Bills on school inclusivity, AI and rent fixing among casualties in WA Legislature

Yahoo

10-04-2025

The Washington state Capitol on March 27, 2025. (Photo by Jacquelyn Jimenez Romero/Washington State Standard)
Tuesday's latest deadline in the Washington Legislature provided the last rites for numerous proposals tackling everything from penalties for environmental crimes to union bargaining over artificial intelligence.
But with just a few weeks left in the legislative session, just about all of the big-ticket items lawmakers are considering remain alive.
Bills to cap residential rent increases, deal with the rights of parents with children in public schools, require a state permit to purchase a gun, mandate clergy report child abuse, overhaul the recycling system and allow striking workers to access unemployment benefits all remain in play.
Legislators in the House and Senate will now work to pass proposals from the opposite chamber off their floors. Their deadline to pass measures from the other chamber is next Wednesday.
Proposals that affect state revenue are exempt from the deadlines as they are considered necessary to implement the budget. Lawmakers can also use more creative ways to save bills.
The session is scheduled to end April 27.
Here are some notable bills that lawmakers gave what will likely be their final death knell.
Democratic lawmakers looked to expand protections for students from discrimination in Washington's public schools.
Senate Bill 5123 would have added protections for ethnicity, homelessness, immigration status and neurodivergence. It also would have established new classes to specifically defend against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender expression and gender identity.
The measure, sponsored by Sen. T'wina Nobles, D-Fircrest, didn't make it out of the House Appropriations committee.
House Bill 1622 would have required public employers to bargain with unions over the use of artificial intelligence if it affects worker wages or performance evaluations.
Opponents, including business groups and city officials, said the measure would skew the balance of power between employees and managers too far toward workers.
The Senate Ways & Means Committee did not advance the bill Tuesday. Rep. Lisa Parshley, D-Olympia, plans to fine-tune the legislation and bring it back next year.
'We have to jump on it,' she said.
House Bill 1218 sought to, among other things, establish an incentive program for cities and counties to reduce referrals to state hospitals for inpatient treatment of criminal defendants who are mentally ill.
The measure, originally requested by then-Gov. Jay Inslee, came in light of a long-standing court order pushing the state to more quickly get people evaluated and admitted for competency restoration treatment. The bill sought to reduce the number of people coming into state care and instead get them into local programs.
After passing the House along largely party lines, a state Senate policy committee 'effectively gutted' the bill, said sponsor Rep. Darya Farivar, D-Seattle.
'We saw pretty quickly that there was a fundamental difference of opinion' with the Senate, between tackling the problem on the front end or by addressing it simply through more state beds for involuntary treatment, she said.
This bill also lapsed in the Ways & Means Committee. Farivar plans to work on the legislation and revive it next year.
Legislation looked to ban algorithmic price fixing by prohibiting the collection of data that feeds recommendations for rental rates.
Senate Bill 5469 would have also barred landlords from obtaining those recommendations. This practice, led by software company RealPage, reportedly helped price an estimated 800,000 leases in Washington between 2017 and 2024.
But after state Attorney General Nick Brown filed a lawsuit on the issue against RealPage last week, 'there was less motivation to move the bill forward, pending the outcome of that lawsuit,' its sponsor, Sen. Jesse Salomon, D-Shoreline, said in a statement.
Senate Bill 5649 would have created a new program to provide grants and loans to ports to keep Washington's supply chain on par with competitors.
The Senate passed it unanimously, but it stalled in a House committee. Sen. Marko Liias, D-Edmonds, the bill's author, said he hopes the provisions could be included in a final transportation budget.
'With President Trump's tariffs already disrupting global trade, it's critical that we ensure Washington's supply chain remains competitive,' he said.
And legislation looking to strengthen criminal penalties against corporations responsible for environmental crimes has stalled in the House.
Advocates hoped Senate Bill 5360 would have served as a deterrent against violating state clean air, clean water and hazardous waste laws, and bring the state into alignment with federal punishments. Supporters said increased penalties were needed immediately given the Trump administration's overhaul of the Environmental Protection Agency that they say will result in less environmental protections. Opponents argued it went too far.