Making strides in Olympia

While not all of their bills and priorities are still in play in Olympia this legislative session, the District 36 representatives have plenty of legislation keeping them busy before the end of the session, April 23.

At a virtual town hall meeting last week, Sen. Noel Frame, Rep. Liz Berry and Rep. Julia Reed answered viewers questions about bill progress during the current legislative session taking place in Olympia and priorities moving forward.

Wealth tax

Frame, who is serving as the vice chair of the Senate Housing Committee, the vice chair of the Senate Business, Financial Services, Gaming & Trade Committee and is a member of the Senate Human Services Committee, spoke about the wealth tax legislation she and other Democrats have been working on, Senate bill 5486, which would ensure the state’s wealthiest residents would pay property taxes on their assets.
She said Washingtonians pay property taxes on their homes, whether they own them or not, which is already a tax on wealth on the middle class.
“And all we’re saying is that the wealthiest among us should pay taxes on their assets just like we all already pay taxes on ours,” Frame said.
This is the third session this legislation has been introduced, and she is hopeful it will get passed this session, especially as the Legislature received a report that the state will receive about $1 billion in revenue to work with in budgeting. On the other hand, the wealth tax would bring in $3 billion in new revenue, Frame said.
“We have some really expensive, big ticket items that our constituents care about: special education, affordable housing, and when we are talking about a billion dollars less of revenue to work with, well, it’s either cut programs or raise revenue, and we’ve got really important programs to pay for like special ed and housing, so I hope my colleagues will take it seriously,” Frame said.

Transportation
Regarding efforts to make roads safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, Reed said she received some bad news about a bill that would prohibit right turns on red lights, which she said are one of the big problems in lower Queen Anne, specifically on Mercer Street. That bill, she said, did not advance but is something she intends to keep working on.
On the other hand, Senate bill 5583, which would improve young driver safety, is still active. Reed said legislators learned this year that the group of people responsible for the greatest number of vehicular homicides or fatal car crashes is between the ages of 18 and 25, not the elderly or beginning drivers.
She said because Washington no longer offers drivers education programs in school, people are waiting until they are 18 to get their licenses.
“And then you have to pass the drivers exam, but you don’t have to take drivers ed,” Reed said.
She said the Senate bill would require drivers between ages 22 and 24 who have not taken drivers education to take either a condensed traffic safety course or drivers ed course. It also includes vouchers to cover the cost of a drivers school class because that is the big reason why people don’t take them to begin with.
“Moving forward, I would personally like to see driver’s ed return to our schools, and that is something I want to try to work on with our pedestrian safety community in the future,” Reed said.

Gun safety
When asked about keeping children safe in schools, Berry, who is a proponent of gun legislation, spoke about the efforts to improve gun safety laws in the state after previous efforts to ban high-capacity magazines and ghost guns succeeded.
“You may not know this, but gun violence is now the No. 1 killer of children in America. Let that sink in. As a mom, this is absolutely devastating to me,” Berry said. “Kids, high school students, elementary students are marching in the streets demanding that people in positions of power do something about this, and that’s exactly what this legislature intends to do this year.”
She said three bills that are currently still in play, including a ban on assault weapons. Another is one she sponsored that that would require a 10-day waiting period and safety training for all purchases in the state. The last would hold gun manufacturers and dealers accountable for selling or advertising guns to people who should not have them, Berry said.
One bill that she was disappointed did not advance would have required people to have a permit to purchase a firearm, with mandatory background checks and fingerprinting.
“And fingerprinting is key to preventing straw purchases, which are folks who go into buy guns for people who shouldn’t get them,” she said.

Online
• To watch a recording of last week’s town hall meeting, go to youtube.com/watch?v=MdFIZb7Mg5g.

• Frame can be reached at Noel.Frame@leg.wa.gov. 

• To email Berry, go to app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/memberEmail/36/2.

• Reed can be emailed at app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/memberEmail/36/1.

• Berry’s webpage is housedemocrats.wa.gov/berry/. 

• Frame’s webpage is senatedemocrats.wa.gov/frame/. 

• Reed’s webpage is housedemocrats.wa.gov/reed/.