The use of “kill” for efforts to stop legislation goes back to at least 1910. That’s when future President Calvin Coolidge, then a Republican state representative in Massachusetts, wrote to his father that it is “much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”
Killing bad bills means fewer bad laws, and a less intrusive government, which conservatives prefer. When you’re on the minority side of the state Senate chamber, and don’t control the agenda, stopping bad legislation is especially important.
With the 2025 session over for more than a month, and the final bill-signing ceremony behind us, let’s run through several of the wrong-headed proposals that were opposed by Republicans, and died.
Early in the session I used this space to call attention to a Democrat bill aimed at shortening sentences for violent felons. Supporters of Senate Bill 5269 made the ridiculous argument that it would save money and help address the state’s budget shortfall, but someone made the wise decision to let that bill die in committee.
If you’re familiar with the so-called “net nanny” law enforcement sting operations, in which officers pretend to be children online to catch would-be sex offenders, then you can appreciate why Republicans wanted to kill a Democrat bill to reduce the restrictions on those who are convicted of these sex-predator crimes.
The committee chair chose not to bring the bill, Senate Bill 5312, to a vote following its public hearing, so that soft-on-crime legislation died also.
In the education category, another Senate Democrat bill would have given biological boys the legal right to compete on girls’ sports teams and use the girls’ restrooms at school. If you hadn’t been aware of that legislation, it’s because SB 5180 received a public hearing but got no further.
I’ve heard Democrats talk a lot about what they call “access to democracy.” This session, following the success of the Let’s Go Washington organization in qualifying voter initiatives, the majority came up with a bill targeting people who are willing to go out and gather voter signatures on initiative petitions. But not long after Republicans began referring to Senate Bill 5382 as the “initiative killer,” it died.
Although this was a bad year for affordability, with Democrats approving the largest package of tax increases in state history, it could have been much worse if not for successful Republican opposition.
Other majority-party bills we helped derail would have made child care less affordable; imposed a pay-per-mile tax on drivers; removed the cap on college tuition increases; taxed employers to fund what amounts to unemployment benefits just for undocumented workers; and enabled property-tax increases by lowering the approval threshold for school bond elections.
Three other Democrat tax bills that died deserve special mention, as each was part of the $21 billion tax package linked to the operating budget passed by Senate Democrats two-thirds of the way into the session.
One was the statewide version of the payroll tax increase enacted by Seattle, which drove employers out of the city and across to east King County. It would have taken an estimated $6.6 billion from employers. Fortunately, the bill died in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
The second was the bill to tax intangible assets, like stocks, as though they’re parcels of land. This goes after the innovators who have made our state the home of a white-hot jobs market which is the envy of the rest of the country. Republicans have opposed this idea for years, and in previous years, it had not gained traction.
This year the “innovation tax” legislation, which would have taken more than $12 billion from people, was effectively dead the day after its committee hearing. However, in one of the more bizarre virtue-signaling moves we’ve seen, Senate Democrats pushed a less costly version through on the session’s final day even though they knew the House majority wouldn’t go along.
