Walla Walla Valley lawmakers recap session, respond to questions at town hall

More than 300 bills of the 1,500 introduced for the 2024 legislative session made it through the House and Senate to Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk, lawmakers from Walla Walla’s District 16 said at a town hall Thursday, April 3.

The whirlwind 60-day sessions occur every other year, in the off-year of the state’s two-year budget cycle. Lawmakers propose and debate bills while allocating capital funds to community projects and setting the supplemental operating budget.

Sen. Perry Dozier, R-Waitsburg; Rep. Mark Klicker, R-Walla Walla; and Rep. Skyler Rude, R-Walla Walla recapped the session before a crowd of about 50 people at the Walla Walla Community College Thursday.

They discussed their priorities in housing, state government and K-12 education committees; the bills they introduced and debated; the three initiatives approved by the Legislature and three more that will go before voters; and responded to questions from locals.

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The conversation ranged from housing, child care and vaccine mandates to ballots, redistricting, gun legislation and polarization. Some of the topics are covered below in more detail.

Capital gains tax

One of three initiatives the Legislature did not pass and will therefore go before voters in November is a repeal of the state’s capital gains tax, which was passed in 2021 and created a 7% tax on the sale or exchange of long-term capital assets including stocks, bonds and more.

Dozier said at the town hall that the bill was structured to target investments by the wealthiest in the state. The revenue is earmarked for child care, he said.

“Do you repeal this and we don't have chil dcare? Is it working? Does it really target only the wealthiest, or not, within the state?” he asked.

He said one of its problems is that it doesn’t have an exemption for agriculture.

“For those family farms that eventually transition down, if you don't do it the correct way and one of your family members decides to sell out, they may be faced with capital gains,” Dozier said.

One of the initiatives that was passed by the Legislature was a prohibition on an income tax in the state.

Klicker said while capital gains is officially qualified as an excise tax, he and other Republicans in the state view it as an income tax.

“As it sits, if this door remains open, eventually that tax will come down to the next level, and it will eventually affect every single one of us in this room, and that's the scary part. It is an income tax,” he said.

Money for child care

This year’s supplemental capital budget included significant dollar amounts for the Lions Park Community Center, College Place Fire Department, Mill Creek fish passage, the Prescott Public Pool and the Columbia Valley Center for Recovery.

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Two awards focused on child care: $175,000 for the YWCA Walla Walla child care center and $100,000 for a Waitsburg child care center.

Jillian Henze, a Waitsburg City Council member, attended the town hall and thanked the lawmakers for the support of the new child care center.

“We know we have more fundraising to go, but it was truly a miracle,” she said. “We do not have a single licensed day care in our city.”

She asked the lawmakers how the state can take a new approach to child care when centers are few and far between and not affordable.

Klicker said child care is a frequent topic for lawmakers and is an especially important issue to address in rural areas. He said there is money in the state for capital projects and directing those funds is a way the Legislature can help.

“We may be against all the taxing and all these sort of things, but that money's there, and they're going to spin in some way,” he said. “We're there to try to help find some of those opportunities, such as yours, to be able to fund.”

Dozier and Rude had other suggestions, from revisiting regulations for day cares in rural areas that may not need the same space or size regulations as day cares in urban areas to charging families receiving subsidized day care a copay to make up some of the cost to the center.

Polarization

Near the end of the session, Walla Walla City Council Member Jeff Robinson asked the panel of lawmakers for ideas on addressing polarization.

“I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired of being told who to hate every five seconds,” Robinson said.

Rude said a lot of the lawmakers do what they can to cooperate in a bipartisan way, and there’s plenty of common ground to be found when you’re looking for it.

Part of that is getting to know each other. Rude said he and Klicker would host dinner parties or game nights with their Democratic and Republican colleagues.

Klicker said he had a Democratic cosponsor on each bill he introduced this year. Otherwise, it’s just learning to work with people, Rude said.

“Some of these really contentious issues we have strong feelings about — guns would be one, natural gas, policies that we see hurting people that we're supposed to be looking out for — can be painful and frustrating, but there's a lot of common ground,” Rude said.