Chopp

The group of legislators representing Capitol Hill in Olympia say their work in 2024 is focused on increasing the supply of affordable housing, strengthening public healthcare, and taking on an issue of civil rights that has caused outcry in the city’s queer-friendly queer communities.

Sen. Jamie Pedersen, Rep. Nicole Macri, and Rep. Frank Chopp gathered Saturday for the 2024 43rd District Town Hall at First Baptist Church to answer community questions and discuss the most important legislative issues they’re pursuing.

The current legislative session has reached the halfway point as the state’s lawmakers meet for only a 60-day period in even years under Washington’s two-year budget system.

Chopp has long-held a focus on addressing housing concerns and cited the Home and Hope Program, which acquired 30 major sites in King County that created 7,000 homes as an example of progress.

The Housing Trust Fund supports the financing of thousands of low-income housing units across the state. The Apple Health and Homes Program allows individuals who are experiencing chronic homelessness who also live with a medical condition to have housing as part of their medical treatment.

“70% percent of the chronically homeless have a serious medical condition, a mental illness, substance use disorder, a major physical disability,” Chopp said.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is catching up with WA by expanding the 1115 waiver authority to include housing as a key component of treatment. These expansions come after federal understanding of how health-related social needs, like food and housing insecurity, play a crucial role in the health of the whole person.

“We are now leading the nation on that whole effort, which is essentially a prescription for a home,” Chopp said. “Those folks should not be suffering or dying on the street.”

He also hopes to increase funding for affordable housing through the Affordable Homes Act, which in part, reserves funds to house and provide services to individuals living with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“We hope to pass that this year, and actually have an ongoing revenue stream to help pay for this,” Chopp said.

Converting Sound Transit land into housing developments is another way to increase affordable housing supply. He brought up Mercy Angle Lake Family Housing, which turned unused Sound Transit land into 130 housing units next to the light rail station.

The Rise — “the largest building constructed by any affordable housing provider in Seattle” — opened on surplus Sound Transit land at Madison and Boylston in 2023.

Macri

Macri, who has been working on rent stabilization policies since 2018, was asked what data or details are needed from constituents to lead to rent stabilization. Macri brought up House Bill 2114, a rent stabilization bill that was sent to the Senate.

“It prohibits increases in rent of more than seven percent on an annual basis for most housing—not for all housing,” Macri said, with exemptions including newly constructed homes.

HB 21114 includes mobile homes, whose occupiers have also seen significant rent increases.

“It also, statewide, will cap late fees at no more than 1.5 percent of monthly rent,” Macri said.

She said Seattle residents are lucky to have a $10 late fee cap because many renters across the state don’t have one.

“It was incredibly popular among House Democrats,” Macri said. “Folks that tend to be more moderate in our caucus, because they represent more mixed districts…strongly supported this policy.”

Macri added, “We have more people who are cost burdened in the 43rd than any other district.”

Macri also addressed an audience member’s question about what bills and investments are combing through both chambers that would address the fentanyl crisis. She said she’s primarily focused on the public health effects of fentanyl, and to a certain point, focused on the manufacturing and distribution of it. She said WA is at the tail-end of the crisis because fentanyl entered the East Coast first, then made its way over. At the same time, Macri said she is seeing new drugs in the south that are trickling in from Canada.

“It’s really a challenge to keep on top of the drug market trends,” Macri said. “This is the worst, I think, we’ve ever seen because of the lethality of these drugs in particular.”

Macri is placing her attention on public health approaches related to substance use disorder and opioids. She brought up generic bills that focus on education, prevention and treatment strategies in K-12 schools and colleges.

“We will have some investments for sure in the House budget that try to get at manufacturing and distribution issues. I will say that for over 40 years, there has been this kind of war on drugs approach to try to stop the distribution of drugs. In general, it has not been successful,” Macri said.

Pedersen

An important topic on Saturday was the recent “lewd conduct” enforcement by the state liquor board and Seattle Police at area gay bars.

“You have to read this to believe that it exists in 2024, but it literally prohibits the top of one’s nipple from being shown at a bar. It prevents the top of one’s rear end from being shown at a bar,” Pedersen said about the lewd conduct rules.

Pedersen said the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, in tandem with SPD’s Joint Enforcement Team (JET), “raided a few gay bars with flashlights and cameras in what looked like something right out of Stonewall in the 1960s—it’s really kind of shocking. We have some really sharp conversations with the liquor control board.” While business owners of the queer bars successfully fought back against potential citations, Pedersen said he hopes to repeal the lewd conduct citations with legislation currently sitting in the House.

One issue he addressed was the safety of the local adult entertainment industry, and how Senate Bill 6105 would primarily provide worker protections in wages and safety for individuals who are strippers, a diverse industry full of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC members.

“One of the things that they have come to us—to the legislature saying—is because the businesses where they work are not allowed to serve alcohol, then stripping and sex are the center of the business and it makes them unsafe,” which Pedersen said is another concern that needs addressing.

Other issues of note

How is the state increasing pharmacy options following the closure of CVS and Bartells? Macri said consolidation and the power of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) are to blame.

“PBMs are so incredibly powerful and states are limited,” Macri said. “These national, multi-billion dollar entities that are driving the market related to prescription drug purchasing…and the patients are not really regarded in how that happens. This is part of a national trend where we’ve seen consolidation in the pharmacy where we don’t really have our corner drug stores anymore.”

Why is the state spending time and money to limit where people can open-carry? “We just watched a situation after the Super Bowl where we had an attack on people in a parade in Kansas City. I think the reality is people are not unreasonably fearful when they see folks slinging guns around their backs,” Pedersen said.

He said open-carry is primarily used as an intimidation tactic, and that SB 5444 restricts the places where people can open-carry, like in libraries, zoos, aquariums, and on transit.

What will be done to protect the state capital gains tax on the Nov. ballot? “It’s a number one priority for us this year to defeat the repeal of that bill,” Chopp said, as his mic continued to cut out. “We want to lead with our investment. And what have we invested in? Childcare, early learning.”

Pedersen said, “You all get to decide about that initiative. I think you will come to the right conclusion.”

Thoughts on SB 6038, which would reduce costs associated with providing childcare? “Yes, we need another revenue stream to expand the childcare in the state,” Chopp said. “It’s critical not just for the kid, but for the parents and for the economy…it’s very fundamental.”

How to improve public transportation? “The number one thing we need to do is protect the Climate Commitment Act,” Macri said. “If we want projects like Sound Transit to continue and stay on target, what I think we need to work on is protecting the Climate Commitment Act.”

Update on the clean busses bill? HB 1360 aims to assist school districts in transitioning to 100% electronic buses, which Pedersen finds amazing, and is paid for with Climate Commitment Act dollars.

“That is the direction we need to be headed in our state and I’m going to do absolutely everything to make sure the bill makes it through the Senate,” Pedersen said.

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