I’m grateful that my fellow legislators have repeatedly backed our 16th District delegation’s requests for millions of dollars in capital-budget funding to help transform the old Kennewick General Hospital into the Columbia Valley Center for Recovery. This project is one of the good things happening in our area; hopefully it...

Joining me at the recent graduation ceremony at the state prison in Connell were, from left: Denise Kammers, the Dean of Corrections Education for Walla Walla Community College; Dante Leon, WWCC Vice President of Instruction; Dr. Chad Hickox, WWCC President; Ricardo Chavez, WWCC Director of Adult Basic Education for Corrections...

WAITSBURG… As ordered by President Donald Trump in mid-June, efforts to revisit the plan for operating the four lower Snake River dams have now been halted. This week the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation withdrew their intent to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement,...

Around 100 people gave up part of a recent Saturday afternoon to attend a post-session town hall with the delegations from the neighboring 8th Legislative District and our 16th Legislative District. Keep reading for more details! Dear Neighbor, In a guest column published during this year’s legislative session I speculated...

WAITSBURG… Sen. Perry Dozier is dismayed by today’s signing of legislation that immediately undermines Washington’s highly popular parental-rights law, created in 2024 after the Waitsburg Republican had tried for years to put a similar law into place. The law created by House Bill 1296 eliminates important rights that had been...

It’s normal for the new state budgets to be adopted on the final day of our regular legislative session, and this year was no different. This is how the operating budget looked as it sat on the “bar” at the front of the Senate chamber on Sunday. The stack contains...

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...

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...

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...