What WA Gov. Bob Ferguson said, and left unsaid, in his State of the State address

Gov. Bob Ferguson on Tuesday celebrated the “heart and spirit” in Washington communities ravaged by flooding in December, then pumped up fellow Democrats with calls for taxing millionaires and standing up to federal immigration agents whose actions he deemed “unjust.”

In his second address to the Legislature, Ferguson avoided the sticky topic of a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall. He focused instead on the lives upended by the storms and those on the front lines of the response. He then hit on topics resonating strongly in the ranks of Democratic lawmakers.

“When the story of this historic flood is written, it will recognize that when history paid us an unexpected visit in December of 2025, the people and this state stepped up and faced the challenge head-on,” the first-term Democrat said in a half-hour speech delivered in the House chamber. “It’s that heart and spirit of our people that allows me to report today that the state of our state remains strong.”

Democrats applauded his proposals to put more money into maintaining the state’s transportation system, building more ferries, constructing affordable housing and sustaining early learning education with philanthropic help from billionaire Steve Ballmer.

They rose and roared with approval of Ferguson’s embrace of taxing the income of millionaire earners. They did so again when he said he wanted to see a bill barring federal immigration agents from shielding their identities when operating in the state. He called for that bill to be delivered to his desk “immediately so I can sign it into law.”

These reactions were a far cry from 2025. Last year, many Democrats, who hold majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, grimaced throughout much of the new governor’s reform-minded inaugural speech.

“I think the reaction that you saw from the Democratic caucus is he hit on the topics we care about,” said Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self, D-Mukilteo, who is caucus chair.

Ferguson, as he did a year ago, namechecked Republican lawmakers involved in bipartisan legislation he supports concerning veterans, reckless driving and affordable housing.

But it evoked little response from GOP members, unlike a year ago, when Republicans’ praise overflowed for what they heard.

“He’s not nearly as friendly to us as he was last year,” said Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, who last year lauded Ferguson’s address because “he focused on the real tasks ahead and avoided rampant partisanship.”

Here are 5 takeaways from Ferguson’s address.

Left unsaid

Ferguson never mentioned the looming multibillion-dollar budget shortfall. Erasing it is arguably the most important and difficult task that he and lawmakers face in the 60-day session.

He’s proposed across-the-board spending cuts, siphoning $1 billion from the state’s emergency reserves and shifting nearly $600 million in revenues from the state’s auctions of air pollution allowances to make ends meet. Teachers, health care workers, and environmentalists — core constituencies in the Democratic Party base — are among the loudest critics.

“We’re trying to make the budgetary reality line up with some of the poetry that we heard today,” said Rep. Shaun Scott, D-Seattle. “We govern in prose. We write our budgets with hard arithmetic. It’s going to require additional revenue, which we did not hear a lot of support for today.”

Scott said he appreciated Ferguson’s pitch to get more students and families to seek federal financial aid for college.

“It is hard to square that with the governor’s budget proposing a 3% cut across the board” for the University of Washington, he said. Cutting higher education does not line up with the values of constituents in his district, which is home to the university.

A historic session?

Enacting a tax on millionaire earners would be a historic achievement, Ferguson said.

“Our system takes too much in taxes from hardworking families and not enough from the wealthy. That’s not fair. That’s not right,” he said.

There’s no legislation yet proposing the tax. Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, and House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, D-West Seattle, are the sponsors and it is getting written up. Pedersen confirmed Tuesday that the basics of the legislation are still expected to involve a 9.9% tax on income over $1 million, excluding capital gains.

Ferguson made clear in his speech that most of the revenue from the tax, which could total as much as $3 billion a year, must be put back “in the pockets of Washingtonians.”

He wants the money used to expand eligibility for and increase the amount of the Working Families Tax Credit, which goes to low- and middle-income households, and to lower taxes on small business owners. Another chunk should go into the K-12 public school system, he said.

Democrats like the idea. Republicans are dug in against it. It isn’t going to be easy, but Ferguson urged the Legislature to “seize this opportunity” to make the tax system more fair.

Storm recovery

The financial toll for residents and infrastructure from the December storms will be costly and recovery will take months, in some cases years. But Ferguson didn’t, as he has before, talk about how he’ll make the most “persuasive” case to secure federal aid from a Trump administration that denied the state’s aid request following a destructive 2024 wind storm.

Instead, he heaped praise on the response of public agencies and local governments.

“Government gets its share of criticism. But it’s only fair to stop and notice when government delivers, especially under the most challenging and stressful circumstances,” he said. “We were not passive observers of a historic event.”

ICE top of mind, Trump unmentioned.

Surprisingly, Ferguson never mentioned President Donald Trump or the Republican-controlled Congress.

But he took direct aim at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, tagging it as one of the “external challenges that create division and costs to our state, our families and our communities.”

“We need to be direct about what is happening in our country and our state with ICE. It’s horrific, it’s unjust, and it needs to stop, now,” he said.

Republican perspective

Legislative Republicans saw Ferguson’s speech as a departure from the bipartisan tone he struck last year. When he took office, they were hopeful he’d be more of a centrist than his predecessor.

Those hopes were heavily dashed when he signed billions of dollars in new and increased taxes into law to help fill last year’s budget shortfall.

“I guess we will never know which Bob Ferguson we’re getting any day of week,” Minority Leader Drew Stokesbary, R-Auburn, told reporters. “When he took office last year, it looked like he wanted to be a Democrat Dan Evans that Washingtonians remember for generations, and now he looks like a governor desperate to shore up his base.”

Last year, Republicans were delighted to hear Ferguson cite several of their policy priorities in his address, including new grants to hire more police officers. This year, the Republican-backed bills Ferguson mentioned were mostly noncontroversial policies likely to pass anyway, Stokesbary said.

The speech signals to Republicans that they’re in for “58 and a half days of fight over what it means for state government to clear the path for people to live prosperous lives here,” said Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia.

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