Washington’s 2026 legislative session began in January, in Olympia. It’s called a “short” session because it lasts 60 days rather than the regular 105. It was intended to reconcile and refine the work of the previous full session. But there’s nothing short about it these days.
Consider the number of bills introduced and enacted over the past three “short” sessions:
- 2024: 1,232 introduced / 389 enacted
- 2022: 1,049 introduced / 306 enacted
- 2020: 1,800 introduced / 380 enacted
That’s more than 4,000 bills and 1,075 laws in 180 days.
Let’s do the math. If 1,350 bills (slightly less than the average above) are considered over those 60 days of legislative work, that’s almost 23 bills per day, seven days a week. That’s one every half hour in a twelve-hour day! This number should give every citizen pause. And it raises some basic questions:
- How many of those 23 bills per day did you or I ask our legislators to consider?
- How many do we even know about before they become law?
· How many receive meaningful public discussion in advance — in newspapers, community forums, or committee hearings that ordinary citizens can realistically follow?
· Is it even possible for elected officials to keep constituents informed at that pace?
Most Washingtonians are busy raising families, running businesses and serving their communities. The idea that citizens can meaningfully weigh-in on hundreds of new proposals every session is unrealistic.
What problems are we solving?
Washington faces enormous, well-known challenges: housing affordability, public safety, education outcomes, transportation challenges, budget pressures, and a regulatory climate that makes it harder to grow and build. These are not small issues. They deserve focus, discipline and measurable results. So, here’s the question: Can our legislature truly devote the necessary attention to the biggest problems facing our state? Or are we drowning in volume while the real priorities are lost?
The hidden cost of legislative overload
There is also a taxpayer cost to this flood of legislation. In Washington, the average cost to draft and introduce a bill is estimated conservatively at $5,000 per bill. Multiply that by 1,350 bills, and we’re approaching $7 million before considering the expanded staff, agency rulemaking, compliance burdens, enforcement costs, litigation risk, and years of unintended consequences. In in even the best year, two-thirds of those bills die.
More laws do not guarantee better government. At Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL), we build systems that protect critical infrastructure. In engineering, we are taught something simple: Complexity increases risk.
Good systems rely on clarity, discipline, and continuous improvement — not endless layering of new rules. Government should learn from the same principle. Before creating thousands of new laws, elected official must ask:
- Are existing laws working?
- Are outdated regulations being repealed?
- Are agencies held accountable for results?
- Are we measuring outcomes or simply producing activity?
In the most recent SEL Index of Freedom, Washington ranks only 35th overall, with particularly poor scores in regulatory freedom. That should concern anyone who cares about affordability and opportunity.
A better approach: prioritize, simplify, and solve
Humorist Will Rogers once joked that it’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for. These days, it feels like we might be getting more than we can manage.
We need legislators who are willing to slow down, prioritize, and focus on the reforms that truly matter for our future…with the deliberation and inclusion which are parts of representative government.
I believe we should ask which few problems shall we focus on solving — and how does any proposed legislation fit in with our focus and the roles of state government.
Here are a few ways:
- Is the bill truly an issue of state?
- Is it a statewide priority to the majority?
- Are there laws that we can rescind because they’re counterproductive?
- Do measures show that an enacted policy is actually working as intended?
Short sessions should not produce long lists of new laws. They should demonstrate clear progress on the challenges the people of our state cannot afford to ignore.
