The Speaker's Scoop

The House spent 26 hours debating passage of a Millionaires Tax on Monday and Tuesday this week, with the bill finally passing late Tuesday afternoon. Speaker Jinkins discusses how House Democrats stayed focused and motivated during the long debate, knowing they were fighting for a historic change to Washington's outdated, regressive tax system that will help working families and small businesses....

As the session winds down and deadlines loom, Speaker Jinkins says she's staying focused not on the constraints of the clock or the calendar, but on who is being helped by the work done in Olympia.

Lots of stuff happening in Week 7 of the legislative session. Speaker Jinkins touches on some of the big topics of the week, and discusses how despite different approaches to the state budget between the House and Senate, the underlying values of each chamber's budget proposal are pretty aligned. 

It's House of Origin Cutoff week in the Legislature and this year, the "five o'clock bill" didn't end up getting a vote on the House floor. Speaker Jinkins discusses the short-term disappointment, but also why she's optimistic about the long view for forward progress on the issue of juvenile rehabilitation.

This is the week when the House of Representatives shifts gears and moves from holding public hearings on bills to debating and voting on many of those bills on the House floor. In today's podcast, Speaker Laurie Jinkins talks about this process, about how bills earn a coveted spot on the crowded House docket, and about how she and the other 97 members of the House paid tribute to Seattle Seahawks...

With H.R. 1, the federal government has created a disaster with regards to health care access and affordability, food assistance, and more here in Washington state. This is on top of the Trump Tariffs and inflation that are also hitting Washingtonians' pocketbooks. Speaker Jinkins discusses how many of the bills before the Legislature to address local affordability concerns are actually connected...

Another US citizen was killed by federal agents in Minnesota last week, and communities here and across the country are living in fear from harmful and malevolent actions by ICE. Speaker Jinkins discusses what bills are currently being considered in the Legislature to protect Washingtonians and our first responders from federal overreach.

Washington House Speaker Laurie Jinkins talks about the tone she is setting for the 2026 session, which started with her opening day remarks on January 12. As House Democrats work to protect Washington values from harmful federal actions and policies, Speaker Jinkins believes it's also important to be honest with Washingtonians about what's at risk from the bad things coming out of the other Washi...

The 2025 session adjourned on Sunday, April 27th. In this final episode of The Speaker’s Scoop (until next January), Speaker Laurie Jinkins looks back on what she calls the most challenging session since her election to the Legislature 15 years ago. In the end, she says, the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate produced a balanced budget that centers education, housing, healthcare, mental...

This week, Speaker Laurie Jinkins talks about opposite-house cutoff, five o’clock bills, conference committees, concurrences — the hectic give and take that characterizes the final days of a legislative session.

This week, Speaker Jinkins talks about public health, including key legislation this session; notes that this is National Public Health Week; and reminisces about about her friend and mentor Mary Selecky, the giant of the state’s public-health efforts, who died this week.

This week, Speaker Jinkins talks about Opposite House cutoff, the next major turning point for the 2025 session. She also offers her thoughts on Speaker Emeritus Frank Chopp, her predecessor in the speakership, whose death two weeks ago sent shock waves through the Legislature and the state.

With a little over four weeks left to go in the session, Speaker Jinkins is thinking about the many steps that need to happen to get a final budget agreement, pass it in both chambers, and get it to the governor’s desk for signature.

This week, Speaker Laurie Jinkins is focused squarely on the Legislature’s next, and biggest, task: crafting and passing an operating budget — a moral document — that exemplifies consistent Democratic values despite a yawning deficit.

It’s House of Origin Cutoff, an important deadline in the session, so Speaker Jinkins only had 56 seconds to chat with us.

Speaker Laurie Jinkins discusses the transition in Olympia to full-time floor action this week, and recounts her discussion with U.S. Sen. Patty Murray about the unprecedented threat posed by actions of the new federal administration.

It’s great to be in the majority, and be able to pass good policies that help people thrive and move Washington forward. Democrats in the state legislature have gotten to do a lot of that over the past few years. But when there’s a budget shortfall, like this year, it’s also the majority that decides what gets cut from the state budget. This is not simply about numbers on a spreadsheet; it’s about...

In this week’s installment of The Speaker’s Scoop, Speaker Jinkins talks about two hard deadlines legislators are facing — policy cutoff and fiscal cutoff — and the impact they have on the fate of bills. She also talks about every lawmaker’s fear: the dead bill.

Is it a “spending problem?” This year, budget writers in Olympia are contending with a $12 billion shortfall in the state budget. Speaker Jinkins’ self-described “wonky take” on this question covers the unpredictability of revenue growth when balancing the state budget over four years, and how Washington’s regressive tax structure falls heaviest on working families and households with the lowest i...

Before he left office, Governor Inslee released two budget proposals. His “Book 2” proposal is the one the media has focused on. This budget proposed $12 billion in new revenue, and around $2 billion in cuts. But the only budget proposal a governor is actually required under state law to release is one with  no new revenue . This is called a “Book 1” budget, and so far no one has really been talki...

Washington Senate Democrats have a new Majority Leader: Sen. Jamie Pedersen. He and Speaker Jinkins have actually known each other for 30 years, going back to when they were both (in her words) “…young whippersnapper advocates.” In this episode, she talks about what it’s like to work with him as her leadership counterpart in the state Senate.

Welcome to The Speaker’s Scoop, a behind-the-scenes podcast with Washington Speaker of the House Laurie Jinkins. In this first episode, Speaker Jinkins talks about the ceremonial aspects of the first week of session. She also talks about the budget challenge facing lawmakers this year, and how this may be the year a rent stabilization bill gets all the way to the governor’s desk.