State House of Representatives adopts conference report on capital gains tax bill

Leg­is­la­tion that would final­ly levy a state cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy in Wash­ing­ton State is on the cusp of reach­ing Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s desk.

By a vote of fifty two to forty-four, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed to adopt a final ver­sion of the bill (ESSB 5096) that was nego­ti­at­ed by a con­fer­ence com­mit­tee con­sist­ing of three state rep­re­sen­ta­tives and three state senators.

All that is now need­ed is a cor­re­spond­ing vote in the Sen­ate, and then the bill — one of the most impor­tant and con­se­quen­tial pro­gres­sive tax reform pro­pos­als in state his­to­ry — will be on its way to Gov­er­nor Inslee’s desk at last.

The roll call was as follows:

Roll Call
SB 5096
Cap­i­tal gains tax
Final Pas­sage as rec­om­mend­ed by the Con­fer­ence Committee
4/24/2021

Yeas: 52; Nays: 44; Excused: 2

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bate­man, Berg, Bergquist, Berry, Callan, Chopp, Cody, Davis, Dolan, Duerr, Enten­man, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Good­man, Gregerson, Hack­ney, Hansen, Har­ris-Tal­ley, John­son, Kir­by, Klo­ba, Lekanoff, Lovick, Macri, Mor­gan, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Peter­son, Pol­let, Ramel, Ramos, Ric­cel­li, Ryu, San­tos, Sells, Senn, Shew­make, Sim­mons, Slat­ter, Springer, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Tay­lor, Thai, Tharinger, Valdez, Walen, Wicks, Wylie, Jinkins

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Abbarno, Barkis, Boehnke, Bronoske, Caldier, Cham­bers, Chan­dler, Chap­man, Chase, Cor­ry, Dent, Dufault, Dye, Eslick, Gil­day, Goehn­er, Gra­ham, Grif­fey, Har­ris, Hoff, Jacob­sen, Klick­er, Klip­pert, Kraft, Kretz, Leav­itt, MacEwen, May­cum­ber, McCaslin, Mos­bruck­er, Orcutt, Paul, Rude, Rule, Schmick, Steele, Stokes­bary, Suther­land, Vick, Volz, Walsh, Wilcox, Ybar­ra, Young

Excused: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives McEn­tire, Robertson

Two Repub­li­cans did not par­tic­i­pate in the vote. The rest vot­ed no, along with the same five Demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tives who vot­ed against the bill ear­li­er this week: Mari Leav­itt, Dan Bronoske, Dave Paul, Ali­cia Rule, and Mike Chapman.

The oth­er fifty-two Demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed aye.

Leav­itt, Bronoske, Paul, Rule, and Chap­man all rep­re­sent dis­tricts that, in their cur­rent incar­na­tion, are wide­ly con­sid­ered swing dis­tricts. As their votes were not need­ed to pass the bill, no pro­gres­sive activist should be upset that they vot­ed no. What is impor­tant is that this final­ly got done, at least on the House side.

As men­tioned, there is only one step left in the leg­isla­tive process before the bill leaves the Leg­is­la­ture and heads to the gov­er­nor’s office for bill action, and that’s the Sen­ate vote on adop­tion of the con­fer­ence com­mit­tee report.

Pre­sum­ing the same twen­ty-five sen­a­tors who pre­vi­ous­ly vot­ed for the bill do so again, NPI’s top leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ty will have received a total of four affir­ma­tive floor votes pri­or to Sine Die (the final adjourn­ment at the end of session).

It’s hard to put into words how elat­ed we feel right now.

We are so, so, so close to a major pro­gres­sive tax reform vic­to­ry in Wash­ing­ton State. Near­ly three in five Wash­ing­to­ni­ans sup­port levy­ing a cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy to ben­e­fit pri­or­i­ties like edu­ca­tion, accord­ing to our research. We have been ask­ing about levy­ing a cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy for six straight years, and we’ve always found a robust major­i­ty in support.

Kudos to Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors for final­ly mak­ing this hap­pen. We have one more vote to go, and then this wor­thy leg­is­la­tion will be in Gov­er­nor Inslee’s hands.