(The Center Square) – Washington state Rep. Mark Klicker, R-Walla Walla, is voicing frustration and outrage over Gov. Bob Ferguson’s recent announcement that he intends to establish a task force for creating a new, cabinet-level Department of Housing to centralize efforts to combat the state’s severe housing crisis.
Klicker got a bill passed during the 2025 legislative session with bipartisan support that would have funded a study to identify the cost drivers of the housing shortage.
Ferguson vetoed the bill in its entirety.
“It was the only bill that he vetoed in completion compared to everything else because of the fiscal note of $200,000 and some, yet he is going to create an agency that we know will be millions of dollars,” Klicker said during an interview with The Center Square.
Ferguson cited budgetary challenges as the reason for vetoing the bill.
Klicker said his bill would have brought together key stakeholders, including realtors, builders, and other industry leaders, to identify the real barriers to addressing the housing shortage and high prices that prevent many from achieving home ownership.
“It takes the everyday person. It takes people like your builders, your realtors, economists, landlords, tenants, union people, architects, utility companies, people that are involved in it every day, that have the experience, that have the facts, that have all the numbers that are needed,” Klicker said. “These are the people [who] experience it every day.”
Ferguson’s executive order sets up a state agency, the Department of Housing, that will make recommendations on building “pathways to stable housing” for those on the brink of homelessness and “expanding housing supply across Washington.”
Klicker said Washingtonians should “be livid” about Ferguson creating a whole new state agency at a time the state is facing a deep deficit.
“They should be so upset. But yet isn’t it amazing he makes this announcement just going into Christmas, knowing that the media isn’t going to jump on this or knowing that there’s not going to be any fallout or feedback from the rest of us,” he said. “I doubt he will reach out to me because he knows I’m very upset, but the thing is, the people of the state of Washington should be upset that that’s how he’s operating.”
