March 4, 2025

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Greetings from Olympia! The 2025 legislative session recently reached another key deadline. Last Friday was the deadline for the Senate’s two budget committees – Ways and Means, and Transportation – to pass Senate bills sent to them.

With that “cutoff” for voting behind us, the Senate is now devoting several hours each day to floor sessions that start in the morning and end late in the afternoon or well into the evening. During these floor sessions, my Senate colleagues and I will debate and vote on Senate bills that survived the committee phase of session. The Senate’s deadline to pass its own bills (known as “floor cutoff”) is Wednesday, March 12.

After floor cutoff, Senate committees will start holding public hearings on bills approved by the House of Representatives, and the House will do likewise with bills passed by the Senate.

The 2025 legislative session is scheduled to end April 27.

17^th District “Zoom” town-hall meeting March 13

I hope you can join me and Reps. Kevin Waters and David Stuebe for a 17^th District town-hall meeting that is scheduled for Thursday, March 13, from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. This virtual event will be held via Zoom. Please pre-register for the meeting by opening this link.

The agenda will include discussing some of the key issues of this year’s legislative session, including the upcoming state operating, capital and transportation budgets. We also will talk about K-12 education and other issues, and respond to questions and concerns from those attending.

I hope you can join us on March 13 to learn more about how this session is going!

Senator Harris gives a Senate floor speech.  

Senate passes two Harris bills

Last week the state Senate unanimously approved two bills that I introduced this year.

Substitute Senate Bill 5370 would give voters in seven Washington port districts the option of extending the terms of their port commissioners to six years, rather than the current four years. Most port districts already have three commissioners serving six-year terms.

If the voters agree, this would make port-commission terms uniform across the state. For these seven port districts, longer terms would promote the stability that can be especially useful for work on long-term projects.

Officials with the Washington Public Ports Association and Port of Camas-Washougal testified in support of SSB 5370 during its public hearing in the Senate Local Government Committee.

Earlier last week, the Senate also approved Substitute Senate Bill 5316, which would modify the procedures and notification requirements for unclaimed property. The measure was requested by the state Department of Revenue.

It’s nice that my first bill passed by the Senate would ultimately put more money back in consumers’ pockets. SB 5316 is ultimately about protecting citizens from predatory behavior related to unclaimed property. The sooner it becomes law, the better.

Both Senate Bill 5370 and SB 5316 are now in the House of Representatives for further consideration.

Still seeking Senate page applicants!

If you know a teenager who might like to be a Senate page for one week this session, applications are still being taken. The application form is here. As a state senator, I can sponsor up to eight Senate pages during the legislative session, and I still have six page slots available. The available weeks are March 10-14, March 17-21, March 24-28, March 31-April 4 and April 7-11. Please contact my office soon if you know a teen who is interested.   

Senate pages help senators and their offices and deliver messages to members on the Senate floor. Pages attend and participate in Page School, where they learn more about how the Legislature works. Pages earn a stipend of $65 a day and can earn up to 20 hours of community service.   

Pages must be 14 to 16 years old at the time they participate in the program (they can be a page before their 17th birthday), and they must attend a school in Washington or be homeschooled in our state. To be a page, students must receive approval and recommendation from their teacher and principal. (This requirement is waived for homeschooled students.)

The page program is a great way for Washington teens to see the Legislature in action and to meet other students from around the state.

For more information about the Senate Page Program, please go here. You can also email the page program at SenatePageProgram@leg.wa.gov if you have questions.

An elementary school classroom.

Bill seeks to undermine parental-rights initiative 

One of the more controversial bills of this session is Senate Bill 5181 , which would undermine the parental-rights law approved by the Legislature last year.

I joined other Republicans in voting against SB 5181 when the Senate passed it along party lines, 30-19. During my floor speech against it, I told other senators that I had received hundreds and hundreds of emails from people concerned about this proposal, which would undo important rights guaranteed by Initiative 2081.

I-2081 was submitted to the Legislature at the start of the 2024 session after roughly 454,000 Washington voters signed petition sheets in support of it.

SB 5181 would eliminate or weaken parents’ access to school-related medical information, including:

• Prior notification when medical services are offered (except in emergencies).
• Notification when medical services or medication could impact health insurance.
• Notification when school-arranged medical treatment results in follow-up care.

Before the final vote on the measure, the Senate approved amendments offered by Republicans:

• One requires immediate notification of parents if there has been a shooting on school property.
• Another preserves the provision granting parents and legal guardians the right to receive immediate notification, if a criminal action has been committed against their child or their child has been detained on probable cause of involvement in criminal activity.
• A third restores the provision granting parents and legal guardians the right to receive “immediate notification,” rather than notification at the first opportunity and within 48 hours in all cases, if law enforcement personnel question their child during a custodial interrogation at the school during the school day, except in cases where the parent or legal guardian has been accused of abusing or neglecting the child.

SB 5181 has gone to the House of Representatives for further consideration.

The Capitol at sunset earlier this year.

House bill could triple property-tax growth limit

Property owners should keep an eye on a bill that is lurking in the House. It’s House Bill 1334, which is in the House Finance Committee. This proposal would triple the limit on the annual growth of regular property-tax rates, which has been 1% since the passage of Initiative 747 in 2001.

It’s important to point out that this limit applies only to rate increases approved at a commission-council level; cities and counties have always had the option of asking their voters to approve an increase of more than 1% per year, if they feel the 1% cap on “councilmanic” increases is too restrictive.

Although HB 1334 was not approved by the House committee by last week’s budget-committee deadline, it is possible this measure could be resurrected if it is considered to be necessary to implement the upcoming two-year state operating budget.

For many years, the 1% property-tax cap has provided protection for hard-working families across Washington. By controlling the growth of property taxes, it also is good for renters. Many 17^th District constituents have contacted me to express their opposition to HB 1334. I will keep a close watch on this bill.         

Highway 14 in Clark County.

Road-usage charge bill could be still alive

One of the more discussed bills this session would create what is basically a vehicle-mileage tax.

Both the Senate and House have versions (Senate Bill 5726 and House Bill 1921) of a proposal that would create a “road-usage charge” or “RUC.” The bill states this 2.6-cents-per-mile tax is to be used only for maintenance and preservation of highways – but that is not guaranteed, the way our state constitution guarantees the money from the state gas tax may only be used for highway purposes.

The RUC bill also would create an assessment equal to 10% of the road usage charge. The revenues from this tax-on-a-tax could only be used for rail, bike, pedestrian and public-transportation items.

Under this proposed RUC program, electric vehicles and gas-electric hybrids would be required to participate starting July 1, 2029, with gas-only vehicles being forced to take part as of July 1, 2031. 

One of the complaints about this bill is the large amount of money that would be needed to administer the RUC program. In fact, the overhead cost would be about 10% of the total program. This is far more than the very low overhead cost to collect the state’s gas tax from drivers.

Another problem with the RUC bill is that even though it is promoted as a replacement for the state’s gas tax, Washington still would need to keep the state gas-tax system to help pay off bonds used to fund highway-construction projects over the years.

If you are a driver who must travel many miles to work or school or a store, a road-usage charge could become very expensive. It would be especially unfair to many 17^th District residents and other people living in rural Washington.

Let me know if I can help

One of the ways I can serve you and the 17^th District better is by reaching out to me. If you will be in Olympia during the legislative session and want to meet with me, please click here to set up an in-person meeting. You also may click here to set up a virtual meeting. You may also contact me with questions, concerns, and input. The bottom line is, my door is open and I’m here to listen. Thank you for trusting me.

It’s an honor to serve you.

Sincerely,

PLEASE NOTE: Any email or documents you provide to this office may be subject to disclosure under RCW 42.56. If you would prefer to communicate by phone, please contact Sen. Harris’s Olympia office at (360) 786-7632.

To request public records from Sen. Harris, please contact Tim Ford, the designated public records officer for the Secretary of the Senate and Senate members, at Senate.PublicRecords@leg.wa.gov​.