(intense music) - Welcome to The Newsfeed.

In today's episode, the Washington State Legislative session wrapped this month.

State lawmakers considered and passed a variety of issues.

The recent legislative session was short, but lawmakers hammered out a lengthy list of bills to send to the governor's desk.

While Washington lawmakers said they expected to focus on housing and homelessness, behavioral health, the environment, public safety and transportation, the outcome was mixed.

Disappointing housing advocates.

Most housing proposals didn't make it to the governor's desk, including a bill that would make it easier for larger residential lots to be split into properties as small as 2000 square feet.

Democratic lawmakers did succeed in one of their top priorities, the passage of gun legislation that requires gun owners to report stolen guns to law enforcement within 24 hours or face potential fines up to $1,000.

On the environmental front, lawmakers approved a plan to change the new cap and invest system as a step toward joining a larger market.

The legislature also set aside 50 million for electric school buses and 150 million for utility customer rebates.

I sat down with news editor, Donna Gordon Blankinship to learn more about the key takeaways from the 2024 legislative session and how it may affect you.

Welcome to The Newsfeed, Donna.

Thank you for joining us today.

- Thank you for inviting me, Paris.

- The legislative session is just wrapped and I wanna frame our conversation around expectations and surprises about key policies that are top of mind for Washingtonians.

Let's talk about housing.

- Last year, they said the session was all about housing and they passed a lot of significant bills, and we all thought this year would be part two of that, didn't turn out that way.

Most of the housing initiatives that advocates and Democrats wanted to pass didn't pass.

There were proposals to do rent stability, some proposals to make more dense housing in places like Seattle and other municipalities.

And those bills all failed.

A couple bills did pass, though.

One that was really interesting was a bill that made it legal for non-related people to live in a house.

In a lot of municipalities, that's against the code and the legislature said, "No, you can no longer make that against the code."

- There was movement on gun legislation.

What came about with that?

- Yeah, that was a little surprising to me 'cause I wasn't aware that it was even being debated this time.

But one bill that passed was a rule that if your gun is stolen, you only have 24 hours to report it stolen, which seems logical.

If your gun stolen, you're gonna report it, but apparently not everyone reports it, and so the police aren't able to track stolen guns, which are the guns that end up in the hands of people committing crimes a lot of times.

Another bill that passed that had a lot of conservative opposition, but still passed because, of course, Washington's legislature is controlled by Democrats, was a proposal to add new security for all gun sales.

So even if you are a gun seller that you sell out of your home, which is not uncommon, you are now required to have certain kinds of security and also cameras watching your transactions.

- When we talk about some notable environmental bills, there were a few that also saw some movement as well.

- The main environmental project right now in Washington is the Climate Commitment Act, which is the cap and invest program.

And so as you probably remember, this past year was the first year of it, and a lot of money was raised.

So now the legislature gets to do the invest part and spend that money.

And some of the spending decisions were made around putting money into electric school buses, setting aside some money to change, varies from fuel to electric, and then they also made some changes in our cap and invest law so that we can become friendlier with other cap and trade systems in California and in Canada.

- One thing that always happens with the legislature is there are surprises, and this particular session wasn't void of that.

Let's talk about some surprises that came up.

- So one thing that was a little bit surprising is there had been six initiatives to the legislature proposed by a conservative group.

And the way initiatives to legislature work is if they don't pass, if the legislature doesn't take action, they go directly to the ballot in the fall.

So the intention is these are initiatives that someone wants to get on the ballot basically, and the legislature actually passed three of them.

Instead of them going on the ballot, they were the three easiest ones to pass.

So we'll still be considering tax initiatives in the fall about eliminating the cap invest program and also our capital gains taxes up for a vote.

And so that'll be still be a really interesting election in the fall.

One other surprise was a bunch of veteran lawmakers have announced that they won't be running for reelection.

The most notable one, in my opinion, is Frank Chopp, who was in the legislature for 30 years, including 20 years as the speaker of the house.

- Thank you so much, Donna, for your time.

It's always a pleasure when you join us.

- Thank you, Paris.

It was my pleasure as well.

- If you wanna read more of our politics coverage, just go to crosscut.com.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) Local rideshare drivers and advocates say they are tired of being targets of violence.

We'll tell you why they're calling on Seattle's mayor, following the killing of another driver.

Rideshare drivers advocacy groups and their families are calling for the violence to stop in Washington following the death of another driver.

On January 3rd, A 31-year-old Somalian Rideshare driver was killed after dropping off a customer in Edmonds.

Since 2025, Rideshare drivers have been killed in the Seattle area, fearful of more killings and other violence, Rideshare drivers and advocates want Seattle City officials to help them strategize ways to improve driver safety, such as creating a task force.

In a statement, the mayor's office says, quote, "Rideshare drivers deserve to be safe."

Mayor Harrell remains committed to working with Rideshare drivers, impacted families, the driver's association and labor partners to develop meaningful, effective, and sustainable policies to protect drivers.

But the Mayor's office also says State law currently restricts cities from enacting their own regulations related to Rideshare operations.

(gentle music) The City of Seattle releases its proposal for what kind of houses and where they can be built in a new plan that would cover the next 20 years.

We'll explain what it means.

There is more insight on what housing could look like in Seattle over the next two decades, residential growth has been shaped by the city's so-called Urban Village Strategy.

The city of Seattle recently released its proposal for a new comprehensive plan for the next 20 years of growth, calling for expanding the boundaries of dense neighborhoods and designating new areas of the city for population growth to prepare for reaching 1 million residents by 2050.

The proposal which will have to be approved by the city council, outlines what kind of housing can be built, how much can be built, and where it would go.

It would also create a new neighborhood designation that allows more corner stores and restaurants to be built near housing and implements the state's new missing middle housing law to allow four to six homes on single family home lots.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching the newsfeed, your destination for nonprofit Northwest News.

Go to crosscut.com for more.

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