Week in Review: March 28, 2025 - with Shauna Sowersby

“Frank Chopp, former WA House speaker and tireless advocate, dies at 71” by Jim Brunner and Paige Cornwell from The Seattle Times

“Frank Chopp remembered as champion for WA housing & homelessness” by Laurel Demkovich and Josh Cohen from Cascade PBS

“WA Democrats’ budget proposals intensify debate on new taxes, spending” by Shauna Sowersby from The Seattle Times

House Democratic Operating Budget Holds the Line on Housing, Food Assistance, and Maintains Critical Services and Programs | Washington State House Democrats

“State Budget Proposals Focus on Highway Expansion in Both Chambers” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist

“WA initiative takes aim at Parents’ Bill of Rights changes” by Sofia Schwarzwalder from The Seattle Times

“WA’s natural gas initiative unconstitutional, King County judge rules” by Conrad Swanson from The Seattle Times

“Sound Transit Picks Dow Constantine, Elevating Board Insider to CEO” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist

“Sound Transit board unites around Dow Constantine in CEO vote” by Mike Lindblom from The Seattle Times

Find stories that Crystal is reading here

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[00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it.

Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows, where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host, state politics reporter for The Seattle Times, Shauna Sowersby. Welcome back!

[00:00:45] Shauna Sowersby: Hi, Crystal - thanks for having me.

[00:00:48] Crystal Fincher: Well, there is a ton to cover about this legislative session, but I want to start off talking about an unfortunate and sudden passing of a legislative leader and giant over the past several decades - Frank Chopp - former Speaker, Frank Chopp. Lots of people have been remembering him, there have been a number of stories about the legacy that he leaves. What stands out to you in reflecting on the remembrances about him and his impact in the state?

[00:01:20] Shauna Sowersby: I think what stands out to me the most is just that throughout my entire time in the legislature, I have never heard a single bad thing about Frank Chopp. Everybody who describes him describes him as just a nice person, a very genuine person. I recently just met him for the first time at the Sunshine Breakfast earlier this month and can agree with everybody else - he was very nice, very respectful. I was a little bummed that I never got to know him a little more than that, but that is the biggest thing that I've noticed - just what a great guy everybody seemed to think he was.

[00:01:56] Crystal Fincher: What achievements of Frank's stand out to you?

[00:02:00] Shauna Sowersby: Arguably, the biggest thing that Frank was known for was his legislation to help build up housing more. Reading through some of the articles from the last couple of days, he helped found the Low Income Housing Institute. Frank also led the Fremont Public Association, now known as Solid Ground - he did a lot of anti-poverty organizing. Gosh, he just did so much.

[00:02:35] Crystal Fincher: He did. What's huge to me is his co-founding of the Housing Trust Fund, which has been so instrumental in so much housing built and provided in the state over so many years. Over $2 billion have been allocated through the Trust Fund to affordable housing projects across the state. He helped create Apple Health and Homes - which is huge - using Medicaid dollars to fund housing services to vulnerable people. His work focused so much on providing housing to those who need it the most, tackling and reducing poverty - just really focusing on people who have systematically been neglected by so many other people and systems. He saw them and he worked for those people and was driven by a desire to do that. And he was very, very effective - just a really effective legislator who understood how to work with people to pass legislation and really establish institutions that have stood the test of time, that are still around today, that are viewed as just kind of the normal fabric of what we consider essential now - that he had such a huge hand in putting in place. So definitely appreciate his work.

And I also noticed that he retired from being Speaker, later retired from the legislature, and played a big role in passing the torch to a new generation - stepping back and supporting new leaders in his community in the 43rd District in Seattle, which I think is another good model for others to follow - helping to develop and lift up other leaders as part of leadership.

[00:04:33] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, he knew when to step down, too - pass that on to the next round of leadership.

[00:04:39] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So we join in the remembrances of Frank Chopp - appreciate his work and his legacy, and he'll definitely be missed by a lot of people.

Want to talk about big news that dropped, I think, late last week into this week - and those are the Senate and House budgets in our Washington state legislature. We are facing a deficit as a state - there's a lot of uncertainty about what's happening in the federal environment. And we have to pass a balanced budget to address the hole that we're facing in the budget, but also fund essential needs - which there are some different views on. What did the Senate put out? What did the House put out? How does that square with what the governor had wished for? And where do we go from here?

[00:05:33] Shauna Sowersby: Oh boy, that's a big question. So the Senate dropped their proposal first on Monday - $78.5 billion is what they're proposing. They are also including several different tax proposals, which Senate lawmakers have said they need in order to make a balanced budget - it just can't work by doing cuts alone - which has kind of gone against what Governor Ferguson initially talked about, which seemed to be leaning more towards an all-cuts type budget. The House released theirs after the Senate did - theirs is a little bit lower, $77.8 billion. And they include less tax revenue sources in theirs than the Senate does - there's only three new tax proposals in theirs versus five that is in the Senate. There's also some big differences in some of the priorities that Governor Ferguson had asked for. He has said that he will not sign a budget that does not include new funding to hire police officers. Interestingly, the Senate did not include funding in their version of the budget. The House has taken a little bit different of an approach of $50 million for community justice projects - it's not directly earmarked to go towards new police hiring, although they do still have a bill that's moving through the legislature that would set up a grant program. The Senate has said that they are going to follow the House's lead - whatever the House proposes, they'll try to move on the Senate side. But it was very interesting to not see that included in their version.

[00:07:24] Crystal Fincher: Well, I guess this is a good point to pause and dive a little deeper into some of these elements. Just starting off - because they're facing a deficit, the ways that you make that up are by cutting spending and/or raising new revenue. There are different perspectives, especially from what the governor has signaled and what legislative leadership has signaled, about the necessity and desire for raising new revenue - which Democrats in the legislature have signaled the need for. And there's a lot of popular support for that, especially when talking about the condition and stature of the Washington state budget in comparison to several others - because of our overall tax structure, we are one of the most regressive taxation states in the country. Now at 49, we used to be at 50 - so there's a little bit of improvement, but still a long way to go. And Democrats say that's because the wealthy are not paying their fair share, that there's been extreme wealth created, and our tax structure has not caught up. And what it does actually focus on in the absence of an income tax is fees and sales taxes and a lot of things that hit people at lower income brackets at a much higher percentage than those at higher income brackets.

So hence the call for right-sizing our tax structure according to Democrats, and saying - Hey, we want to make the wealthy pay their fair share, which they don't believe they are doing now. Bob Ferguson has said we need to trim our spending in departments. I think he said - Before we talk about any revenue, we need to tighten the belt on budgets across the state. And he's moved and proposed a budget that has more cuts, which has not been popular with legislative Democrats, and there's been disagreement over those approaches. And some of that is reflected, as you just said, in this budget - where revenue is there in this budget, where it is not in the governor's budget. Certainly, Republicans do not want to see additional revenue raised. So you talked a little bit about the differences in the revenue proposals between the House and the Senate. Can you talk about what the House is proposing and what the Senate is proposing in terms of new revenue?

[00:09:54] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, so both the House and Senate are proposing a wealth tax, which would tax financial assets like stocks and bonds for individuals with more than $50 million of assets such as those. There is a business tax that's very similar to Seattle's JumpStart Tax, which would remove the cap on employer payroll taxes for companies with $7 million or more - and that is for the Senate side. The House is a little bit different on that one - I believe it's for companies that make over $250 million per year, they're looking to tax. And then both are also looking at a property tax increase. So it would create the ability to raise the current 1% cap that's currently on property taxes, and I believe it's the House who has a cap on that that would max it out at 3%.

[00:10:54] Crystal Fincher: So is that less of a property tax increase and more of a - Hey, we're allowing counties, if they opt to, decide to raise property taxes - which now they're capped at 1%, I think you said 3% is what the cap would raise to.

[00:11:12] Shauna Sowersby: Right, that's exactly what it is. It doesn't mean that this is automatically going to go into effect everywhere. And I know - for the Senate, at least - it would allow the property tax to grow based on population inflation. But again - yes, to your point, local governments have the ability to do it. It does not mean they will do it or that this will be a statewide thing that suddenly goes into effect after Bob Ferguson signs off on it.

[00:11:39] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. So how has the governor signaled his acceptance or willingness to go along with these revenue proposals? They still have to make it through both chambers and work through the whole legislative process. But this will end up on Bob Ferguson's desk - and he has the option to sign, or not sign, or veto. Any idea on what he's indicated?

[00:12:04] Shauna Sowersby: Interestingly, that is something I have been pestering his office about all week. I have not gotten any solid opinions yet from his office - they say that his budget team is still taking a look and will have more information for us later. But on the outset, he says he's just looking forward to negotiating with legislators over the next month.

[00:12:29] Crystal Fincher: They did have some office turnover recently, so maybe they're working through that and not able to get to those questions as fast because of that - maybe.

[00:12:37] Shauna Sowersby: Little busy.

[00:12:38] Crystal Fincher: Well, this is a really interesting process because it is so consequential for so many different families across Washington state - impacting so much. Are there any cuts that are made in the legislative budgets, or things that were noted that were not included?

[00:12:55] Shauna Sowersby: So this is another big difference between the two - furloughs and raises for state employees have been a really hot topic. So the Senate is proposing not giving state employees the raises that they collectively bargained for last year under former governor Jay Inslee. They are foregoing raises in 2026, and those raises would not kick in for state workers until 2027 - In the second year of the biennium - and it would only include the 2% raise. So it wouldn't be the full 5% that they were supposed to be getting. So they'll be taking a 5% cut through furloughs in 2026, and then in the second year, they would get part of the raises. House is not doing that at all - they do not believe that state wages that were collectively bargained for should be cut. Rep. Timm Ormsby - he's the budget writer for the House Democrats - says he does not want to balance the budget off the backs of state employees who keep this state moving. So they are not getting rid of raises, and they are also not asking for any furlough days. And both of these are in contrast, of course, to Governor Ferguson's proposal - which was one furlough day a month for the next two years. So effectively, even though under that they would still be getting their raises, it kind of cancels out their raises if they're being furloughed one day a month.

[00:14:34] Crystal Fincher: Another element that Ryan Packer of The Urbanist has really been on are the transportation proposals - which have caught a lot of people off guard and concerned a lot of people, largely because they focus a lot on highway expansion funded by increasing the state's gas tax, a tax on e-bikes, a luxury car tax, and some allocation of additional funds. So it is controversial, certainly, because of highway widening. And we've talked about this a lot before in the show, but just to reiterate - highway widening does not reduce traffic, even though it is sold that way. Conclusively does not do that. In fact, it makes traffic worse, as we can see from the billions and billions we spent on all of the widening projects so far, while we are experiencing worse traffic on almost all of those so far here locally. So what are we accomplishing? is the biggest question, especially for the kind of impact that that has on the budget, how frequently they suffer from cost overruns that then require bailouts. That sometimes, especially in times like this, require the defunding of other transportation projects and programs in favor of highway widening, which is just largely a drag on budgets, increases the long-term operating budget, and takes us a lot further away from our climate mitigation goals - just not the most effective use in many people's opinions. Other people see it as key to commerce. Certainly, you hear a lot of Republicans in favor of these - also sometimes using the fact that it'll improve traffic. But sometimes they talk about key connectivity for corridors or freight corridors that can be useful or necessary for commerce or other things.

So this is a significant and contentious proposal. Both the House and Senate have proposed versions of that, and it'll be interesting to see how that shakes out. We'll be talking more about that in future shows, but certainly follow The Urbanist and Ryan Packer's reporting there - it has been excellent in getting into a lot of the detail. But also just wondering what the overall approach is - because it's sending very mixed messages about what transportation priorities are, how they align with stated priorities, and the revenue associated with that. So it'll be really interesting to see. So I guess from here, what are the next steps that these budgets take?

[00:17:20] Shauna Sowersby: Well, this is where it starts to get fun. We have exactly one month left until the legislative session is over. Thank goodness. And so for the next month, lawmakers will go back and forth - I believe the Senate said they are going to pass their version of the bill Saturday, House lawmakers will take it up on Monday. And basically, for the next month, they will just go back and forth. And they will negotiate the little nitty gritty details out of everything, pass it back and forth - there's going to be a lot of conferences between the two. There definitely won't be any agreements right off the bat. This first part is where it's kind of the most interesting is seeing where they can agree, where they can't agree. But yeah, it's going to be a long month of negotiations. We are just hoping that we make it out on time and that we do not have to go into special session again.

[00:18:17] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And just a reminder - it does matter what your legislators hear from you about priorities, about what you see in these budgets. So please - if you have opinions, if you have thoughts, If you have questions - call them, contact them, let them know what you're thinking, seek out their town halls. A number have announced teletown halls, in-person town halls, in legislative districts. So you can play a role in this process that is impactful and definitely take advantage of that opportunity. So we will see and continue to follow this, and certainly continue to follow Shauna's reporting in The Times - she is down in Olympia following this every day, so lots of useful information to come.

Also wanted to talk about news of a new statewide initiative, and the finding of another initiative as unconstitutional. So I guess we'll start with the announcement of a new statewide initiative related to the Parents' Bill of Rights. What is this? What would it do?

[00:19:24] Shauna Sowersby: So this, again, is another Brian Heywood-sponsored initiative. Listeners might remember him from last year for getting enough signature for six different initiatives. This one is essentially out there to repeal what is likely to be passed here in the coming weeks. It's a Students' Bill of Rights - focuses a lot on protecting students' mental health. They can have conversations with counselors, and that information does not get back to their parents - that type of thing. So it's really meant to protect students. But critics of this - Republicans - will say that it completely rewrites the Parents' Bill of Rights that was passed last year. And so we're just kind of snowballing with this - started with the initiative kind of undoing some provisions that had previously been in law. Democrats are trying to rewrite that to make it fit into law, but Republicans say it just undoes what the initiative does. So this new initiative seeks to undo what is about to be passed by Democratic lawmakers for student protections. And I don't know if he started gathering signatures on that yet, but expect to be hearing a lot more about it in the coming months, especially if House Bill 1296 passes.

[00:20:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. So this was one of the, as you said, originally proposed initiatives from conservative Brian Heywood - supported by Republicans in the legislature and the State Republican Party - that the Democratic leadership of the legislature opted to pass during session instead of allow it to go to the ballot. Proponents of this bill were advancing this as part of anti-trans bills and sentiments - feeling that it was providing schools, school districts with power and authority that they felt was impactful on kids that they shouldn't have had, that it was taking away rights from parents that they felt that it should have. And other people were saying - consistent with a lot of other issues - that kids need to be safe and receive care. And the ability to receive that was, has been, is important. Trans people exist, are valuable, and should be protected in my and many other people's opinions. But this is really a wedge issue there. Even though it's talking about a Parents' Bill of Rights, that was the motivation behind it - and so a lot of people were worried about that. Democrats basically said - Well, passing this is not ideal. But it does give us the chance to amend it sooner than if it were to go to the ballot as an initiative directly to voters. And so this year, what they're doing is attempting to amend it to take out anything that could be viewed as harmful towards trans people. And Republicans are not happy about this - hence this initiative and saying, Any changes that you make to this are going to be repealed with this initiative. We're going to stick with the original initiative - pass this as an initiative so that it can't be modified. So that's where we're at. This has been a group advancing a lot of ideas that are very unpopular with Washington state residents, as we saw, with the results in last year's elections - declining to pass the majority of those initiatives. So it'll be interesting to see how this proceeds, how this passes, and the attempt to use this as a wedge issue that is not showing up on most voters' ideas of what the most pressing things that they want people to be addressing here in the state. So we'll follow that.

But also, interestingly, regarding one of those other initiatives that was passed last year - a natural gas initiative - that was repealed via the courts. What happened with this?

[00:23:28] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, so I believe this was the only initiative that passed on the ballot this last November. Basically, it's saying we don't want to wind down the use of natural gas here in the state. Voters approved this - I believe it was pretty narrow. But a judge with this most recent initiative said it was too broad - it was kind of going after too many things like building codes and natural gas. And so a judge struck it down. And it sounds like Brian Heywood and the Building Industry Association of Washington are going to appeal it, of course. But we will see how that shakes out in the coming months, possible years.

[00:24:12] Crystal Fincher: Yes, we will. And once again - we saw this a lot with Tim Eyman, who several years back now was kind of a conservative, prolific initiative proponent who successfully passed several initiatives, but had many of them repealed in the courts because they violated Washington state legal and constitutional statutes - which it appears this one did also. So we'll stay tuned about where that stands.

The last thing I want to talk about today was news that impacts people in the greater Puget Sound area - how we get around with Sound Transit. Sound Transit named their newest CEO nominee, Dow Constantine. It was a closed-door process - so the nominees were discussed and held in secret until this announcement. One interesting element of this is that Dow's kind of been an insider in this process. He's been the King County Executive for a long time and so holds special knowledge, perhaps a special position, has relationships with a lot of people in the process. And so there are a number of people questioning the transparency of the process and the validity of it. Did they just pick the comfortable insider who they're friends with, or did they actually go through a nationwide vetting process to select, through an objective, transparent process, who best meets the qualifications that they're looking for? And the position has an annual salary of $650,000, which is not small. So lots of questions around that is kind of the nutshell. And two county councilmembers sit on the board that will approve this. Two of them are running to succeed Dow Constantine - Claudia Balducci and Girmay. And so, opposing a person who can support your opponent or make life hard in other ways is something that people have noticed they may have an interest in not doing - that that is not primarily the general public interest. And so a lot of potential conflicts in this.

Even though, I will say - in this situation, this is an imperfect process for a number of reasons. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they reached a bad result. And I think one thing that is underestimated that we've seen play out in many different ways is that we have a unique political environment here in - particularly western Washington state. Definitely here - the Pierce, King, Snohomish County area that Sound Transit covers. And we've seen a lot of very qualified people in a variety of policy positions - high profile leadership policy positions - kind of get chewed up and spit out in this current political environment. I say, current political environment - the political environment that has existed for a long time now. And it's just different than in other states and in other areas. And that doesn't mean that other states are great or that we're horrible, but it is different here. And a lot more counterintuitive than people are used to in a lot of different states and environments. A lot more cliquish. A lot more that is unsaid - call it passive aggressive, call it whatever you want to call it. But it is challenging to work through and lead major organizations that are involved with policy and implementing major projects because of all the political haranguing and the Seattle process, Washington process. And despite a lot of technical expertise and experience, people who aren't familiar with the political environment - they're basically set up for failure, even though they're terribly qualified, wonderfully qualified in other ways.

And so I understand this pick, as someone who is familiar with the political landscape - and that being an absolute necessity for moving forward. Does that automatically mean that Dow is the best person, right person? No. But does that mean that people who don't have the knowledge and experience to understand and work through this environment aren't? I do believe it means that. I do believe we've seen that a lot, in a lot of different ways. Unfortunately, what that means is that you're artificially shrinking the pool of candidates who can do the job because the job requires navigating through such dysfunction. And a process environment where just because a decision is made - doesn't mean it won't be unmade, or modified even at very late stages in the process, even after hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars have been spent in preparing plans. We've seen that, particularly with Sound Transit. And so I just think the environment makes this a lot more difficult. But if someone doesn't understand the political lay of the land, it's going to be bad news. We've seen that on a local and statewide scale - not just in transportation, but in housing policy and homelessness policy, and a lot of others - people who are coming from outside this environment and who just don't understand how to navigate through it. And so I think that complicates things more. I think everyone has work to do to improve that political environment because that means that more people will be able to successfully navigate through it. But we are not there now.

And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, March 28th, 2025. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today - state politics reporter for The Seattle Times, Shauna Sowersby. You can follow Shauna on Bluesky at @ssowersby. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Bluesky at @HacksAndWonks. You can follow me at @finchfrii, spelled with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks anywhere you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical shows delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review because it really helps. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com.

Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.