Author Archives: ericcampbell

Majority is determined to raise your taxes, one way or another

Dear Neighbor,

This year’s regular legislative session will end no later than midnight this coming Sunday. Our state constitution says so, because the regular sessions in odd-numbered years are limited to 105 days — and Sunday is day 105.

If the Legislature still has work to do, it can go into what’s officially called an extraordinary session. We tend to call it a “special” session or simply, overtime.

A special session is looking like a pretty strong possibility this year, because the majority Democrats and the governor agree on raising taxes but not on which taxes to increase, and by how much. That’s up in the air even more because of what majority Democrats did on the day before Easter, when we were in session nearly eight hours.

Here are more details, taken from the news release I issued Saturday evening (here’s the relevant part of it):

Dozier opposes first wave of Democrat tax hikes

OLYMPIA, April 19… Today Sen. Perry Dozier and his fellow Republican senators opposed the first round of major tax increases brought to the full Senate: a sales-tax increase that will hit lower- and middle-income families harder, a tax increase that will drive capital out of Washington, and a collection of unrelated tax increases that includes a new tax on self-storage rentals.

Dozier, R-Waitsburg, offered this statement after the Senate’s majority Democrats pushed the three tax bills through during their third consecutive Saturday voting session of 2025:

“It’s a farce for the Democrats to keep talking about making the wealthy pay more when they clearly are willing to tax everyday Washingtonians. Today alone the Senate majority supported tax increases that will apply to childcare, nursing homes, synthetic tobacco products, self-storage companies, doorbell cameras, and much, much more.

“The tax bills that came out of the Senate today would cost more than $10 billion all by themselves, and we’re still expecting other taxes to be coming our way from the House. I heard Governor Ferguson on Thursday when he said $12 billion in new taxes is unsustainable, so the majority is close to that already – but maybe the Democrats just don’t care what he thinks.

“The best answer to the governor’s concerns about tax increases, and being ready for anything coming out of Washington, D.C., is the $ave Washington budget proposed by Senate Republicans. It doesn’t require a single tax increase and won’t cut anyone off of services. We made a motion to bring our budget bill to the floor today, but the Democrats said no.”

The governor hasn’t come out and said he will call legislators into a special session if there are too many new taxes in the budget they ultimately adopt — “they” being Democrat legislators, who are the only ones pushing new taxes.

Also, when Governor Ferguson said $12 billion in new taxes is “too risky” (in addition to “unsustainable”), he may have been referring to state-level taxes, not a combination of state and local. But if more services become taxable, the local sales taxes also apply, and the property-tax hikes being proposed certainly would mean local increases. That’s why I say the tax bills approved by the Senate on Saturday have put the count at $10-plus billion, with more tax increases in the pipeline.

Maybe the governor and the legislative Democrats will come to terms on taxes before midnight on day 105. I suspect they realize how it will appear to the public if we are pushed into a special session simply because of Democrat infighting about raising taxes.

Either way, multibillion-dollar tax increases seem inevitable this session, even though Senate Republicans have proposed a budget that does everything our state needs, using the revenue available and without a single cut to human services. It’s as though the majority is pursuing tax increases simply because it doesn’t think the people will push back — and that’s a poor way to govern.

Is the threat of a property-tax increase over? Not so fast

As of this past week the Democrats had not one but three bills to raise your property taxes. Each would affect the Washington law prohibiting the state and local governments from increasing your property-tax rate by more than 1% annually unless they get permission through a public vote.

Senate Bill 5798 would eliminate the 1% cap and tie tax-rate growth to inflation plus population growth; House Bill 2049 and Senate Bill 5812, introduced with identical wording, would triple the 1% limit. Each has received tremendous public opposition.

On Saturday there was new concern that Democrats would make SB 5798 / HB 2049 even worse, through a rewrite that would allow school districts to pursue higher levy amounts. This would take Washington’s K-12 funding system backwards, to the days when property-rich school districts had a huge money-raising advantage over property-poor districts.

Now the concern has shifted yet again. The House majority approved HB 2049 late last night, after taking out the part about the growth of property-tax rates — and as we anticipated, inserting a new part about larger school tax levies.

If this means the Democrats have completely abandoned their efforts to lift or eliminate the 1% cap on tax-rate growth, great. That is a victory by itself, for Republicans and especially the people who have applied so much pressure by stating their opposition to the bill.

However, enabling school districts to go for larger tax levies is still opening the door to higher property taxes, and sets the stage for two things to happen.

One is a return to the time when school districts were either “haves” or “have-nots” depending on property values. Republicans worked hard to level the playing field between districts, so property-rich districts didn’t have such an advantage. We don’t believe a child’s educational opportunities should depend on a ZIP code, and it’s shocking that Democrats would try to undermine that.

The other is that districts could once again become more reliant on local-levy dollars than on state-level funding, which sets the stage for another lawsuit like the one that brought about the landmark McCleary lawsuit more than a dozen years ago.

So don’t be fooled — in a way, HB 2049 is almost worse now, because of how it could raise the cost of living for homeowners and renters while also putting rural families and rural students at a disadvantage. We will fight this!

Another attack on agriculture

It isn’t just the tax increases being discussed in Olympia that worry me. The effort to impose rent control is likely to shrink the supply of rental housing, meaning higher prices, and the attempt to make striking workers eligible for unemployment benefits will increase the cost of doing business.

Neither of these is a tax increase, literally, but if they become law, each will make living and working in our state less affordable.

Another example which hasn’t gotten much attention is the bill to begin phasing out certain refrigerants in our state — and by going after refrigerants, House Bill 1462 also goes after food storage.

This bill came before the full Senate this past week, having been passed in the House already on a party-line vote. I used it as an example of how policies popular with certain interest groups can have a much darker side, and what this bill in particular means for growers across our state who rely on cold storage.

Click here or on the image above to view my remarks on HB 1462. Because it has been passed by both chambers but in different forms, I can’t tell you how it will end up exactly — but we already know it will be unfriendly to agriculture.

Regulatory changes add to the cost of doing business in our state, and while many of those costs end up being passed along to consumers, not every business sector can do so — agriculture being a prime example, because those of us who grow commodities are “price takers,” not “price makers.”

As I said on the floor of the Senate chamber, this bill is another of the many attacks I’ve seen on agriculture during what is now my fifth year as a senator. We should be protecting agriculture instead, knowing all the jobs it provides and the important role it has in our state economy. Let’s not kill the family farm!

***

I am working to make living in our state more affordable, make our communities safer, uphold our paramount duty to provide for schools, and hold state government accountable. I’ll work with anyone who shares those goals and wants to find solutions.

Please reach out to my office with your thoughts, ideas and concerns on matters of importance to you. I am here to serve and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

dozier signature

Perry Dozier
State Senator
16th Legislative District

EMAIL: Perry.Dozier@leg.wa.gov
OLYMPIA PHONE: (360) 786-7630
OLYMPIA OFFICE: 342 Irving R. Newhouse Building
MAILING ADDRESS: P.O. Box 40416, Olympia, WA 98504

Dozier opposes first wave of Democrat tax hikes

OLYMPIA… Today Sen. Perry Dozier and his fellow Republican senators opposed the first round of major tax increases brought to the full Senate: a sales-tax increase that will hit lower- and middle-income families harder, a tax increase that will drive capital out of Washington, and a collection of unrelated tax increases that includes a new tax on self-storage rentals.

Dozier, R-Waitsburg, offered this statement after the Senate’s majority Democrats pushed the three tax bills through during their third consecutive Saturday voting session of 2025:

“It’s a farce for the Democrats to keep talking about making the wealthy pay more when they clearly are willing to tax everyday Washingtonians. Today alone the Senate majority supported tax increases that will apply to childcare, nursing homes, synthetic tobacco products, self-storage companies, doorbell cameras, and much, much more.

“The tax bills that came out of the Senate today would cost more than $10 billion all by themselves, and we’re still expecting other taxes to be coming our way from the House. I heard Governor Ferguson on Thursday when he said $12 billion in new taxes is unsustainable, so the majority is close to that already – but maybe the Democrats just don’t care what he thinks.

“The best answer to the governor’s concerns about tax increases, and being ready for anything coming out of Washington, D.C., is the $ave Washington budget proposed by Senate Republicans. It doesn’t require a single tax increase and won’t cut anyone off of services. We made a motion to bring our budget bill to the floor today, but the Democrats said no.

“One of the tax bills we haven’t seen yet is the very harmful property-tax increase, and apparently it’s going from bad to worse. Just last night we learned the Senate Democrats are intending to rewrite Senate Bill 5798 – which would completely eliminate the 1% cap on the annual growth of property-tax rates – in a way that would also take our state’s education-funding system backwards, to the days when property-rich school districts had a huge money-raising advantage over property-poor districts.

“If they go through with this change, the worst property-tax bill of the session will also become the worst education bill of the session. It’s unbelievable, and unacceptable, that they are even considering such a huge shift with just one week left to go.”

The attack on parental rights continues in Olympia

Dear Neighbor,

Late in a legislative session, the priorities of the majority come into focus. Judging from the two major policy bills that were passed Thursday and Friday by the Senate’s majority Democrats, the priorities can be summed up in a word: control.

Let’s go in reverse order. On Friday afternoon, the big discussion was about parental control — specifically, a second effort by Democrats to undermine the parents’ bill of rights established in 2024’s Initiative 2081.

I have a special affinity for the parents’ bill of rights because during each of my first three years as a senator, I introduced legislation to create something very similar. It wasn’t necessary to do so in 2024 because by then, I-2081 was being certified and submitted to the Legislature.

Democrats joined us to unanimously support I-2081 in the Senate more than a year ago, yet there they were on Feb. 5 approving a first piece of anti-parent legislation, Senate Bill 5181. It’s now one step from a vote by the full House.

The bill that came before the Senate on Friday was House Bill 1296. It’s similar to SB 5181 but worse in its own way. A committee amendment would basically allow the state to withhold 20% of a school district’s funding for “willful noncompliance” with state education laws.

To me this creates a serious problem because districts have to follow federal education laws (like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974) as well as state laws. Should those laws conflict, school-board members could easily find themselves having to choose whether the district should comply with federal law or state law, knowing the state can inflict a financial penalty if its law isn’t followed.

It seems completely backwards, to put it diplomatically, for Democrats to threaten the withholding of school funding. After all, the state’s paramount duty is to provide for K-12 education, and our districts need more support than they’re getting for things like special education.

Because the Senate made changes to this anti-parent bill, it needs to go back to the House for what’s called “concurrence.” If the House concurs, or agrees, with the Senate’s changes, the bill will head to the governor’s desk. If not, HB 1296 could come back to the Senate.

There’s no telling how this story will play out over the next couple of weeks. But it should already be clear to the parents of our state where the majority’s priorities lie — and it’s not with parents.

The property-tax increases being pushed by Democrats (Senate Bill 5798 and House Bill 2049) are among the worst bills of the session. I’m particularly concerned about how higher property taxes could hurt senior-age Washingtonians — click here for my take on that. To keep these proposals from flying below the radar, we invited members of the public to join us for a news conference focused on property taxes (several of them are in front of me in the photo above). I encourage you to watch our news conference by clicking this link. 

Rent control won’t increase supply of rental housing

On Thursday afternoon, the major debate in the Senate chamber had to do with rent control — or to put it more accurately, government-imposed price controls on rental housing.

I know the people of our legislative district are concerned about the lack of affordable housing, because it was the number-one topic at our mid-March town-hall meeting. Some of those participating expressed support for rent control, and the appeal is understandable — especially for someone who is now renting.

But as a policymaker, I also think about the renters of tomorrow, and those who choose to become housing providers. And even if my degree was in something other than economics, I’d still know from my farming experience what happens when demand for a commodity exceeds the supply of that commodity. Prices go up!

The best way to bring housing prices down, especially over the long term, also applies to rental housing: increase the supply.

For reasons that aren’t completely clear, our Democratic colleagues seem to think price controls need to be part of the answer. A month ago House Democrats approved the latest example of rent-control legislation — House Bill 1217. That’s the bill which came before the Senate on Thursday.

As passed by the House majority, the bill would put a 7% cap on annual rent increases. When it came off the Senate floor, the cap had been raised to 10%, plus the consumer price index, through an amendment.

I don’t know anyone who would get into or stay in the housing business with a 7% limit on annual rent increases. That could easily cause a housing provider to lose money, when the idea of such an investment is to do better than break even.

Going to the higher 10% limit makes this bad bill “less bad,” to use an Olympia expression. So does the passage of another amendment that exempts family- or individually-owned single-family homes from the law. Still, only Democrats voted for the bill, because price controls go completely against the free-market approach preferred by Republicans.

If Democrats also go ahead with property-tax hikes, it will only add to the squeeze on housing providers. They’ll have more reason to get out of the market, reducing the supply of rentals.

As with the anti-parent bill passed on Friday, HB 1217 must go back to the House for concurrence with the changes made in the Senate. We may not know the fate of this bill until the very last day of the session, which is April 27.

***

I am working to make living in our state more affordable, make our communities safer, uphold our paramount duty to provide for schools, and hold state government accountable. I’ll work with anyone who shares those goals and wants to find solutions.

Please reach out to my office with your thoughts, ideas and concerns on matters of importance to you. I am here to serve and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

 

 

Perry Dozier
State Senator
16th Legislative District

 

Senate unanimously approves capital budget ‘for the entire state’

The Senate today unanimously approved its version of the 2025-27 state capital budget, with the Republicans who helped develop the spending plan praising it for addressing needs throughout Washington.

“What we have is a capital budget for the entire state,” said 9th District Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, the lead Republican for the Senate capital budget. “We looked at this budget and saw fewer resources, so we made tougher decisions every step of the way, working on priorities that made both our side and our Democrat counterparts happy.

“This budget also leaves healthier reserves than we often have going into the second year of a biennium. When we come back next year, we can address unforeseen problems with those reserves.”

Schoesler’s full remarks prior to today’s vote may be viewed here.

“I’m really pleased with how well the Senate capital budget addresses needs throughout Washington,” said Sen. Perry Dozier, R-Waitsburg. He became assistant Republican leader on the capital-budget team this year, bringing government-budgeting experience from two terms as a Walla Walla County commissioner.

“We all made sure there is a lot of support for K-12 education, which is our state’s paramount duty, but this particular budget is also good for things like water projects, housing and fish hatcheries. That makes sense, if you look at the mix of backgrounds and priorities of the four senators who crafted it. I’m also glad we made progress on addressing some long-standing concerns about support for public-works projects.

“The capital budget has a reputation for being the most bipartisan of the three state budgets, and now I know why. We placed a lot of trust in one another in the course of developing this – each of us tried to be responsive to what the others brought to the table. That shows through in the budget itself and today’s unanimous vote.”

The Senate capital budget has a total price tag of $7.3 billion, with an ending-fund balance of $222 million.

It features $1 billion for K-12 education and early-learning projects, including $563 million for the School Construction Assistance Program. There is $201 million for Small District and Tribal School Modernization construction and planning grants, which will fund 40 additional small-school construction projects. Another $143 million is provided for additional school seismic-safety grants, plus $12 million for the new school security and preparedness infrastructure grants program.

The Senate capital budget spends $770 million on a variety of housing programs.

Schoesler and Dozier, both farmers, noted the state’s fairs benefit from this budget, which allocates a record $12 million for competitive grants to agricultural fairs for access- and safety-improvement projects.

The Senate capital budget also provides plenty of money for water-related needs on both sides of the Cascades, with robust funding for eastern Washington water-infrastructure programs. Those appropriations include $69 million for the Columbia River Water Supply Development Program, of which $44 million goes to the Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program, plus $53 million for the Yakima River Basin Water Supply Program and $13 million for the Yakima-Tieton Canal to start fixing damage to a wildfire.

In western Washington, $80 million is provided to fully fund the Chehalis River Basin Strategy, which includes flood control and salmon recovery.

There is also $85 million in the two-year plan for 15 fish hatcheries statewide – another record.

A total of $1.2 billion is allocated for projects at Washington’s four-year universities and other higher-education institutions. They include:

  • University of Washington: $40.8 million for Anderson Hall renovation.
  • Washington State University: $25 million for the Sciences Building, plus money for preventive facility maintenance and building-system repairs.
  • Central Washington University: $12 million for the emergency backup power system, $11 million for the university’s Humanities and Social Science Complex, and $10 million for an expansion of CWU’s aviation-degree program.
  • Eastern Washington University: $10 million for the dental-therapy lab, as well as funding for facility-preservation projects.
  • The state’s community and technical college system receives $400 million for various projects.

Once the House of Representatives passes its capital budget, budget writers from the Senate and House will meet as a “conference committee” to hammer out a compromise capital budget for both chambers to consider.

The 2025 legislative session is scheduled to end April 27.

Watch out! Majority wants to raise your property taxes

Dear Neighbor,

A year ago, the only tax increase Democrats were pushing would have tripled the limit on the growth of property-tax rates. Because that bill stood alone, the news media focused on it — which helped to fuel the public outrage that eventually forced Democrats to drop the idea.

This year our Democratic colleagues are pushing a truckload of tax hikes. The news media seem to be distracted by some that aren’t as familiar, like the so-called “wealth” tax. The new efforts to raise your property taxes seem to be flying below their radar, and the public’s, even though we’re talking about $16 BILLION over the next 10 years!

Fortunately, reports like this and social media are helping to get the word out. That’s why the Senate Democrats’ property-tax bill (SB 5798) attracted a record amount of online opposition prior to the public hearing.

Property taxes = housing taxes

It’s easy to overlook how a property-tax hike affects rent prices — but because it would, we really should view these as housing taxes. I’ve also focused my new video report on the Democrats’ housing taxes, and hope you can take a few minutes to watch it (see below — and keep reading for how the public will be shut out of the budgeting process).

Governor Ferguson hasn’t come out against the proposed housing-tax increases, although he should. Those are regressive taxes, and he told reporters this week that our state’s tax code is too regressive already. I will oppose any effort to lift or get rid of the 1% cap on annual property-tax rate increases, because local governments already have the power to go above 1%. It just means asking permission from the affected property owners, at the ballot.

The governor did vow to veto any budget that relies heavily on the wealth tax. He had warned the Senate and House Democrats about that months ago, and they did it anyway.

He also provided what amounts to a checklist for budget writers: protect the state’s rainy-day fund, minimize new spending, maximize savings, and so on. I would expect the Democrats will take the governor’s guidance to heart, if they don’t want a budget veto — but then again, they apparently failed to heed the warnings Governor Ferguson had sent about the wealth tax.

Click here or on the image to view my report.

Goodbye, transparency; public to be shut out

There is more than enough time for Democrats to do all the necessary budget revisions out in the open. We do it all the time on other legislation, when differences between the Senate and House positions need to be settled.

Our Democratic colleagues have chosen to shut the public out by invoking the rule that basically lets selected legislators go behind closed doors to cut a deal. In this case, the operating-budget leaders from each chamber — four Democrats — will meet out of public view over the next few weeks and decide how to allocate nearly $80 BILLION in taxpayer dollars.

They will emerge with a new deal that won’t go through the public-hearing process, and can’t be amended. All we’ll be allowed to do is vote yes or no.

This unnecessary lack of transparency certainly won’t increase the public’s trust in government. If there’s a saving grace to all this, it’s that Democrats can’t vote secretly on whatever tax increases they end up pushing as funding for their final budget.

Capital-budget vote coming Saturday

The Senate will adopt its version of the capital budget tomorrow, during another one of our Saturday sessions. This is the budget that funds the construction and maintenance of state buildings, public-school matching grants, higher-education facilities, public lands, parks, water infrastructure and other assets.

Once the House follows suit, the task of reconciling differences between the two versions will begin, to produce a final budget.

While the work of settling differences between versions of the operating budget is moving into the proverbial back room, I can assure you that won’t happen with the capital budget. More details to come!

***

I am working to make living in our state more affordable, make our communities safer, uphold our paramount duty to provide for schools, and hold state government accountable. I’ll work with anyone who shares those goals and wants to find solutions.

Please reach out to my office with your thoughts, ideas and concerns on matters of importance to you. I am here to serve and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Perry Dozier
State Senator
16th Legislative District

‘No’ on Senate budgets that would raise your taxes

Click here to view my remarks in support of the no-new-taxes, no-cuts budget proposal offered today in the Senate chamber.

Dear Neighbor,

I don’t know why the Senate majority chose today to have us vote on the operating and transportation budgets, but I’d guess it is because both contain tax increases. Maybe they were hoping people would be busy on a Saturday and not paying as much attention.

Let me help call attention to what happened, by sharing the news release I issued today about the budget votes. It tells the story. And keep reading for how you can make your voice heard about the tax proposals themselves.

OLYMPIA, March 29… The record $21 billion in new and higher taxes included in the state Senate’s new operating budget and the gas-tax increase in its new transportation budget kept Sen. Perry Dozier from supporting either plan today.

“Both budgets have their merits, but I can’t overlook the fact that they would also add significantly to a cost of living in our state that is already too high. We can and should do better.

“I’m especially disappointed and concerned that the Democrats’ budget is based partly on tripling the growth rate of state and local property taxes. That contradicts what we’ve been hearing for months, about how the Democrats want to ‘make the wealthy pay what they owe.’ A property-tax increase hits every landowner regardless of their income, and is bad for renters too,” said Dozier, R-Waitsburg.

“We brought the Republican operating-budget proposal to the Senate floor as a common-sense alternative for our Democratic colleagues to consider. It spends less than the amount of revenue coming in, it wouldn’t raise a single tax or cut a single service, and it wouldn’t drain the state’s rainy-day fund. And still, the Democrats said no and went with their plan instead, even though it is the complete opposite of ours in all of those ways.”

The Republican “$ave Washington” plan failed on a 30-19 party-line vote. Senate Democrats then adopted their larger $78.5 billion proposal with a partisan 28-21 vote.

Prior to the final vote, Dozier reminded his Senate colleagues how the Democrat budget is balanced in part by cuts to higher-education funding which will mean tuition increases at the state-run colleges and universities, and other cuts to financial assistance.

“One of the most popular things the Legislature has done in the past decade was to cut tuition, then put a cap on it so students and their families could know what was coming,” he said, referring to a 2015 Republican-led reform that reduced tuition for the first time in state history. “It’s unconscionable for the Democrats to now break the tuition cap when they’re also raising taxes by $21 billion.”

On top of the tuition increase, Dozier explained, the Democrats’ budget cuts support for child care, cuts the state fair fund by 50%, increases hunting and fishing license fees by nearly 40% and hikes the cost of a Discover Pass by 50% — again, at the same time that it would raise taxes by $21 billion.

“I don’t know why the Democrats are so determined to raise taxes when the budget we proposed is proof that tax increases are completely unnecessary.

The state gas tax has been 49.4 cents per gallon since 2016. Dozier said he understands the need for more transportation money, but the proposed 6-cent increase in the Senate transportation package is more complicated than it sounds.

“If the Climate Commitment Act had been repealed in November, that hidden gas tax would be gone, and Washington’s gas prices would be closer to Idaho and Oregon. And if the Democrats weren’t also raising property taxes and so much more in the operating budget, a bump in the gas tax would look different. But this budget also indexes the gas tax, so it would automatically increase each year. All of that together is just too much,” Dozier said.

He said the third of the Senate budget proposals, the capital budget, will be released Monday. Dozier is assistant Republican leader for that budget, which allocates funds for public construction and other capital projects and is generally the most bipartisan of the spending plans legislators must adopt.

 

Let me recap the Democrat tax proposals that will cost the most:

  • SB 5798, which would remove the 1% cap on the annual growth rate of state and local property tax rate, and instead allow your property-tax rate to increase based on inflation plus population growth. That could average 4.5% per year based on recent history, but go as high as 8%.
  • SB 5797, called a “wealth” tax by the majority, is actually a new kind of property tax. Instead of taxing people for owning land, it would tax people for simply owning a certain volume of stocks, bonds and other intangible assets. Republicans see it as also discouraging the innovation that is at the heart of Washington’s high-tech sector.
  • SB 5796, which would basically mimic the payroll tax already being imposed by the city of Seattle. This new tax would be applied to nearly 5,300 Washington employers: the tech industry, professional services, finance, real estate and health care. My understanding is that it also would hit some public-sector employers, like universities and larger school districts.

Before 3 p.m. Monday, I encourage you to go online to the Ways and Means Committee sign-in page for these bills. You may state your comment on one or more by clicking here and following what should be a user-friendly process. Here’s where the link will take you:

If you would rather testify instead of simply supplying your position on this legislation, see the link below.

***

I am working to make living in our state more affordable, make our communities safer, uphold our paramount duty to provide for schools, and hold state government accountable. I’ll work with anyone who shares those goals and wants to find solutions.

My priorities (shared by Senate Republicans) are:

Here’s how to:

Please reach out to my office with your thoughts, ideas and concerns on matters of importance to you. I am here to serve and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Majority’s proposed tax hikes include one that would be terrible for tourism

Dear Neighbor,

The Senate’s majority Democrats will release their proposed operating budget Monday. The operating budget is the largest by far of the three budgets that will come out of this legislative session, and many of the things it funds are day-to-day priorities like K-12 education and services for our most vulnerable residents.

While we wait a little longer to see the spending choices in that budget, I’m already concerned about some of the moves the majority is making on the tax/revenue side — and not just the massive package of tax increases we saw from Senate Democrats on Thursday.

Senate Bill 5785, which would increase tuition by 5% on top of the 3% already expected, will come before our Senate Ways and Means Committee on Monday afternoon for a public hearing. There is a very good chance it will take over first place as the bill generating the most public attention this session — which is measured by the number of people signing in online to either testify or register their opinion.

When I checked yesterday afternoon there were already close to 2,400 signed in, and 99.5% were opposed. No surprise there, as a tuition increase amounts to a tax hike. If you’d like to weigh in about SB 5785, click here to see the options.

Click the caption below to view my latest video report from the Capitol. It includes more information about the tuition situation as well as another tax increase that would be terrible for the tourism industry in our region.

Here’s one more budget-related item, specifically for the state employees residing in our district.

Democrats have proposed SB 5792 to cut the pay of state employees by 5% for the 2026 fiscal year (July 1 of this year through June 30 of next year). Add that in with the furloughs that have been proposed and here’s what you get: state employees would get see their pay cut for a year and be forced to take unpaid time off just so the majority can fund the $4 billion in pay raises negotiated by the former governor.

In contrast, our $ave Washington budget would not cut state workers’ pay, or require any furlough days — and in place of funding the costly pay raises, we would have the state-employee unions negotiate new agreements with Governor Ferguson, while giving each employee a $5,000 bonus in the meantime.

If you’re a state worker, I am interested in whether you would prefer the majority’s cut-furlough-raise approach or the Senate Republicans’ bonus-renegotiate approach. Let me know!

Also, while I say it in the video, I’ll also offer my gratitude here to the 200-plus people who registered for our virtual town hall meeting March 17. Because more of the questions we took were about housing than any other topic, the video below includes an update on the rent-control legislation that has come over from the House.

Click here to view my latest video report.

***

I am working to make living in our state more affordable, make our communities safer, uphold our paramount duty to provide for schools, and hold state government accountable. I’ll work with anyone who shares those goals and wants to find solutions.

Please reach out to my office with your thoughts, ideas and concerns on matters of importance to you. I am here to serve and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

 

Perry Dozier
State Senator
16th Legislative District

A budget… already? With no new taxes?

Dear Neighbor,

If you’ve been hearing state government is in financial trouble and big tax increases are the only answer, I have good news. Even if you haven’t heard a word about Olympia’s budget situation… the news is still good.

This week the two senators who serve as the Senate Republican operating-budget team did something few thought was possible this session: They proposed a new state budget that balances without a single tax increase, and without slashing the services people care about most.

Normally we don’t see budget proposals until late March. By putting their plan on the table this week, Sen. Chris Gildon of Puyallup and Sen. Nikki Torres of Pasco served notice to the majority that the “tax increases are inevitable” message people have been hearing for months just isn’t true.

The same is true for the scare tactics we saw from House Democrats earlier this month, when they launched a campaign claiming, in so many words, that people will die unless taxes are increased.

Because the Senate Republican approach would effectively erase the budget shortfall while saving the people of our state from the harm of either huge tax increases or devastating spending cuts, this is being called the “$ave Washington” budget.

As Senator Torres put it, this new proposal has “completely transformed” the budget conversation here in at the Capitol, because anyone who takes the time to look will see it is a serious and viable proposal.

I invite you to visit the $ave Washington webpage and examine the budget proposal. You’ll find the slide presentation from the March 11 news conference, a balance sheet, and much more — which collectively show this is an honest, reasonable and sustainable plan. It’s just what our state needs at a time like this.

Capital-budget proposal nears completion

My first session as one of the writers of the Senate capital budget is going as expected. It reminds me of some of the work I did as a two-term Walla Walla County commissioner, but on a much larger scale both financially and geographically.

After studying the requests for funding in detail, it’s definitely a challenge to decide which will make it into this year’s Senate budget and which have to wait at least until 2026 for further consideration. But it’s like any other budget — there’s only so much money, and you have to prioritize.

The capital budget has a reputation for being the most bipartisan of the three budgets we must adopt this year (operating and transportation are the others), and I can now vouch for that.

Sen. Mark Schoesler of Ritzville is the leader on the Senate Republican side, with me as assistant, and we’ve developed a constructive working relationship with our Democratic counterparts: Sen. Yasmin Trudeau of Tacoma, and Sen. Mike Chapman of Port Angeles.

As I explained above, we normally don’t see any of the budget proposals until late March. While no date has been set to roll out this year’s Senate capital budget, it is near completion, so we are definitely on track.

Sen. Matt Boehnke, R-Kennewick, is prime sponsor of a bill having to do with cost-of-living allowances for members of two state-run pension plans. I co-sponsored SB 5113 because the policy is sensible — but we weren’t allowed to vote on it. Another bill was brought before the Senate instead, which I couldn’t support.

The backstory about vote on COLA legislation

You know the expression about how there’s more than one way to skin a cat… well, there also can be more than one way to solve a public-policy issue.

When two or more solutions are proposed as legislation, but legislators are allowed to vote on just one of those bills, what happens? Here’s an example.

Senate Bill 5085 and SB 5113 both have to do with providing ongoing COLAs (cost-of-living allowances) for members of two state-run pension plans that had closed to new enrollments nearly 50 years ago.

The chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee is the lone sponsor of SB 5085. She allowed her bill to advance from her committee while “killing” SB 5113, a bill I sponsored along with several Democrats and Republicans. That also explains why only her bill came before the full Senate for a vote earlier this month.

Sometimes there isn’t enough difference between competing bills to matter — but not in this case. Here’s what I would say to someone who wonders about my vote: While I support the COLA part of SB 5085, the underlying policy in the bill I sponsored is better, and had been endorsed by the state Select Committee on Pension Policy.

SB 5085 still passed in the Senate, but it was on a party-line vote, which means I was far from alone in withholding my support.

What the heck is an ‘NTIB’?

I’ve mentioned before how the work we do in Olympia is guided by deadlines for taking action on legislation. The first deadline is for policy committees, the next is for budget committees, and the third is the deadline — or “cutoff” — to vote legislation forward from the house or chamber where it originated.

Wednesday was the deadline for the Senate to act on Senate bills, and the House to act on House bills. On Thursday we moved into the next phase, during which Senate policy committees consider bills passed by the House, and vice versa. The deadline for that is April 2.

As we know, there are often exceptions to a rule — or a deadline, in this case. When a bill is determined to be part of a budget package, usually because the policy in the bill is funded in the budget, it is labeled “Necessary To Implement the Budget.” As an NTIB bill, it is exempt from the usual deadlines.

House Bill 1334, which would triple the allowable annual growth rate of property taxes, is still before the House Finance Committee. It’s remained there since a public hearing on Feb. 11. But no one should assume it’s “dead” for the session.

The policy in the bill affects the state property tax (for schools) as well as local property taxes. I suspect that is more than enough to qualify it for an NTIB label that would keep the tax increase in play. I can’t be sure because the House Democrats get to make that decision — let’s wait for the House operating-budget proposal to come out, and see if it’s in the budget package.

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I am working to make living in our state more affordable, make our communities safer, uphold our paramount duty to provide for schools, and hold state government accountable. I’ll work with anyone who shares those goals and wants to find solutions.

My priorities (shared by Senate Republicans) are:

Here’s how to:

Please reach out to my office with your thoughts, ideas and concerns on matters of importance to you. I am here to serve and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Perry Dozier
State Senator
16th Legislative District

What’s this about an increase in college tuition?

This past week I had the pleasure of spending a few minutes with a group from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho. There were so many visitors that we brought them into the Senate Republican caucus room, which is where we meet to go over bills and amendments before the debates and voting in the Senate chamber.

Dear Neighbor,

There are three more days to go in one of the busier phases of our legislative session. The Senate and House of Representatives have until 5 p.m. Wednesday to take action on bills introduced by their respective members.

After that, the bills that received Senate approval will begin their journey through the House committees, and vice versa.

While I appreciate the technology that enables me to send reports like this from the Capitol, there are times that I have even more appreciation for the technology that allows “virtual” meetings.

One of those times will be 6 to 7 p.m. next Monday, when we will host a virtual town-hall meeting. Simply register to attend, at this link.

We’ll provide an update on the session, zeroing in on some of the bigger issues (like the budget situation and the majority side’s tax plans), and also listen to your opinions and concerns. Hope to see you there!

Look out, employers…

One of the bigger issues for Washington employers this session has to do with the ongoing effort by Democrats to give striking workers access to taxpayer-funded unemployment benefits.

UI benefits are meant for people who become unemployed through no fault of their own. I don’t believe striking workers should qualify, but that’s what organized-labor leaders in our state want — and on Friday, the Senate majority gave it to them with a “yes” vote on SB 5041.

I voted for an amendment to limit such benefits to four weeks, but the Democrats refused and stuck to 12 weeks. Think about that: if workers know they can go on strike and tap into the state UI fund for three months, do they have as much incentive to remain at or return to the bargaining table? I don’t think so.

If you’re an employer, how would you feel if your workers went on strike and collected checks funded by the UI “premiums” you pay? Or if your premiums go up because striking workers have depleted the fund? We know consumers are eventually hit when the cost of doing business increases.

Finally, I would worry about spin-off companies and suppliers suffering collateral damage from a prolonged strike against a major employer. That would put even more pressure on the UI fund.

You wonder who the majority Democrats were thinking of when they voted to pass this.

 … and families of college students

Ten years ago the Legislature passed the first-ever cut in tuition at our state-run colleges and universities, and also put a cap on annual tuition increases.

On Friday the chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee introduced legislation that would increase tuition by 5% above the statutory cap beginning in the 2026-27 school year. At the same time, it would reduce state financial aid by close to $200 million over the next four years.

Our budget staff has already calculated, using tuition at the University of Washington as a model, that if this tuition hike is adopted, it would be a financial hit of around $3,200 over four years.

The tuition cut/cap served as a tax cut for middle-income families… so increasing tuition would act like a tax increase for those families.

Proposed constitutional change seems like ‘virtue-signaling’

Two years ago, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that sent the abortion question back to the states, Democratic legislators in our state proposed a abortion-related amendment to our state constitution.

I viewed it as a serious effort, because the measure was filed before the 2023 session began. It received a public hearing in the Senate health-care committee and was voted forward by the committee’s Democratic members, but Senate Democratic leaders chose not to bring the legislation to the full Senate for a vote.

Compare that to the constitutional amendment proposed this past week — with the session already halfway over — which repeats some of the language from the 2023 measure but goes further to include what it calls “gender-affirming care.”

I’m bringing this up because the introduction of Senate Joint Resolution 8204 prompted a lot of messages to my office, nearly all of them opposed to the measure. So here’s my take.

Regardless of your views on either of the subjects in the proposal, be aware that the language is wide-open.

The restrictions on abortion that were put into Washington law by the voters in 1991 aren’t being carried through into SJR 8204. It’s not a simple case of placing the same policy into our state constitution.

The same goes for the gender-altering policy. There’s nothing in the proposed amendment about age limits or parental consent.

Between the timing and the extreme positions it takes, I don’t see SJR 8204 as a serious piece of legislation — and that makes it look like nothing more than virtue-signaling.

***

I am working to make living in our state more affordable, make our communities safer, uphold our paramount duty to provide for schools, and hold state government accountable. I’ll work with anyone who shares those goals and wants to find solutions.

My priorities (shared by Senate Republicans) are:

Here’s how to:

Please reach out to my office with your thoughts, ideas and concerns on matters of importance to you. I am here to serve and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Perry Dozier
State Senator
16th Legislative District