Barkis Breakdown: That's a wrap! Recap of the 2022 legislative session

Well hey 2nd District, State Representative Andrew Barkas here. And guess where I'm at. I'm on the floor of the House of Representatives here, literally under the dome. For the first time in two years, I get to shoot a Barkas Breakdown right here on the floor of the House of Representatives. Well, 2022 session's over. It ended last Thursday where we actually signiedide and it was at that very moment, about 1130 at night, when I walked across the line there, stepped onto the floor for the first time in two years to actually join my colleagues that were here to celebrate the end of the session. It was a pretty good celebration to, you know, think about the successes and mainly just to be happy that we were done. Done with another really tough session. You know, it's quiet here on the floor of the House today. I was sitting there doing a little bit of work just thinking to myself how much I missed being out here with all my colleagues and how different the process is when we're all together. You know, the 2022 session will go down in history as a very partisan session. When you look at the budget that was passed, the transportation revenue package, so many policies that came off the floor of this House were done because, I believe, we weren't here together. Now I know COVID has been a big impact over the last two years and thank God we've seen the decline and I'm actually here without a mask for the first time too. But, you know, I do believe we could have done this session here all together and we could have done better policy, better bipartisan policy, if we were here. Because when you don't have that opportunity to talk to your colleague literally right across the aisle, things get missed, opportunities get missed, and as a result policy is put forth that there's so much disagreement on. And that's too bad for the people of the state of Washington and for you in the Second District. You know, I've worked hard all session long. I was here in the Capitol Building working down in my office virtually on the floor sessions running all the different policy focused primarily on transportation and housing. Now I've shared a lot within the last couple videos about the different policies we did and there were some great successes. I would say there's great successes in what we did in stopping a lot of really bad landlord-tenant policy from ever passing the floor of the house, which helps our small landlords, our housing providers, have a reprieve after two hard years of COVID. I would say that a lot of the policy that you'll see interwoven into the transportation package and the actual supplemental budget is a success, is bipartisan work, and I'm proud of the work that I've done on that. The countless numbers of hours working together with my colleagues on that. So there were some things, but I will say this, I'm worried about what we did on the operating budget. You know, when we walked in here in January, we had a $15 billion surplus. And when we walked out, every penny of it was spent. Every penny. You know, it's concerning with what's going on in the world right now, economic uncertainty, that we didn't take more precautions on setting stuff aside. Now, there were some dollars set aside. I will not, you know, forgo that. That was a good decision, but it should have been a lot more. We could have done a lot with the transportation package to fund out of that operating budget so as not to raise fees and taxes on the people of Washington State. In the housing arena, you know, we still have a supply issue. We still have a housing crisis. And unfortunately, we're leaving this session without really passing meaningful housing reform to get at the issue of creating more supply in Washington State. So it's back to the drawing board on a lot of stuff. Interim starts today, Monday, and we go to work. I'm going to be back out in the district meeting with constituents, visiting all the cities, talking to you about what we did and what we didn't do this session, and things that we can do better as we move forward into the planning for 2023, which will be right around the corner. And I pray to God that we are all here together in this building doing the people's work the way it's intended to be done. So it's a wrap for the 2022 session. And again, I'm proud of the work that the House Republicans have done, my colleagues and I. I know that it was a challenge on so many different levels, but we overcame quite a bit. And we're here to serve as we move into the interim to continue working with you, the people of Washington State. So as I always say, it's an honor and privilege to serve the people of Washington State and the people of the Second District. And until next time, thank you for watching another Barker's Breakdown.