VANCOUVER… The budget leader for Senate Republicans says today’s positive news about state revenue growth is offset by the continued rise in Washington gas prices and the added pain many Washington workers are about to feel from the state’s new payroll tax. Sen. Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver, is chair of the...

  Part of the job of Senate Republican budget leader is standing in the Senate chamber to speak about whether to vote for or against the budget being debated. That’s what is happening in this photo from Sunday afternoon, hours before this year’s regular legislative session ended. April 27, 2023...

  With Senate Republican Caucus Chair Judy Warnick of Moses Lake during a break in voting this past week. April 17, 2023 Hello Friends and Neighbors, Tomorrow is “tax day” in America – as April 15 fell on a weekend and today is a holiday in Washington, D.C. – and...

OLYMPIA… In what amounts to the ninth inning of the 2023 legislative session, more than two-thirds of the state Senate’s majority Democrats have slid an extreme tax-increase proposal into the lineup of bills still in play. Senate Bill 5770 would raise the limit on increases in state and local property...

At the edge of the Senate chamber on Saturday with Sen. Nikki Torres of Pasco, left, and Sen. Perry Dozier of Waitsburg, shortly before one of the longer debates of this session — on the Democratic majority’s bill to ban a specific group of firearms. April 10, 2023 Hello Friends...

  March 31, 2023 Hello Friends and Neighbors, For the second Friday in a row, the Senate Ways and Means Committee is working the late shift. A week ago we were handling bills related to the Senate budget proposal. This time it’s because of the 2023 session calendar: Wednesday was...

March 25, 2023 Hello Friends and Neighbors, The Senate Ways and Means Committee held a public hearing on the proposed Senate operating budget yesterday, and it lasted a whopping eight hours, until 10 p.m. That had me waiting until today to get this report together for you. Keep reading for...

OLYMPIA… Sen. Lynda Wilson of Vancouver, budget leader for Senate Republicans, offered this reaction to the state Supreme Court’s ruling today that the tax on capital-gains income adopted by Democratic legislators in 2021 is constitutional. The 7-2 decision overturns a lower-court ruling issued in March 2022 by a Douglas County...

OLYMPIA… Key Senate Republicans say there is much to appreciate about the 2023-25 operating-budget proposed by the state Senate majority today, starting with a lack of new taxes and a much lower spending increase than in recent years – and how it responds to Republican concerns, especially regarding K-12 education....

March 17, 2023 Hello Friends and Neighbors, There aren’t many things the Legislature must do, but in odd-numbered years like this, approving new budgets is one of them. There are three state budgets: operating, capital and transportation. They cover a two-year period that begins July 1 in odd-numbered years. The...