WA Democrats expanding influence, voting power

All right. Welcome back to Good Day Seattle. The blue wave that swept the midterms also rippled into Washington state's legislature. Democrats flipped enough seats to reach a supermajority in the House, and that means more power to set the agenda and get legislation through. Joining us this morning, House Majority Leader State Representative Joe Fitzgibbon from the 34th District. That includes Seattle and Burien. Good morning to you. Hey, good morning. So what do you make of this blue tsunami that we saw in the midterms? What message does that send? I think it says that voters in Washington and across the country are really frustrated with a lot of the decisions they've seen coming out of the White House, coming out of Congress, out of the Republican Party. Certainly the impacts on cost of living of tariffs, of the war in Iran, on gas prices, of interest rates, making it more expensive to get a mortgage is really hurting people both here and everywhere in the country. And so we definitely saw a big backlash to the Republican Party and to the kind of governance that they've... You know, led with at the national level, as well as just a continued commitment to see Washington invest in the things that the Washingtonians want to see. And so what will the the mandates be the top priorities for this Democratic supermajority? Our biggest priorities are going to be to support public education, K-12 education as well as higher education, access to health care, access to food, and a real commitment to both create jobs and bring down the cost of living in our state. Okay, so how much of a seat at the table are Republicans going to have now with a Democratic supermajority in the House? Republicans will always have a seat at the table as long as there's Republicans in the legislature. We're always interested. They represent parts of the state that sometimes we don't have Democrats representing. They definitely bring a unique perspective. perspective on some of the most rural parts of our state, and so we always invite them to provide their perspectives, and sometimes we get those perspectives and sometimes we don't, but, you know, we still have a significant budget challenge, and we'll be asking Republicans as well as Democrats for their ideas on places that we can cut back in order to balance our budget. Okay, so I'll present one of those Republican perspectives, potentially. The millionaire's tax, which was essentially ratified by voters in the midterms, is the state prepared for the fallout of this? If you have high earners that are essentially They're essentially handing over 10% of their money to the state for the right to live here. A lot of those people might be looking to move out. Are we prepared for that? Most states have a personal income tax. Washington has been an outlier in this area, that we've been one of the only states, we were one of nine states, now there's only eight states left that have no personal income tax. It's just more typical and more fair, I think, to ask the wealthiest people to support public education and to support health care the way that they do nearly everywhere else. So there aren't that many places to move. If some people want to move to avoid paying taxes, they have that prerogative, right? But I tend to think that The wealthiest in Washington and the poorest in Washington are better off when we invest in public education and in health care. Okay, is there a push for a broader income tax in our state? You would have to change the Constitution to do so, but is there a coalition saying we really need to impose a statewide income tax? No, you will not see the legislature move forward with any expansion of the income tax below the million-dollar threshold. Okay. Anytime in the foreseeable future, certainly not in the next two years, and I don't think probably as long as I'm in office. House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon making his making his way to the new studio this morning, and he did exactly what I did. He drove to the old building, and so we were hoping to have him at 745. We got him at 815, but we got you. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. It was great to have you.