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Results

What we have passed, and what we have stopped

Bill-level results for our clients before the Washington State Legislature, including the only two industry sales-tax exemptions enacted in Washington in 2017 and 2019, both drafted by our firm.

$37M

Annual gain to vehicle subagents from HB 1789, the largest fee increase in the industry's history

57

Companies we gathered onto a single letter to exempt all real estate from the state capital gains tax

$14M

Capital budget appropriation secured for Tacoma/Pierce County Habitat for Humanity in 2023

96–0

The House vote on our biggest 2026 win, carried by a Republican, and not one member of either party voted no

2026 session

Full repeal of the certified mail requirement.

While others accepted partial fixes or narrower changes, we were the only organized voice pushing for full repeal of outdated certified mail requirements. We made the case. We stayed on the issue. And we got the result.

Chester Baldwin, on HB 2664 and HB 2452

HB 2664 and HB 2452 were signed by the Governor on 11 June 2026. Together they remove the certified mail requirement for unlawful detainer notices, modernize service of rent-increase notices, and restore manufactured housing community notice service to RCW 59.20.150, a statewide change benefiting housing providers well beyond our own clients.

Who carries our bills

Republicans and Democrats, chosen for the bill.

A sponsor is not a statement of allegiance. It is a tactical choice about who can carry a particular bill through a particular committee in a particular year. We pick the member most likely to get it done, and we have working relationships in both caucuses deep enough that the choice is actually ours to make.

Carried for us by Republicans

  • Rep. April Connors: HB 2664 and HB 2452, the 2026 certified mail repeal and notice modernization
  • Rep. Andrew Barkis: HB 1096, lot splitting, 2025
  • Sen. Mike Padden: SB 5058, condominium liability reform, 2023

Carried for us by Democrats

  • Sen. Claudia Kauffman: SB 6347, estate tax rates, 2026
  • Sen. Jessica Bateman: SB 5148 and SB 5184, housing and parking reform, 2025
  • Sen. Yasmin Trudeau: SB 6175, converting existing buildings to affordable housing, 2024
  • Sen. Mark Mullet: SB 5290, permit streamlining, 2023

Four of the bills on this page passed one or both chambers unanimously: SB 5290 (98–0 and 47–0), SB 5058 (97–0 and 48–0), HB 1976 (97–0), and HB 2664 and HB 2452 (96–0 and 48–0). Unanimity is not an accident. It is what happens when the objections have been worked out before the bill reaches the floor.

$14M

Washington State Capital Budget, 2023

Case study · Tacoma/Pierce County Habitat for Humanity

Eighty homes, made permanently affordable.

Pierce County Housing Authority was divesting eighty single-family homes. Tacoma/Pierce County Habitat for Humanity had one chance to buy them and convert them to permanently affordable homeownership, and needed a direct state appropriation to do it.

We built the case and ran the campaign. We drafted the Pierce County support letter that went to the House and Senate capital budget committees over the signatures of the County Executive, the Council Chair and all six councilmembers, and secured sign-on from the entire Pierce County legislative delegation across five districts and both parties. We booked and led the delegation meetings through the interim, and took the request directly to the chairs who decide the capital budget.

The Legislature named the project and funded it at $14,000,000, the largest single item in its section of the Housing Trust Fund project list, and reaffirmed without reduction in the 2024 supplemental capital budget. It sits alongside $1.5 million from the Pierce County Council in a $43 million project.

Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5200, Ch. 474, Laws of 2023, Sec. 1020(8), “Tacoma/Pierce County Habitat Affordable Housing (Pierce County). . . $14,000,000”

The Building Hope campaign ↗

Pro bono · ASHHO Cultural Community Center

A community center that now owns its own building.

ASHHO is a small non-profit in Tumwater: a cultural center, a café, and a culinary and hospitality job-training program built for survivors of trafficking and interpersonal violence and for Indigenous, Black, Brown, and LGBTQ residents of Thurston County. Students train in twelve-week cohorts, move into a six-month externship, and come out with a permanent placement.

It was all happening in a rented suite, and the rent kept climbing. On that trajectory ASHHO would lose the building, the training kitchen would close, and a community that had finally found somewhere to gather would have nowhere to go.

We took the matter on pro bono. We built the capital budget request and the fact sheet behind it, filed the local and community project form, recruited the sponsors, and worked the request through both budget committees to the members who write the capital budget.

The 2025–27 capital budget funded it. ASHHO used the appropriation as down-payment assistance and bought the building.

$927,000

Named appropriation, 2025–27 Washington State capital budget, Department of Commerce, local and community projects

How it was carried

Requested in the House by Rep. Beth Doglio and in the Senate by Sen. Jessica Bateman, and funded in a capital budget that passes on bipartisan votes every biennium.

ASHHO Cultural Community Center ↗

We take a small number of pro bono matters each session for non-profits that could never afford a lobbyist and would otherwise never be heard in the capital budget process. The work is the same work our paying clients get.

The third column

The wins that never show up as a bill passing.

A majority can pass what it wants. For most of the industries we represent the routine win is not a bill passed or a bill killed; it is a bill made smaller. That work is invisible unless somebody writes it down, so we write it down: what the bill would have done, what it does now, and what moved in between.

SB 5722 · 2022 · Clean buildings

A four-year rent restriction, taken out of an energy bill.

As introduced

Extended the building energy performance standard to multifamily buildings, and required that any building taking incentive money hold rent increases at or below inflation for four years, with administrative penalties for exceeding it. Compliance was measured on a greenhouse-gas-adjusted energy metric that scored a building by the emissions of each fuel it burned.

As enacted

The four-year rent condition is gone, replaced by a discretionary enhanced payment for owners willing to commit to “antidisplacement provisions”, a term the statute never defines and attaches no duration to. The greenhouse-gas-adjusted metric is gone entirely. A small business economic impact statement is now required in both rulemakings, and a null-and-void clause ties the whole act to budget funding.

What remains: the standard now reaches buildings between 20,000 and 50,000 square feet, with penalties of up to 30 cents per square foot for failing to document compliance.

Passed · Ch. 177, Laws of 2022 · Senate 27–22, House 53–45, concurrence 28–21

HB 1904 · 2022 · Rent notice and late fees

Narrowed first, then stopped.

As introduced

A landlord raising rent by more than three percent would have had to give 180 to 220 days’ written notice, and the tenant could end the tenancy before the increase took effect and owe only pro rata rent. Late fees capped at one and one-half percent of monthly rent.

As substituted

The trigger moved from three percent to seven and one-half percent. The percentage late-fee cap became a flat seventy-five dollars. The same substitute extended a parallel notice regime to manufactured and mobile home tenancies for the first time, at a four percent trigger.

Why this is the best kind of outcome: the bill was narrowed and then died anyway. If it returns, the amended text is the starting point, not the original.

Died in the House Rules Committee, 22 February 2022, a week after the house-of-origin cutoff, with no floor vote in either chamber

HB 1951 · 2022 · Seller disclosure

A liability standard put back where it was.

As introduced

Would have made a seller “liable for any error, inaccuracy, or omission” in a property transfer disclosure statement, striking the long-standing protection for sellers who had no actual knowledge of the problem, and deleting the “Don’t know” option from the disclosure form.

As substituted

The amendment to the seller-liability statute was dropped outright. The actual-knowledge protection stayed in the law and the “Don’t know” option stayed on the form. What was left was a disclosure-content bill about animal damage.

Died in the House Rules Committee, 3 February 2022 · no floor vote

Session by session

Recent sessions, 2023 to 2026.

What passed with our support, and what we killed. Defensive work is half the job: in Olympia a bill stopped is worth as much as a bill passed.

2026 105-day session, sine die 12 March 2026

Passed

  • HB 2664 Rental housingRemoved the requirement that unlawful detainer and related notices be sent by certified mail, allowing regular mail with an additional five-day period. The single biggest process reform for housing providers in years.Prime sponsor Rep. April Connors (R) · passed the House 96–0 and the Senate 48–0Governor signed · effective 6/11/2026
  • HB 2452 Manufactured housing & rental housingModernized service of rent-increase notices to allow personal delivery, mail, or posting, and reverted manufactured housing community notice service to RCW 59.20.150.Prime sponsor Rep. April Connors (R) · passed the House 96–0 and the Senate 48–0Governor signed · effective 6/11/2026
  • SB 6347 Commercial real estateReturned the estate tax exclusion and rates to pre-ESSB 5813 levels, cutting the top estate tax rate from 35% back to 20% for decedents dying on or after 1 July 2026.Prime sponsor Sen. Claudia Kauffman (D) · passed the House 85–8 and the Senate 39–10Governor signed · effective 6/11/2026
  • SB 6346 Trade associations · opposedWe opposed this bill and it passed anyway. Before it did, we secured a carve-out exempting non-profit organizations from sales tax on live presentations, trainings, and seminars from 1 July 2026.Passed over our opposition · carve-out won

Stopped

  • HB 2489Restricting enforcement of public-space laws around homeless encampments
  • HB 2100 / SB 6093Employer payroll tax
  • HB 2292 / SB 6229Expanding the capital gains tax
  • HB 2528 / SB 6211Implementing REET without a public vote
  • HB 2191 / SB 6068Shifting contractor wage and benefit liability upstream to owners
  • HB 1732 / SB 5496Limiting ownership of single-family homes by certain entities
  • SB 6139Partial payment of rent in unlawful detainer
  • HB 2259 / SB 5973Weakening the initiative process

2025

Passed

  • HB 1491 Commercial real estateTransit-oriented development.Prime sponsor Rep. Julia Reed (D)Governor signed · effective 7/27/2025
  • HB 1096 HousingLot splitting.Prime sponsor Rep. Andrew Barkis (R) · passed the House 94–4 and the Senate 43–4Governor signed · effective 7/27/2025
  • SB 5184 Commercial real estateReform of minimum parking requirements.Prime sponsor Sen. Jessica Bateman (D)Governor signed · effective 7/27/2025
  • SB 5148 HousingHousing Accountability Act.Prime sponsor Sen. Jessica Bateman (D) · passed the House 78–19 and the Senate 48–1Governor signed · effective 7/27/2025
  • HB 1543 Commercial real estateClean building standards.Governor signed · effective 7/27/2025
  • Capital budget ASHHO Cultural Community CenterA $927,000 named appropriation in the 2025–27 capital budget so a Tumwater cultural and job-training center could buy the building it had been renting. Pro bono.Requested by Rep. Beth Doglio (D) and Sen. Jessica Bateman (D)2025–27 capital budget · Commerce local and community projects

Stopped

  • HB 2027REET increase plus a new transfer tax on residential sales over $3M
  • HB 1907 / SB 5711Tax on rent
  • HB 2084Tax preference repeal and tax on rent
  • HB 1915Rental Restriction Act
  • HB 1334Property tax limit increases
  • SB 5798Property tax increases
  • SB 5797Intangible assets tax
  • SB 5796Payroll expense tax on large employers

2024

Passed

  • I-2113 Public safetyRestored police pursuit on reasonable suspicion that a suspect has violated the law.Initiative to the Legislature · passed the House 77–20 and the Senate 36–13Chapter 6, 2024 Laws · effective 6/6/2024
  • HB 1976 Commercial real estateIncreased incentives for Tier 1 and Tier 2 buildings under the energy performance standard.Prime sponsor Rep. Mary Fosse (D) · passed the House 97–0 and the Senate 47–2Delivered to the Governor
  • SB 6175 HousingExtended the multi-family tax exemption and a sales and use tax deferral to the conversion of existing structures, including commercial buildings, into affordable housing.Prime sponsor Sen. Yasmin Trudeau (D) · passed the House 94–2 and the Senate 46–1Senate concurred · enacted

Stopped

  • HB 2114 / SB 5961Statewide rent control
  • HB 2276 / SB 6191REET increase
  • SB 6136B&O tax and rent control on commercial and residential rents
  • SB 5770Raising the property tax growth limit to 3% CPI
  • SB 5335Capital gains tax on real estate
  • HB 2323 / SB 6212Mandatory credit reporting under the RLTA

2023

Passed

  • ESSB 5200 §1020(8) Tacoma/Pierce County Habitat for HumanityA $14,000,000 named capital budget appropriation, the largest single project in its subsection of the Housing Trust Fund list, to acquire and rehabilitate 80 Pierce County Housing Authority homes as permanently affordable homeownership.Sign-on secured from the entire Pierce County delegation, five districts, both partiesCh. 474, Laws of 2023 · reaffirmed in the 2024 supplemental
  • HB 1110 HousingMiddle housing.Prime sponsor Rep. Jessica Bateman (D) · passed the House 79–18 and the Senate 35–14Governor signed · effective 7/23/2023
  • HB 1527 Commercial real estateTechnical changes to tax increment financing.Governor signed · effective 5/9/2023
  • SB 5258 & SB 5058 CondominiumsCondominium liability reform, including buildings of twelve units or fewer.SB 5058 prime sponsor Sen. Mike Padden (R) · passed the House 97–0 and the Senate 48–0Governor signed · effective 7/23/2023
  • SB 5290 Commercial real estatePermit streamlining.Prime sponsor Sen. Mark Mullet (D) · passed the House 98–0 and the Senate 47–0Governor signed · effective 7/23/2023
  • SB 5352 Public safetyPolice vehicular pursuit.Prime sponsor Sen. John Lovick (D), second sponsor Sen. Drew MacEwen (R) · passed the House 57–40 and the Senate 26–22, majorities of both parties in both chambersGovernor signed · effective 5/23/2023

Stopped

  • HB 1628The highest state REET in America on properties over $5 million
  • HB 1388Rent control
  • HB 1389 / SB 5435Rent control
  • HB 1625 / SB 5615Local rent control, removing state preemption
  • SB 5697Manufactured home park rent control
  • HB 1124Rent-control-lite, one-way leases and fee restrictions
  • HB 1589 / SB 5562The natural gas ban, killed on the Senate floor after passing the House 52–44

Earlier landmark bills

Legislation we drafted, moved, amended, or defeated.

2020SB 6170

Plumbing

Overhauled the state plumbing code and created a residential service plumber certificate, establishing requirements for a plumbing contractor license.

Passed

2020HB 2405

BOMA

C-PACER legislation allowing counties to establish Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy and Resiliency programs, opening financing that could run as low as 2% over 50 years.

Effective 6/11/2020

2020SB 6378

Washington Landlord Association

Amended the bill as it passed the House so WLA could move from oppose to neutral; the bill passed restoring the three-strikes provision.

Passed, amended

2019SB 5668

Towing & Recovery

Drafted and passed the only industry retail sales and use tax exemption enacted in Washington that year, covering sales of abandoned vehicles by registered tow truck operators at public auction or to a licensed wrecker, hulk hauler, or scrap processor.

Passed

2019HB 1789

Vehicle Subagents

The largest fee increase in vehicle subagent history: title change service fee from $12 to $15 and registration renewal from $5 to $8, roughly $37 million annually, a 65–80% increase for every subagent office.

Passed

2019HB 1160

Vehicle Subagents

Transportation budget proviso appropriating $275,000 from the highway safety fund for a study of vehicle subagents in Washington State.

Enacted in budget

2019SB 5025

Habitat for Humanity

Real estate excise tax exemption for the sale of self-help housing by an affordable homeownership facilitator to a low-income household.

Passed

2019SB 5600

Rental housing

Major rewrite of the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, creating a uniform 14-day notice to pay and vacate and requiring landlords to apply tenant payments to rent before other charges.

Passed

2019SB 5183

Manufactured Housing Communities

Created and expanded relocation assistance for tenants in manufactured housing communities, worked with Rep. Cindy Ryu and other stakeholders.

Passed

2018SB 6438

Vehicle Subagents

The ‘7-year license plate fix’, clarifying the collection process for existing vehicle service transactions, worth an average $93,000 per subagent and roughly $13 million annually.

Effective 4/1/2019

2018HB 2612

Towing & Recovery

Consolidated license plate: a single license plate for registered tow truck operators.

Signed, effective 6/1/2019

2017SB 5977

Martial arts schools

Drafted and passed the only industry retail sales and use tax exemption enacted in Washington that year, removing martial arts from the definition of retail sale.

Passed

2017HB 1038

Family Wineries

Increased the number of tasting rooms allowed under a domestic winery license from two to four.

Passed

2017HB 1305 / SB 5388

Property owners

Allowed a property owner to remove an unlawful occupant by sworn statement that the trespasser does not have permission to be on the property.

Effective 7/23/2017

2014SB 5875

Homeless housing

Extended the $40 local homeless housing and assistance document recording surcharge, a bipartisan effort with Rep. Sawyer in the House and Senators Benton and Angel in the Senate.

Effective 6/12/2014

Beyond individual bills

Budget wins, tax fights and local campaigns.

Capital budget

Secured Capital Budget funding for the UW Tacoma branch campus high-tech learning center, and state funding for water and sewer infrastructure serving a major retail development, delivered a year earlier than anticipated.

Capital gains and energy

Exempted all real estate from the state capital gains tax, gathering 57 companies onto a single letter of support. Defeated the natural gas ban legislation (HB 1766, 1767, and 1770) and passed the Multi-Family Tax Exemption and Tax Increment Financing.

Local government

In the City of Spokane, sustained pressure led the Council to pause its proposal to make homelessness a protected class and open community listening sessions instead.

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