2023: Year in review
2023 saw Washington state take a big leap towards a clean, just and exciting future. Historic investments in housing will accelerate construction and restrain runaway rents. Historic gun legislation will save lives by keeping prolific assault weapons out of dangerous hands. Ferry workers kept passengers — and kittens — safe. And kids now ride public transit for free all over Washington.
Big things happened in 2023. Let’s take a look at this year’s most-read stories and most-liked posts from the Office of the Governor.
Goooooooaaalllllllll
The FIFA World Cup is coming to Washington in 2026. Once the news broke in March, Gov. Jay Inslee helped raise a World Cup flag over the Space Needle in downtown Seattle.
It took more than just a little elbow grease to raise that flag. The SEA 2026 committee was formed years in advance to pitch the Evergreen State as a host location for a leg of the tournament. The committee brought together community leaders, elected officials, local soccer superstars, business experts, and more. The governor pitched in, too, attesting to FIFA his state’s commitment to sustainability and inclusion. The pitch was well-received, and Seattle was among 16 cities on the continent selected to host 2026 FIFA World Cup games.
That announcement followed two other raucous weekends in Seattle after more than 100,000 people attended the MLB All-Star Game at T-Mobile Park, and after ‘Swifties’ caused a 2.3 magnitude earthquake at Taylor Swift’s performance at Lumen Field.
Seattle fans can bring the thunder, and they’ll do it again in 2026.
A breath of fresh air
The governor laced up his hiking boots in August and climbed up 5,400 feet to Gobbler’s Knob overlooking Mount Rainier, where lightning strikes had recently set off fires.
Climate change is harming the planet. Extreme heat events are becoming more common, and they’re drying out fuels so that wildfires can consume even more land area. While wildland firefighters and bucket helicopter pilots heroically battle flames each year, society must also do its part to cut back on the climate pollution that accelerates climate change.
“I think our great-grandkids deserve it. We are gonna defeat climate change for these forests,” said Inslee.
In defense of choice
The last two years have been stained by a crusade against reproductive health and the right to abortion care. Conservative federal judges have issued ruling after ruling to strictly regulate health care for pregnant people. Washington has risen in defense, taking action after action to armor patients’ health and autonomy.
Inslee signed new legislation this year creating a shield law for reproductive care providers and patients from anti-choice states, and a comprehensive data privacy law to protect patients’ personal health information. After a right-wing judge in Texas ruled to restrict a safe and effective abortion medication in common use for decades, Inslee and legislators quickly took action and the state bought a years-long supply to ensure access.
Fighting back against gun violence
America’s ongoing epidemic of gun violence has in recent years spurred “a sea-change in Washington’s gun laws,” as The Seattle Times wrote in a 2022 editorial. Washington’s strategy is about enacting policies that prevent gun violence stemming from any number of circumstances including domestic violence, death by suicide, and community violence.
On April 25, Inslee signed historic legislation to prohibit the sale of assault weapons in Washington state. He also signed a requirement of safety training and a ten-day waiting period before taking possession of a firearm after purchase. The new requirements go into effect Jan. 1.
Moving people in from the cold and back to well-being
It is no coincidence that with surging rents has come surging street homelessness. Unsanctioned encampments appearing along busy roadways are hazardous to travelers and occupants alike. The governor’s Rights of Way Safety Initiative launched in spring 2022 has removed 30 unsafe encampments so far, and brought more than 1,000 people inside.
Shelter means more than a roof overhead. Supportive housing puts people closer to services, such as treatment to break away from opioids or therapy to address chronic mental illness. Nearly four in five people who found housing through the ROW program remain there, making progress towards independence. Inslee is requesting funding this session to keep the program going.
Throughout the year, the governor has visited encampments and housing developments to meet with people who are on a path to getting better.
Another breath of fresh air
Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood borders I-5 just north of King County International Airport. Nearly 100,000 cars pass every day as nearly 500 aircraft take off. Lower-income communities like this one are often victim to higher levels of pollution that cause asthma and other ailments. The Climate Commitment Act is doing something about that.
A new CCA-funded air quality monitoring station will track progress to reduce emissions over time, and a statewide network of these stations will grow over time. The data they produce will help determine permitting of local industrial projects, investments in electrified public transit, and other initiatives.
“Pollution from the oil and gas industry is dangerous. We are fighting it,” said Inslee. “There are forces, unfortunately, that are trying to repeal our efforts to protect Washingtonians from air pollution. The oil and gas industry wants to be free to put as much pollution in the air as they can so that these instruments can go off the charts. So these instruments are telling us what we need to do: reduce pollution and defend the Climate Commitment Act.”
Money in the mail
Nearly 200,000 Washington families got a nice surprise this year: a check in the mail. The Working Families Tax Credit was funded by the legislature in 2023 and to benefit working people stuck on the wrong end the state’s regressive tax system. A 2021 study found that low-income Washingtonians pay 17% of their income in taxes while middle-class people pay 11% and the wealthiest pay just 3%.
As many as 400,000 households are eligible for a rebate of up to $1,200. The average rebate is over $700. So far, only half of eligible households have applied and the program remains open. Tell your friends!
The changing face of the justice system
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor died on Dec. 1. She served on the court for 25 years before retiring in 2006. It was an eventful quarter-century, and she saw the judiciary at many levels transform to become more representative of the nation.
Of this transformation, she said, “In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.”
In Washington state, talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity now serve throughout the judicial system. That is an outcome of Inslee’s deliberate process over the years to appoint a representative judiciary. And many Inslee appointees have been tapped by President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama to serve their nation on federal courts.
Through the end of 2022, half of the governor’s 158 judicial appointments were women, and thirty percent identify as being from communities of color.
Who let the cat out?
Washington State Ferries workers were going about their work one day this July. They heard the whipping breeze, the turning gears, the churning seas… and a meow. A kitten had been marooned on a terminal structure in the water, the icy water splashing at its paws. A WSF crew launched a rescue boat and brought the kitten ashore to safety and a checkup at the South Whidbey Animal Clinic.
A country music and literary superstar visits
Dolly Parton has spread joy for decades, first as a country music icon and now again as a literary Santa Claus. Parton’s Imagination Library delivers a book every month to enrolled children through their fifth birthday. The program now delivers more than two million books a month to children throughout the United States.
The Imagination Library of Washington just started up this year, and now children all over the state will be blessed with fun and enlightening books for no cost at all.
