chases
Public safety issues prompted some of the touchier debates inside the Capitol.
Democrats passed a slate of gun restrictions, led by the ban on the sale, distribution and manufacture of AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles dubbed "assault weapons" — a term that opponents protested was made up.
Lawmakers also passed a law requiring proof of firearm safety training and a 10-day waiting period for gun purchases. They approved another bill giving the Attorney General's Office the ability to sue gun manufacturers if their products are negligently sold to minors or criminals or used in mass shootings.
After facing consistent pressure from law enforcement officials and many suburban mayors, the Legislature also somewhat begrudgingly passed a partial rollback of restrictions on when police can engage in car chases with suspects. The compromise bill was approved with a mix of Republicans and Democrats voting for and against it.
Drug Possession
Lawmakers announced a tentative deal late Saturday to raise the penalty for drug possession, but the compromise was pummeled by members of both parties and was rejected after a passionate House debate.
Critics on the right viewed it as too weak on illicit behavior and critics on the left said it unwisely relied on jailing people with substance use problems.
"Harsh penalties don't dissuade drug usage, but they do have unintended consequences like barring people from housing and services," said Rep. Chipalo Street, D-Seattle, during the floor debate. "Please don't double down on the mistakes of the past and the war on drugs."
Rep. Greg Cheney, R-Battle Ground, said the compromise bill didn't require people using illegal drugs to take responsibility. "They refuse to acknowledge they have a problem and don't want the help," he said. "At some point, for the safety of the community, they have to go to jail."
The House voted down the compromise 43-55 on Sunday evening, a stunning setback after weeks of negotiations.
A July 1 deadline looms. That's when the state's current statute classifying possession of illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine as a misdemeanor is set to expire.
In 2021, the Legislature had agreed to make drug possession a misdemeanor as a temporary fix, after the state Supreme Court, in a ruling known as the Blake decision, threw out the state's felony drug-possession statute.
The bill rejected Sunday night would have raised drug possession penalties from the current misdemeanor level to a gross misdemeanor, boosting the potential jail sentence from 90 days to as many as 364. It would have also preempted cities from passing laws to regulate drug paraphernalia, and allocated $271 million toward spending on drug treatment, housing and other support for people with substance use disorder.
Inslee on Sunday night called the notion of leaving no criminal penalty for drug possession "unacceptable" and indicated lawmakers should find a compromise before July. He did not immediately call for a special session.
Spending
On Sunday, legislators voted to pass the state's two-year, roughly $69 billion budget. Spending has more than doubled on the state budget in the past decade, not accounting for inflation. A tax on capital gains, passed in 2021, is expected to bring in about $1 billion over the next two years.
But this year's budget doesn't include any general tax increases. A bid to raise the state tax on the sale of high-end real estate failed, as did legislation to reform the 1% cap on the growth of property tax collections.
Special education funding received a boost of $417 million, and lawmakers voted to raise the cap on the per-district and per-student funds the state allocates.
What's Next for Inslee
The end of the legislative session means lawmakers and state officials can turn their attention to their political futures, including the 2024 election.
One shake-up came Sunday afternoon, as House Republican Leader J.T. Wilcox announced he'll step aside as GOP leader, leaving someone else to lead the caucus and its efforts to win a majority.
"I've said in the past that if my leadership didn't result in better results and a more balanced Legislature for our state, then it was time for a change," Wilcox said in an email to other members of the Legislature. "That time is now."
All eyes are now on Inslee, who is expected to announce shortly whether he'll step aside or run for an unprecedented fourth term as governor.
With Democratic politicians including Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz itching to move up, Inslee's decision will go a long way toward determining whether the 2024 election landscape is wide open — or stagnant.
