So close.
With less than a week to go, policy proposals are nearing the finish line to becoming law in the Washington Legislature. But the last deadline of the legislative session Friday stopped some of them in their tracks.
To remain in play, bills needed to pass out of the opposite chamber from where they were introduced. Senate bills through the House, and vice versa. If they didn’t, they’re dead for now, and sponsors will have to try again next year.
The deadlines come quickly in a 60-day legislative session. The previous additions to the legislative trash heap just came on Monday.
It’s now a sprint to the finish as lawmakers pass budget and revenue bills, and address legislation that was changed in the other chamber. The legislative session ends next Thursday. Gov. Bob Ferguson is expected to begin signing measures into law early next week.
Here’s a smattering of the bills that didn’t clear this latest hurdle.
Immigration enforcement
One way Democrats looked to respond to concerns over aggressive immigration enforcement under the Trump administration lost steam Friday.
Senate Bill 5906 would’ve forced U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to get court approval before entering schools and health care facilities. The legislation covered “nonpublic areas” of preschools, K-12 schools, health facilities, adult family homes, higher education institutions and election offices. It also prohibited early learning providers and school district employees from collecting information about the immigration statuses of students and their families.
Republicans saw the proposal as wrongfully regulating the federal government. Democrats said it was necessary to enshrine state model policy around how to deal with immigration enforcement in public schools and expand it to more locations.
Immigrant detention
Democratic lawmakers have for years been trying to regulate the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma that holds immigrant detainees before deportation or release back into the United States. The private, for-profit facility has faced years of allegations of neglect and mistreatment of detainees.
House Bill 2464 looked to require private detention facilities, like the one in Tacoma, to report abuse and neglect allegations, as well as deaths and serious injuries to the state Department of Health. It would’ve also required local police to submit reports to the state agency annually with information about responses to these facilities.
The legislation passed the House along party lines, but didn’t come up for a vote in the Senate.
Other proposals to tax or fine the detention center haven’t advanced in the Legislature.
Corporate homebuying
Senate Bill 5496 looked to limit businesses from buying homes. Some blame this for further crimping the state’s already tight housing supply. It would’ve barred those with an interest in more than 100 single-family homes from buying any more, with exceptions. The goal was to boost homeownership.
Along the way, the proposed limit was lifted from 25 to 50 homes, then from 50 to 100, since it was first considered last year.
Builders argued this would chill housing construction, and that the policy was a solution in search of a problem. It passed the Senate with no Republican support, but stalled in the House.
The legislation made it further in the legislative process than in 2025, when it died before passing the Senate.
Medical debt
In 2025, state lawmakers voted to remove medical debt from credit reports. This year, they tried to eliminate interest charges on that debt, currently capped at 9%. The Senate tweaked the total ban on interest in the bill to allow for up to a 1% per year interest rate. Senate Bill 5993 passed the Senate along party lines, but stalled in the House.
Political violence
In response to growing fears of political violence across the country, lawmakers proposed ways to protect elected officials. House Bill 2333 would’ve allowed the use of campaign funds for personal security, and authorized the Washington State Patrol to provide security to legislators at public events.
The legislation also would’ve expanded to elected officials the state’s program to keep home addresses confidential.
The proposal garnered bipartisan support in the House but didn’t get a Senate vote.
Earlier in the session, lawmakers considered creating a statewide notification system to let public officials know of targeted threats to any elected leaders, but the bill died.
Public records
House Bill 2235 was the rare bipartisan push on gun policy. Last year, Democrats pushed through a GOP-reviled permit-to-purchase system for gun buyers. The legislation this year would’ve exempted records related to these permit applications, gun transfers and concealed pistol licenses from public disclosure. It passed the House with a lone dissenting vote, but didn’t get a vote from the Senate.
Seahawks
Winning the Super Bowl wasn’t enough. The state Senate recognized the Seattle Seahawks for their championship victory last month. But senators didn’t take up House Bill 1759 to designate Dec. 12 as the Day of the 12s in honor of the team’s rabid fanbase. The legislation came up short of the endzone at the same stage last year.
Other less-than-vital bills to enshrine the state’s nickname officially as the Evergreen State and designate the Columbia Plateau cactus as the state cactus also withered without House votes Friday.
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