The Speaker's Scoop

This week, Speaker Jinkins talks about public health, including key legislation this session; notes that this is National Public Health Week; and reminisces about about her friend and mentor Mary Selecky, the giant of the state’s public-health efforts, who died this week.

This week, Speaker Jinkins talks about Opposite House cutoff, the next major turning point for the 2025 session. She also offers her thoughts on Speaker Emeritus Frank Chopp, her predecessor in the speakership, whose death two weeks ago sent shock waves through the Legislature and the state.

With a little over four weeks left to go in the session, Speaker Jinkins is thinking about the many steps that need to happen to get a final budget agreement, pass it in both chambers, and get it to the governor’s desk for signature.

This week, Speaker Laurie Jinkins is focused squarely on the Legislature’s next, and biggest, task: crafting and passing an operating budget — a moral document — that exemplifies consistent Democratic values despite a yawning deficit.

It’s House of Origin Cutoff, an important deadline in the session, so Speaker Jinkins only had 56 seconds to chat with us.

Speaker Laurie Jinkins discusses the transition in Olympia to full-time floor action this week, and recounts her discussion with U.S. Sen. Patty Murray about the unprecedented threat posed by actions of the new federal administration.

It’s great to be in the majority, and be able to pass good policies that help people thrive and move Washington forward. Democrats in the state legislature have gotten to do a lot of that over the past few years. But when there’s a budget shortfall, like this year, it’s also the majority that decides what gets cut from the state budget. This is not simply about numbers on a spreadsheet; it’s about people and families that will be directly impacted.

In this week’s installment of The Speaker’s Scoop, Speaker Jinkins talks about two hard deadlines legislators are facing — policy cutoff and fiscal cutoff — and the impact they have on the fate of bills. She also talks about every lawmaker’s fear: the dead bill.

Is it a “spending problem?” This year, budget writers in Olympia are contending with a $12 billion shortfall in the state budget. Speaker Jinkins’ self-described “wonky take” on this question covers the unpredictability of revenue growth when balancing the state budget over four years, and how Washington’s regressive tax structure falls heaviest on working families and households with the lowest incomes.

Before he left office, Governor Inslee released two budget proposals. His “Book 2” proposal is the one the media has focused on. This budget proposed $12 billion in new revenue, and around $2 billion in cuts. But the only budget proposal a governor is actually required under state law to release is one with no new revenue. This is called a “Book 1” budget, and so far no one has really been talking about what Gov. Inslee’s “Book 1” budget looked like. Speaker Jinkins looks at some of the details.