E-News: 2025 session opens at state Capitol

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Jan. 17, 2025

Dear Neighbor,

The 2025 legislative session is under way. Between now and April 27, the Senate and House of Representatives will work on a whole lot of policy issues – some of them familiar, and some new. We also will need to adopt three new budgets before this 105-day “long” session concludes.

The first order of business for the Senate when it convened at noon Monday was to seat the newly elected and re-elected members. One by one, I and others were escorted to the front of the Senate chamber, where the chief justice of the state Supreme Court administered the oath of office to us.

oath of office

I took the oath of office Monday for my second term as 16th District senator. it was administered by Chief Justice Debra Stephens of the Washington Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, senators crossed over to the larger House chamber to meet in joint session for a final address from now-former Gov. Jay Inslee; we did the same thing a day later to witness the swearing-in of statewide elected officials, and receive the inaugural address from new Gov. Bob Ferguson.

In between the ceremonial activities, we were already focused on the job of governing. For example, I took part in my first Senate Ways and Means Committee meeting just a few hours after being sworn in Monday.

Although the state budget is much, much larger and more complex than the budgets I helped put together during my two terms as a Walla Walla County commissioner, the principles of good budgeting don’t change. I expect to get up to speed quickly.

The primary item on the agenda for that first budget-committee meeting was a public hearing on the capital-budget proposal from the outgoing governor. As I am also the assistant Republican leader for the capital budget, listening to the testimonies of higher-education representatives, port officials and many others was very informative.

What we don’t know yet is whether the new governor will feel compelled to propose an operating budget, capital budget and transportation budget of his own – but either way, what the executive branch wants has limited influence on the development of the budgets. The capital budget, for instance, has to consider needs in all 49 legislative districts, and those are brought to the capital-budget team by the senators for those districts.

Between my leadership role on the capital budget and the fact that the Ways and Means committee tends to meet three times weekly, the budget work alone will keep me very busy this session.

Still, I am happy to also be returning as Republican leader on the Senate Business, Financial Services, Gaming and Trade Committee, and as a member of the Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee. Both committees met multiple times this week as well.

Being on the Senate’s budget and education committees puts me in an even stronger position to advocate for the priorities shared by all Republican senators:

First round of session will focus on committee work

Hundreds of bills will be introduced in the 49-member Senate during this year’s session. The count was already approaching 370 when I checked this morning (and over in the House, more than 390 bills had been filed).

By design, the vast majority of these will fail at some stage of the lawmaking process. That’s because the process is geared toward weeding out policies that, for one reason or another, are not ready to become law.

With few exceptions, the first round of work on the bills we file happens after they are referred to a committee. Deadlines are set to help keep the process moving along, and this year, the Senate’s 12 policy committees have through Feb. 21 to take action on Senate bills. Because a piece of legislation is valid for two years, policy bills that don’t move forward by that deadline are considered “dead” until next year.

The second deadline on the session calendar pertains to the Senate’s two budget committees (Ways and Means is one, Transportation is the second); they have through Feb. 28 to act on Senate bills, the lone exception being bills that are expected to be part of a budget package later in the session.

Because this and the other “cutoff” dates always seem to arrive faster than we expect, most of the activity in the Senate in the coming month will be at the committee level. However, I know from experience to expect that the full Senate will be convened occasionally in the next month to consider legislation that has already cleared the committee process.

state of state House chamber

state of state 16th delegation

On Wednesday I crossed over to the House chamber (upper photo) and joined my 16th District seatmates (below) for the inaugural address from Washington’s new governor, Bob Ferguson. I appreciated his apparent willingness to work in a bipartisan way on issues like public safety, and how he seems reluctant to consider tax increases as an answer to the state’s budget situation.

Taking applications for Senate pages!

Our office is still taking applications from Washington teens who wish to serve a week as a Senate page this session.

Pages have a unique role at the Capitol, delivering messages and documents to legislative offices and to senators when they are working on “the floor” of the Senate chamber. It’s a great way for teens to see the Legislature in action and to meet other students from around the state.

Pages also attend and participate in Page School, where they learn more about how the Legislature works. Pages earn a stipend of $65 a day and may earn up to 20 hours of community service.

Pages must be 14 to 16 years old at the time they participate in the program, 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.)

Information about the program and application process is available here. If you know teens who would be interested, have them contact my office or Myra Hernandez, Civic Education Director (Myra.Hernandez@leg.wa.gov​ or SenatePageProgram@leg.wa.gov).

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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.

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