E-Newsletter: Another illegal veto? Say it isn’t so! Hello Friends and Neighbors, By the time the 2020 legislative session ended, the governor had already declared a state of emergency because of COVID-19. I and other legislators got so busy responding to his emergency proclamations that things didn’t slow down for months. When this year’s regular legislative session ended,... Read More...
Signing of income-tax bill is nothing to celebrate, says Wilson VANCOUVER… Washington taxpayers who wonder what the new state income-tax bill really means for them didn’t get any answers from the signing of the legislation today, says Sen. Lynda Wilson. Wilson, R-Vancouver and Senate Republican budget leader, made this statement following the ceremonial signing of Senate Bill 5096, the income-tax... Read More...
E-Newsletter: It’s over! Hello Friends and Neighbors, The Legislature’s 105-day session ended last evening, shortly after the passage of a new state operating budget that is – unfortunately – much more partisan than it needed to be. The budget wasn’t the only disappointing news to come out of our final week (and weekend)... Read More...
Wilson says new state budget puts ‘other interests’ ahead of the people OLYMPIA… Sen. Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver and Republican leader on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, offered this statement following this afternoon’s final passage of a new 2021-23 state operating budget, on a partisan 27-22 vote in the Senate: “The budget leader for the Senate Democrats calls this new budget ‘awesome’.... Read More...
Democrats stay with high-tax budget that will hit low-income, marginalized communities harder OLYMPIA… The final 2021-23 operating-budget agreement made public this afternoon by the Legislature’s majority Democrats is still a step backwards for Washington’s low-income families and marginalized communities, say budget leaders in the Senate Republican Caucus. Sen. Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver, and Sen. Sharon Brown, R-Kennewick, also are critical of how legislators... Read More...
Delay in making budget public is unacceptable, says Wilson OLYMPIA… Sen. Lynda Wilson says majority Democrats negotiating the new 2021-23 state budget should have had a final version ready for consideration before now – and it definitely shouldn’t take until Saturday, although that timeline has been predicted by the Democrat chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee and... Read More...
E-Newsletter: Big (and mostly bad) bills still moving Hello Friends and Neighbors, The final day of our 105-day session is a week from this Sunday. I mentioned in my previous report how there’s no excuse for going past that deadline when one party controls both houses of the Legislature… but sure enough, the chatter about an overtime session... Read More...
E-Newsletter: A one-two punch… Hello Friends and Neighbors, It’s Saturday morning, and at 8 a.m. our Senate Ways and Means Committee will begin public hearings on four pieces of legislation. Three of the bills have come over from the House of Representatives; the fourth is a Senate Democratic bill that responds to the state... Read More...