NAIOPWA Legislative Session Report - Week 11
Krystelle Purkey and Ehren Flygare, State Lobbyists
With just one month left of the 2025 regular legislative session, the deadline for bills to be voted out of policy committees is Wednesday, April 2. After this date, there is a very tight six-day turnaround for bills that have an impact on the state budget to be voted out of fiscal committees. This brief window of time means that lawmakers will have to act quickly to ensure that bills with fiscal implications, but are not NTIB, receive the necessary attention before they can move forward in the legislative process.
Speaker Emeritus Frank Chopp Passes AwayThe legislative community was shocked this week by the news that former Representative, Speaker Emeritus Frank Chopp (D-43) died on Saturday at the age of 71. Chopp was elected to the Legislature in 1994, a year when his Democratic Party suffered significant losses, dropping from a near supermajority in the House to a 62-36 minority.
In 1997, he became House Minority Leader and when the House was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans in 1999, he served as co-speaker alongside Republican Clyde Ballard of East Wenatchee.