Adison Richards on His Second Session

Rep. Adison Richards (D-26th)

Washington State Legislature

How I’ve talked about the budget is different than how my caucus has talked about the budget.”

Adison Richards, 33, completed his second Washington state legislative session March 12. It ran for 60 days and included passage of significant Democratic Party priorities, including a so-called millionaire’s tax on capital gains and a new state housing program to reduce homelessness.

The final balanced budget also included large cuts to education and child care programs, such as $100 million from early learning and $150 million from child care subsidies. Other cuts hit Transition to Kindergarten programs, Running Start, and charter schools.

“The decisions aren’t getting easier,” Richards said. “What I’ve tried to do with the bills I have worked on is have some nexus or some relation to a local issue responsive to what constituents are asking for. The other sphere is related to things like cost of living, public safety, and making government work better for people.”

Richards voted against the operating budget, property taxes, and gas taxes in his first session in January 2025, and against the millionaire’s tax in his second.

“How I’ve talked about the budget is different than how my caucus has talked about the budget,” he said.

The millionaire’s tax, Senate Bill 6346, officially called “Establishing a tax on millionaires,” targets income over $1 million at the rate of 9.9% for individuals. It is scheduled to take effect in 2028 and begin collection in 2029 to fund education and childcare, and to reduce other taxes.

“Speaking specifically about the millionaire’s tax, no, I was not let off the hook (by his caucus),” Richards said. “The vote margin was very small, and they wanted as many people to vote for it as possible (the House passed the bill 51-46 after a 24-hour debate). But I ran on lowering taxes for low and middle-income people, small businesses, and that’s what I stood on doorsteps and told people.”

The new law has already been challenged by a coalition represented by former Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, who has said in news reports that he expects it to be found unconstitutional by the state supreme court since it is not a uniform property tax treating all taxpayers equally.

“To have an income tax, we need a constitutional amendment,” Richards said. “It needs to be uniform, and I think there’s an interest in doing tax reform across party lines, and I’m interested in continuing those conversations to get it right. But this proposal, to me, ended up just being a blank check.”

He voted for the STEP housing bill, HB 2266, intended to prevent cities from denying transitional housing projects in commercial or residential zones, to provide temporary shelter for people experiencing homelessness.

“I know folks have questions about that,” he said. “What’s been made clear, especially with the Salvation Army closing up in Bremerton, is that every community needs to have a role in providing services so that folks are not getting punted from one community to another. There are safeguards in the bill: a county has some basic requirements to preserve the physical character of the community.”

Richards sponsored a bill to facilitate the removal of derelict vessels, and plans to continue working on bills to streamline state permitting and provide more funding to Pierce County, specifically for law enforcement.

“There’s no question the state hands the primary public safety responsibilities to the county to fund law enforcement, to fund the jails, to fund public defense,” he said. “It’s something I’ve focused on from day one, and in my first session, I sponsored a couple of different bills that would have provided direct funding to counties for hiring more law enforcement. Unfortunately, those two bills did not pass. What passed was House Bill 2015 that (authorized) the Pierce County Council to pass a new 1% sales tax increase (for law enforcement).”

Richards also worked with Sen. Nikki Torres (R-15th, Yakima) to finance more public defenders. “That’s a public safety issue too because if (defendants) qualify for a public defender and they don’t get one on time, they go free, and that’s something I’m super concerned about,” he said.

“There’s certainly a lot of pressure on us because of what’s happening at the federal level. The federal government is cutting funding to things like education and healthcare, and that’s putting more pressure on us as a state to carry the bag, especially going forward, and there are a lot of questions.”

Richards will be running for reelection in the fall. He has one opponent as of press time, Republican David Olson, who serves on the Peninsula School District board of directors.

“The way I look at it is I’ve been given a 2-year contract, and now I’ve got a performance review,” he said. “I think we did secure a lot of wins for the community. I love this place where I grew up, and I want to keep going to work.”