An insider’s guide to this year’s legislative session

So how did this year’s legislative session go?

“Overall, it was a short and tense session, but we had a number of successes,” said WSNA’s Director of Government Affairs Jessica Hauffe. “We were concerned that we might see more cuts to healthcare and social services than what we ultimately saw, but we have not escaped these cuts entirely as we look to the year ahead.”

Hauffe said the state will need to face the impact of H.R. 1, the federal reconciliation bill Congress passed 51–50 with a tie-breaking vote in June 2025. The bill was signed into law by President Trump on July 4, 2025, and makes the biggest cuts to federal safety nets in U.S. history.

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson has said that H.R. 1’s “catastrophic” cuts to Medicaid alone will amount to at least $3 billion in cuts a year in the state for the next 10 years. The bill also cuts SNAP (food stamp) benefits and restricts coverage and subsidies on the healthcare exchange.

WSNA entered this year’s legislative session with four priorities. Three were tied to legislation—nurse title protection, access to albuterol in K–12 schools, and protecting workers’ rights in Washington. All three bills passed. The fourth priority was protecting and preserving access to healthcare. 
 
A short summary of the three bills is below:

Nurse Title Protection
HB 2155 amends the Nurse Practice Act to ensure that those who use the term “nurse” are human, not artificial intelligence (AI).

Standing order for albuterol in K-12 schools
HB 2360 allows K–12 schools to keep an inhaler (albuterol) on hand for students experiencing asthma.

Protecting workers’ rights in Washington state
HB 2471 allows a state-based structure to secure basic collective bargaining rights for private-sector workers if federal courts undermine those rights.

Hauffe called the passage of nurse title protection “a simple but important first step” in putting guardrails around AI and nursing.

“Next, we plan to develop a subcommittee as part of the Legislative and Health Policy Council to evaluate the needs and opportunities there are to be done around regulating AI in the healthcare space,” she said.

The 2026 legislative session was shorter—60 days versus 105 days in odd-numbered years. In even-numbered years, legislators focus on passing bills and a supplemental budget.

This year, legislators factored into the supplemental budget funding for infrastructure required by the passage of HR 1 that aims to verify work and volunteer requirements tied to federal benefits, Hauffe said.

She said the state expects to see more direct funding impacts from H.R. 1 beginning in 2027 and over the following years.

There also was significant debate over the Millionaires’ Tax, SB 6346, which Gov. Ferguson signed into law on March 30. The tax now faces court challenges, and Let’s Go Washington, led by multimillionaire Brian Heywood, has filed a referendum to repeal the law on this November’s ballot.

Meanwhile, legislators were very receptive to hearing from nurses and would like them to speak more, Hauffe said.