OLYMPIA — Rep. Greg Nance, D-Bainbridge Island, began the first day of his first-ever legislative session with a 3-mile run.
"Running is that anchor in my life," Nance said, checking his watch to verify his 1,383-day streak. "Every day, I never miss. ... If I'm on track there, the rest of the day goes well. And when it's your first day of session like this, it's easy to overthink everything."
The sprint he and his 146 new co-workers started Monday will go for 60 days.
Nance is the Legislature's only first-year lawmaker, appointed last year to replace Drew Hansen, who is now in the Senate after Christine Rolfes left for a county commission seat. In Washington, the even-year "short session" is sandwiched between longer sessions that take place in odd years.
Monday's opening ceremonies kicked off what is expected to be an active two months. Lawmakers will pass an updated budget, including untangling the mathematical knot caused by a massive increase in the cost of transportation projects.
They will also work on some of the biggest issues facing Washington: homelessness, the lack of affordable child care and the quest to provide more treatment for people with substance use disorders amid record overdose deaths.
Alongside them floats the ever-present specter of the 2024 elections, when all seats in the House and some Senate seats are up for reelection, and when Washingtonians will choose a new governor for the first time since 2012. An array of GOP-supported petitions to change or repeal policies ushered in by majority Democrats, like the new capital gains tax and a system for capping the state's emissions, also looms.
Yet on Monday, the mood in Olympia was often jovial as lawmakers greeted each other and the hours and minutes ticked down to the college football national championship game, where the University of Washington faces off against the University of Michigan. Members could be spotted wearing purple shirts, blazers and ties — and in the case of Rep. Chris Corry, R-Yakima, a Huskies jersey underneath a blazer.
It wasn't all pomp and circumstance Monday. Bills from the prior year can get revived in the short session, and the Washington House passed three bills that had been introduced in 2023.
The House agreed to disallow people younger than 18 from getting married, let cities split residential lots to allow for more housing construction and passed a bill to require the state's military department to create a program to help communities with extreme weather events like heat waves. Each now heads to the Washington Senate for consideration.
House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, said she was both "determined" and "optimistic" going into the session. She stressed in an opening speech to the House that Washington's problems were interconnected.
"Our challenges don't exist in silos, and our solutions cannot exist in silos," Jinkins said, urging her colleagues to take action on issues from high rents to climate change.
Rep. Drew Stokesbary, R-Auburn, the new leader of the House Republicans, encouraged his colleagues to consider Republican solutions to big issues like homelessness, the cost of living and students struggling in school.
"House Republicans here in Washington want to help resolve the numerous crises facing our state," Stokesbary said. "Most of our constituents don't care if something is a Democratic idea or a Republican idea. They just want good ideas."
Across the rotunda, Lt. Gov. Denny Heck, who presides over the Senate, mentioned the 1889 state Constitution, on loan from the state archives and displayed on the dais to mark the opening of the session. (The glass-encased document meant that statehouse reporters could not sit at their assigned table on the floor in the chamber.)
"Our system of government is unique," Heck said. "It's been called 'the great experiment,' the longest surviving democracy in the world, and our state is an extension of that. And we govern through rule of law — not the whim of an individual but the rule of law, which is your sacred mission to modify and propose changes to, in keeping with our founding document."
Nance got a front-row seat to the formal aspects of the Legislature's opening ceremonies: He and Rep. Stephanie McClintock, R-Vancouver, went to Gov. Jay Inslee's office to inform him that the House was open for business. (Inslee, a resident of Bainbridge Island, is a constituent.)
"I love some of the pageantry and traditions," Nance said. "It reminds you that folks have been doing this since we became a state, and it's just such an honor to be a small part of it and to join a great team."
