(The Center Square) – Republicans in both chambers of the Washington State Legislature aren’t holding their collective breath that an amendment adopted in a rent cap bill that cleared the Senate late Thursday will be included in a final version after it goes back to the House of Representatives.
Engrossed House Bill 1217 passed the Senate after being amended to increase the annual rent hike limit from 7% to 10% plus the consumer price index, meaning it has to go back to the House for concurrence.
CPI is tied to inflation. While inflation is a general increase in prices, CPI is a specific index that tracks the average change in prices of certain consumer goods and services.
Sen. Sharon Shewmake, D-Bellingham, proposed the amendment to raise the limit to 10%. The amendment passed by a single vote after Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, left the floor, returned to his seat, and cast the tie-breaking vote in support of the adjustment.
Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver, voted against the final bill and issued a statement Thursday detailing her opposition to EHB 1217.
“Today, on the Senate floor, I spoke against the rent control and rent stabilization bill. While well-intentioned, this bill won’t stop runaway housing costs for families in southwest Washington – it will make them worse,” she said. “Rent caps limit how much rent can rise each year. While they may sound like safeguards, they’re short-term ceilings that prevent rents from adjusting to real costs like insurance, property taxes, and maintenance.”
“These controls discourage new housing construction and make it harder for small landlords to maintain safe, livable units. Instead of incentivizing the creation of more homes, bringing costs down for renters and homebuyers, this policy gives developers another reason to build elsewhere – pushing investment to states with clearer, more stable policies.
On Friday morning, Sen. Ron Muzzall, R-Oak Harbor, told The Center Square that “the House is going to hate it,” referring to the amended-by-the-Senate bill.
“It’s 10% plus CPI, so do we love it?” he asked. “No, we don’t love it but it’s better than 7% because it will follow the economy because CPI follows the economy.”
Muzzall said another amendment excluding single-family rentals is also a big win.
“Single-family rentals are what a tremendous amount of the rentals are. Maybe it was your grandparents’ house, and you’ve been renting it out, but now you can’t make money at it, so you’re going to sell it, and it’s not going to be a rental anymore,” he explained.
Muzzall hedged on whether the House would approve the amended bill.
“Are we going to be able to hold it?” he asked. “I don’t know.”
Two Republican House members told The Center Square the amended bill is unlikely to survive as is in their chamber.
“More likely than not, the House Democrats won’t accept the changes that happened in the Senate,” Rep. Michelle Caldier, R-Gig Harbor, said.
Rep. Dan Griffey, R-Allyn, said he’s convinced House majority members will not accept the amended bill.
“They are going to do a dog-and-pony show. They’re not going to concur and they’ll send it back over to the Senate,” he predicted. “They’re going to call for conference, and that will be granted, and then in a conference committee, they will remove the offensive language in the bill and get their bill clean; I believe that’s how it’s going to happen.”
Griffey said he thinks that the majority has the votes to restore the bill to the version that passed the House.
“Then when it comes back from conference, they will do an up-and-down vote, and they will have the votes to pass it,” he said.
Caldier said the other possibility is Democrats will not come to an agreement and the bill will fail.
“I have seen it before where they didn’t come to an agreement, and the bill dies,” he said.
Griffey said Caldier’s suggestion is the “rose-colored glasses” view of what will happen.
“Unfortunately, I think they’re going to get everything that they wanted, and the only backstop we have is the governor and how he’ll respond,” Griffey said.
Gov. Bob Ferguson has not weighed in on EHB 1217, at least not publicly during the legislative session.
“I really believe they want this policy so damn bad that they will break it again in conference, and then one of the last votes we take will be the conference committee vote and they’ll pass it,” Griffey forecast.
