Looking for a summary of our Top Bills?
These are the bills we deem major and significant. Click the image below.
Are you looking for a summary of our Top Bills for 2026? These are bills we deem major and significant. If so, use the filter below.
Bill Summary
House Bill 2735 defends parental rights. It establishes a clear constitutional floor in family law proceedings under chapter 26.09 RCW, anchoring custody and parenting decisions in firmly articulated constitutional principles rather than fluctuating judicial discretion. The bill recognizes that parents who choose to bring a child into the world assume enduring fiduciary duties of care and loyalty, and it affirms that parental rights are a fundamental liberty interest consistent with the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Troxel v. Granville (2000).
In response to the lack of a defined standard of review in that decision, the legislation explicitly requires courts to apply strict scrutiny and the least restrictive means whenever the state intrudes on the parent-child relationship, reinforcing the protections of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It creates a presumption of parental fitness analogous to the presumption of innocence, meaning a parent is deemed fit unless the state proves concrete violence, substance abuse, or neglect. The measure also establishes a starting custodial presumption favoring a 50/50 arrangement unless parents agree otherwise, promoting stability, shared responsibility, and meaningful involvement by both parents in a child’s life.
By mandating equal standing for similarly situated parents, the bill aims to eliminate inequities that can arise from subjective or inconsistent rulings. It further requires enforceable cooperation between parents to prevent sabotage and ensure that both households remain functional and supportive for the child. Importantly, it limits decision-making authority to judges rather than unelected advisors and prohibits secret evidence or one-way information pipelines, thereby strengthening transparency and due process. The bill clarifies that it overturns no precedent and respects federalism, instead setting a baseline floor upon which Washington courts may innovate while remaining constitutionally grounded.
Bill Summary
HB 2737’s purpose is to revise laws concerning commercial shellfish fees, tightening up how the state charges and structures those fees in statute. It amends existing law rather than creating a brand‑new program, focusing on the fee framework for people and companies that commercially harvest or cultivate shellfish, aligning with pro‑business coastal and rural interests. Commercial operators who use and profit from the resource bear the fees, rather than spreading more cost onto the general taxpayer. Updating fee statutes can bring consistency across license types and reduce uncertainty for growers and harvesters trying to plan long‑term investments in gear, hatcheries, or waterfront property. Shellfish are a major part of coastal and Puget Sound local economies, and a stable fee structure can help sustain working‑class jobs and small businesses in those communities. By updating commercial shellfish fees in statute, this bill gives growers and harvesters a clearer, more predictable framework so they can keep investing in local jobs along our coast and in Puget Sound.
Bill Summary
House Bill 2741 creates a new Washington Electric Transmission Authority in state government, charged with planning, facilitating, financing, and even owning electric transmission projects to meet clean‑energy and climate goals. It directs the authority to pursue goals like achieving clean electricity requirements and greenhouse gas emissions limits, expanding access to low‑cost renewables, and encouraging advanced transmission technologies to support the state’s decarbonization agenda. The bill gives the authority powers to coordinate with utilities, independent developers, tribes, regional markets, and federal entities, including the ability to plan projects, select qualified transmission builders, and in some cases step in and build or own lines itself.
The legislation allows the authority to own electric transmission equipment and systems, with a plan to later divest and to sell state‑owned transmission projects at any stage of development. It creates an electric transmission capital account and electric transmission operating account in the state treasury to support the authority’s work, with links into a large list of state funds and accounts. HB 2741 builds an entirely new quasi‑public authority layered on top of existing utilities, transmission owners, and regional planning processes, instead of fixing regulatory barriers or improving permitting within current structures. The authority is explicitly tasked with broad planning, coordination, and ownership roles, which pulls more decision‑making into Olympia and away from local utilities, private builders, and market signals.
Although the bill says the authority’s ownership may not exceed the extent and duration necessary, the authority itself decides when its ownership is no longer necessary, which invites mission creep and permanent state footprint in the grid. The authority must avoid impacts to overburdened communities, support good jobs, and protect cultural and natural resources, which sounds reasonable but effectively bakes an environmental‑justice and pro‑union filter into every project decision. A separate section directs the Department of Commerce to create a Washington state tribal clean energy strategy and identify tribal partnership, ownership, and investment frameworks, tying transmission policy to a favored set of clean‑energy and tribal‑partnership priorities rather than neutral reliability and cost.
The bill creates dedicated capital and operating accounts for the authority, opening the door to future appropriations, bonding structures, and complex financing arrangements that shift risk from private investors to taxpayers and ratepayers. The authority can build, finance, acquire, or sell projects and can proceed to construct a project itself if it deems there is a pressing need and no willing private builder, which encourages state‑driven mega-projects with political rather than economic timelines. While the text includes language about not creating state debt or lending the credit of the state, the very purpose of the authority is to mobilize public resources and coordination to push projects that might not otherwise pencil out in a normal market.
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Environment & Disasters
Requesting Congress to ensure that federal wildfire response entities have the capacity to protect communities and infrastructure, limit impacts to natural resources and watersheds, and protect woodland firefighter health and safety.
Bill Summary
HJM 4009 is a joint memorial from the Washington Legislature to Congress, the President, and the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture about federal wildland fire policy and capacity. It responds to President Trump’s Executive Order 14308 (June 12, 2025) directing consolidation of Interior and Agriculture wildland fire programs and creating a new U.S. Wildland Fire Service in Interior. The memorial points out that federal workforce reductions have already eliminated about 5,000 Forest Service positions and 7,500 Interior positions through a Deferred Resignation Program and early retirements, with more cuts planned. It stresses that no one knows yet how many of those reductions affect wildland fire staff, including high‑level Complex Incident Management Teams that are critical in large Western fires. Given this uncertainty, it argues Washington must at least maintain—and ideally strengthen—its own wildfire response while pressing the federal government not to let national capacity degrade.
This memorial also ensures the new Department of the Interior Wildland Fire Service is fully operational and staffed by April 1, 2026, so there is a cohesive federal response before the 2026 fire season. It also requests reorganization delays, including changes involving the U.S. Forest Service, until national wildfire activity drops to Preparedness Level 2, to avoid reshuffling command in the middle of peak fire season. Large wildfires drive massive suppression costs, infrastructure damage, and disaster spending; preserving capacity up front is cheaper than rebuilding towns and watersheds later. This memorial supports rural communities and natural‑resource economies that are disproportionately harmed by catastrophic fires, smoke, and loss of working forestland. It also backs frontline firefighters by insisting the federal government manage reorganization in a way that protects their safety and ensures they have enough people and structure to do their job safely.
Bill Summary
House Joint Memorial 4010 is a formal request from the Washington Legislature urging the federal government—addressed to the President, Congress, the State Department, and the Department of Justice—to open a transparent, thorough, and independent U.S.-led investigation into the 2024 killing of Washington-raised U.S. citizen Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi in the West Bank by Israeli military forces. The memorial recounts Eygi’s background in Seattle, her education and community service, and her activism in domestic and international human-rights and environmental causes, framing her death as an unjust killing while she served as a peaceful observer. It also references the 2003 death of Washington activist Rachel Corrie in Gaza, arguing that her family never received accountability and drawing a parallel to support the call for renewed federal action.
The core policy ask is not a change in Washington law, funding, or enforcement, but a message to federal authorities to prioritize accountability for U.S. citizens killed abroad through an independent investigation. A point against this memorial is the fact that it asks the state legislature to take an official position on an extraordinarily sensitive and contested international conflict where Washington has limited authority and where facts and jurisdictional issues are complex and disputed. Turning a tragedy into a state-issued diplomatic demand risks inflaming tensions, hardening partisan divisions, and undermining constructive engagement that might better support credible fact-finding and protection of Americans overseas.
The memorial’s one-sided narrative and emotionally charged framing can be read as adjudicating culpability in advance, which is precisely the kind of conclusion an investigation is supposed to determine. Even if you want accountability, the most effective levers—consular protection, criminal jurisdiction, intelligence coordination, and diplomatic negotiations—are federal tools best pursued through targeted congressional oversight and executive-branch channels rather than state political statements. Washington can honor victims and support affected families without inserting the legislature into foreign-policy signaling that may reduce, rather than increase, the likelihood of cooperation and transparency. Opposition respects the gravity of the loss while keeping the legislature focused on actions within its competency and avoiding symbolic measures that may produce more heat than results.
Bill Summary
HJM 4012 is a joint memorial, not a law. It is a formal message from the Washington Legislature to the President, Congress, DoD, and VA urging federal action. It specifically urges scheduling and passing the federal Major Richard Star Act (H.R. 2102), which would provide full concurrent receipt of both retired pay and VA disability compensation for combat‑injured veterans, regardless of years served. Currently, two service members can suffer the same combat injury, but if one was forced into medical retirement before 20 years and the other hit 20 years, their retirement and disability benefits are treated very differently. Congress fixed this inequity for many retirees in 2004, but that fix applied only to those with 20 or more years of service, leaving medically retired, combat‑injured veterans with less than 20 years still facing reduced benefits.
The memorial explicitly states that the nation has a moral duty to support combat‑injured veterans who made noble and selfless sacrifices in service. It calls out that identical combat injuries currently receive unequal treatment purely based on time‑in‑service, and asks Congress to correct that inequity for those medically retired before 20 years. The Major Richard Star Act has drawn broad national veteran‑advocacy support and HJM 4012 puts Washington on record as joining that push and urges prompt floor action in Congress. Copies are sent to President Trump, the Defense and VA secretaries, and every member of Washington’s congressional delegation, putting constituent‑state pressure behind combat‑injured vets. Washington cannot change federal law; however, it can loudly advocate for those who were medically retired because they were hurt doing exactly what the nation asked them to do.
Bill Summary
HJR 4209 amends the state constitution so Washington can redraw its congressional districts between censuses if another state does mid‑decade redistricting for non‑court‑ordered reasons. It lets the Legislature trigger a new map with a simple majority vote, shifting power away from the current bipartisan redistricting commission model that operates only after the census.
The Democratic sponsors explicitly frame this as a way to respond to Republican‑led redistricting in other states, tying the change to national partisan fights rather than to Washington‑specific fairness needs. Giving a sitting legislative majority the power to re‑draw congressional lines mid‑decade is exactly the sort of partisan map‑rigging many voters in both parties say they oppose.
Mid‑cycle remaps can be timed to punish rising challengers, shore up incumbents, and reduce competitive districts, leaving voters with fewer real choices and more safe one‑party seats. Frequent changes to district lines disrupt representation, confuse voters, and can detach communities from long‑standing relationships with their member of Congress. Moving from a once‑a‑decade, census‑based process to “any time the majority wants it” feeds public cynicism that politicians are picking their voters instead of the other way around.
In review, HJR 4209 opens the door to mid‑decade, partisan congressional map‑drawing and weakens Washington’s existing protections against gerrymandering. This legislation lets politicians rewrite the rules in the middle of the game to protect their own power, instead of keeping a stable, fair map for ten years. This is a hyper‑partisan proposal that risks erasing what little balance Washington has left in Congress and invites endless legal and political warfare over district lines. Washington currently has 10 Democratic and 2 Republican members of Congress. It is clear this amendment is aimed at eliminating the remaining Republican seats.
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Community Concerns
Amending the state Constitution to allow the legislature to determine the duration of regular sessions.
Bill Summary
HJR 4210 proposes a constitutional amendment that removes the fixed 105-day limit in odd years and 60-day limit in even years for regular legislative sessions, allowing the legislature to set session length by statute. Opponents argue that these constitutional limits exist to restrain legislative power and protect taxpayers from open-ended sessions that can drive higher costs and more rushed spending. By shifting control to statute, future legislatures could extend sessions with a simple majority, weakening a voter-approved constitutional guardrail. Critics also warn that longer or more flexible sessions may increase the influence of lobbyists and Olympia insiders while making it harder for citizen-legislators to balance public service with regular employment. The proposal does not include any new hard cap on session length, relying instead on trust that lawmakers will self-limit. Detractors note that if more time is truly needed, the constitution already provides for special sessions with defined limits and purposes. They also argue that constitutional changes should be reserved for rights and structure, not operational convenience. For these reasons, citizens who value firm constitutional limits and tighter legislative accountability will wish to oppose HJR 4210.
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Elections
Amending Article II, section 15 of the state Constitution concerning vacancies in partisan elective offices.
Bill Summary
HJR 4212 amends Article II, section 15 of the Washington Constitution to update how vacancies in partisan elective offices are filled, especially when a legislator or partisan county officer leaves office mid‑term. This amendment keeps the basic framework that replacements must come from the same political party and be chosen from a list of three nominees submitted by the appropriate party central committee, preserving party and ideological continuity for voters who chose that officeholder. It clarifies timelines and processes for county legislative authorities and, if needed, the governor to act, so vacancies cannot be left hanging indefinitely or manipulated through delay.
This House Joint Resolution respects voter intent by requiring that a vacant partisan seat be filled by someone from the same party and district as the person voters actually elected, instead of allowing ideological flips through appointment. It strengthens constitutional, rule‑of‑law governance by putting clear vacancy rules in the state’s foundational document, rather than relying on ordinary statutes that a narrow majority can change at any time. It also keeps decisions tied to local structures—county legislative authorities and party committees—rather than inventing new commissions or statewide appointment boards, which aligns with a preference for localized, accountable government.
HJR 4212 is the constitutional amendment that pairs with HB 2460’s statutory changes on vacancies in partisan county offices; together, they align the constitution and RCW so that the process is consistent and legally solid. Supporting both measures provides a coherent, voter‑respecting system: the constitution sets the high‑level rule, and HB 2460 implements it in statute for county‑level offices like sheriff and other partisan role. In review, it protects the choices voters already made, reinforces constitutional order, and avoids creating new unelected boards or commissions—all core conservative priorities.
Bill Summary
SB 5000 would allow Washington to formally adopt “The Evergreen State” as its official nickname. The name reflects our history, identity, and natural heritage without adding cost or regulatory burden. This is a simple, bipartisan bill that finally puts into law a name Washingtonians have used and loved for more than a century.
The nickname ‘The Evergreen State’ dates back at least to Governor John McGraw’s 1893 inaugural address, and it has been used informally ever since to describe our state. The words ‘The Evergreen State’ already appear on our license plates, on the 2007 Washington state quarter, and on countless signs and souvenirs. SB 5000 simply aligns the law with the lived reality of our residents. The Senate has passed this bill unanimously multiple times over several sessions, and it has support from members across the political spectrum. The bill carries no appropriation and imposes no new taxes, mandates, or regulations; it is a low‑cost, high‑symbolism way to bring people together at a time when we are often divided. The bill even clarifies that no one is required to reprint existing materials just to add the nickname, so there is effectively no fiscal impact.
Tourism and economic development materials already lean on this brand; officially adopting it reinforces our identity to visitors and investors without any new marketing expense. This bill helps civics teachers, textbook publishers, and tour operators by giving them a definitive, legally recognized nickname they can use with confidence. Washingtonians from both sides of the Cascades use and embrace this nickname. Passing SB 5000 sends a message that we see the whole state as part of this identity, from the coast to the Palouse.