By all accounts, the challenges lawmakers faced in the first session of Washington’s 69th Legislature were among the most daunting and potentially contentious in years. The state’s yawning revenue gap all but guaranteed there would be no painless solutions.
For Rep. Adison Richards (D-26th, Gig Harbor), it was a tough circle to square.
Now in his first term representing the 26th district in the House of Representatives, along with Rep. Michelle Caldier (R-26th, Gig Harbor), Richards compared the threats to the state’s fiscal health to twin waves. On the one hand, there is the very real possibility of federal cuts to programs like Medicaid, higher education, and childcare. That would be a critical decrease; 28% of the state’s budget comes from the federal government.
The other wave is the economic disruption to the state. “We’re the most trade-dependent state in the country, so trade wars are really bad for us,” Richards told KP News. “Our whole tax system is based on consumption, sales taxes, gas taxes, business and occupation taxes. If we have any sort of slowdown, which has kind of been in the mix regardless of administration, all of a sudden we have less tax revenue coming in.”
“We’ve got to figure out how to supplement that to keep hospitals and schools open,” he said. “I wanted us to pass the least economically disruptive budget possible and take a more cautious approach with our spending and tax decisions, rein in costs, and hold back on tax increases because of these waves.”
A controversial feature of the final $15.6 billion transportation revenue bill was the imposition of an additional 6 cents a gallon tax for gas, effective July 1, to be increased annually by an inflation factor. While federal funds and an assortment of fees help pay for WSDOT projects, fuel taxes account for the lion’s share of revenue. As a member of the House Transportation Committee, Richards had to help address the $8 billion shortfall in that budget over the next six years.
“We cut that down in the House bill to $4 billion by pausing projects, then raised revenue to cover the other $4 billion,” he said. “We’re not like the federal government. We can’t rack up a bunch of debt. We must make sure the budget is balanced.”
He would have preferred an idea advanced by the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Andrew Barkis (R-2nd, Olympia). Barkis would have paused programs like some new electrification projects, which could have saved $2 billion. Another proposal was to transfer a larger amount from vehicle sales taxes from the general fund into the transportation budget. The existing budget moves 6.5% of those taxes to the operating fund: only 0.1% went to transportation.
“If we shifted more of that into transportation, I think we could have saved everybody gas taxes,” Richards said.
Richards joined seven Democrats in the House and Sen. Deb Krishnadasan (D-26, Gig Harbor) in the Senate in voting against the final transportation bill that emerged after reconciliation of the Senate and House versions.
“Every vote I took was shaped by serving the district first, not party,” he said.
On the state’s capital budget, Richards and the rest of the district’s delegation secured funding for projects on the Key Peninsula, including $103,000 to repair the west wall of the Key Peninsula Civic Center and $211,000 for Key Center’s water system to help with power outages.
At the north end of the district, Richards, Caldier, and Rep. Greg Nance (D-23rd) worked together to approve $42 million for the renovation and modernization of the West Sound Technical Skills Center in Bremerton.
“It was really fun to go to bat for local projects and then end up seeing those in the budget,” Richards said. “I drove past West Sound Tech the other day, and there were people out there working. Kids, students from everywhere on the peninsula will benefit from that project.”
An amendment that Richards introduced for the House transportation bill didn’t make it past reconciliation, since the focus was on pausing new programs. It would have appropriated $350,000 for a simple transit expansion on the KP with a ride-share program from Pierce County.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to put that back in in the next session (which meets for 60 days starting on the second Monday in January 2026),” Richards said. “There’s at least momentum now to really start investing in more options for the Key Peninsula, which I’m excited about.”
Richards was one of five Democrats voting against the rent stabilization bill that imposed rental caps on landlords. “Policies like this slow down the building of housing,” he said. “We’re already not keeping up with the pace of housing production we need. It’s the development of housing, building up the supply, and giving people options that will ultimately stabilize housing prices in the market.”
Richards supported House Bill 1296, the revision of the initiative passed last year protecting the rights of students and parents.
In voting for the bill, “I listened to parents on both sides concerned about what is happening in public schools and from those who want to protect their kids from bullying,” he said. “I voted for a policy that better protected all students and parents with immediate notification of any criminal activity against a student, making necessary updates to align with medical records laws, and providing additional support to students being bullied for who they are.” Rep. Richards voted against cutting off debate in the House on the Senate version of the bill, Senate Bill 5181, that did not pass both houses during this session.
Four of the 12 bills that Richards introduced became law, including one that streamlines permitting for WSDOT projects and a bill aligning compensation for injured workers who are single, which he worked closely on with Rep. Dan Bronoske (D-28th) and Rep. Liz Berry (D-36th).
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