NAIOPWA Legislative Session Report - Week 13

Krystelle Purkey and Ehren Flygare, State Lobbyists

With the passing of the Tuesday, April 8 deadline for bills to be voted out of fiscal committees, the legislative process now enters its next phase. Both the House and Senate will shift their focus to floor debates, caucus, and conference committee negotiations as they work through the last two weeks of the 2025 regular legislative session. The next deadline of consequence is the Opposite Floor Cutoff on April 16 by which bills must be voted out of the opposite chamber.

Although the broader legislature remains focused on voting on policy bills through April 16, budget negotiations are ongoing behind the scenes. Fiscal leaders are grappling with how to reconcile their funding priorities with concerns raised by Governor Ferguson last week, especially around proposed revenue measures. The central challenge is finding common ground between legislative goals and the governor’s push for reduced spending and less new revenue.

Rent Cap Legislation Advances

One of the most consequential - and certainly one of the most oxygen-consuming legislative showdowns of the week centered around HB 1217 (Alvarado, D-34). This bill, which seeks to implement a cap on rent increases along with a suite of other housing-related provisions, ignited significant debate and mobilized a wide array of lawmakers, advocates, and stakeholders, with communications flooding into legislative email boxes. The legislation is a flashpoint in the broader conversation about housing affordability, laying bare the deep divides on this issue across the state.

To read the full legislative update using your NAIOPWA member profile, click here.