Pregnancy will no longer be a presumed exception to one’s wishes in their living will, thanks to state legislation spurred by advocacy from islander Hilary Emmer.

Gov. Bob Ferguson last month signed that bill and many others at the close of the 2025 state legislative session.

On Tuesday, May 20, he signed his first budget as governor into law, with few vetoes. The two-year operating budget includes $77.8 billion in government spending and raises taxes by about $9 billion — the biggest tax hike in state history.

Republicans and Democrats battled over gun control and school disclosure of information to parents this session, among other issues.

But the close of the legislative session brought many updates specific to Vashon, too, including the confirmation that midday Vashon-Seattle Water Taxi service will continue. Those midday trips, added last year, were in jeopardy as legislators sought to make cuts to the state transportation budget, but funding secured by Sen. Emily Alvarado means they will continue.

Here’s a summary of major action from the state capitol this year and how it affects Vashon, including Emmer’s advocacy with lawmakers.

Vashon projects in the capital budget

Major projects in the capital budget for Vashon Island comprise, altogether, more than $4 million in state funds. Those projects — plus comment from their awardees — are:

• $1,232,000 from the Recreation and Conservation Office for armoring removal at the Maury Island Aquatic Reserve.

The Aquatic Reserve is owned by the Department of Natural Resources. Vashon-Maury Basin Steward Greg Rabourn, who identifies projects for salmon recovery for the county, said the project will remove about 400 feet of armoring — primarily creosote-soaked pilings and lumber — from an area located just north of Lost Lake on the southeast shores of Vashon.

“We’re very excited,” he said. “This particular section of bulkhead is actually built out over the intertidal [zone], so it’s particularly impactful because you’re actually covering up beach sediments, and it goes out into deeper water, so driftwood can accumulate and have much more impact toward salmon and forage fish.”

Crews will have a barge in the Lost Lake area this summer, he said, but actual bulkhead removal will require a different set of permits and could be “a couple years out.” The window of time to remove the bulkheads is narrow — only a couple of months in late summer — so as to avoid disturbing fish. After the bulkhead removal, crews will replant vegetation and remove invasive plants, he said, returning the area to the kind of natural shoreline more favorable to salmon.

“About half of Vashon is armored, so the area we can restore becomes critical for salmon recovery,” he said. “So far, we’ve restored over 2,000 feet in the last 15 years.”

• $1,300,000 from Commerce for the Vashon Food Bank’s project to move to the Methodist Church.

Emily Scott, executive director of the food bank, said in an email that the organization is “honored” by the funding.

“Our relocation project is critical to our goal of providing reliable and dignified grocery services and connections to other supporting resources for thousands of our island friends and neighbors every year,” Scott said. “These funds bring us to over 85% of our campaign goal and help keep us on our timeline to open the new food bank in early 2026.”

• $167,000 from Commerce for a Voice of Vashon Digital Renovation project.

”We’re overjoyed at this once in a lifetime chance to rebuild our technical infrastructure,” said Voice of Vashon Executive Director Kate Dowling. “Some of our equipment is as old as Voice of Vashon, 25 years, a long time in the highly technical world of radio and TV. It’s especially important that we get this equipment project going because we are the island’s Emergency Alert Service, in addition to our FM station, public access cable channel, and our radio and TV streaming service. We simply couldn’t fund this out of our fundraising for day-to-day operations.”

• $871,000 from the state Historical Society for the Mukai Cold Process Food Barreling Plant.

Friends of Mukai cofounder and barreling plant construction committee chair Lynn Greiner said they’re “thrilled” about the budget appropriation, which will be “a huge boost” for the project to restore the Fruit Barreling Plant.

“We worked so hard to get this funding: it required a detailed barreling plant design plan, a match of almost $1.7M, and a compelling occupancy plan for the building— the Vashon Food Hub,” she said. “Ours was the top ranked project out of 41 contenders in the state for these Heritage Capital Project funds. A fully funded project award in these times of tight budgets is an incredible vote of confidence.”

• $70,000 from Commerce for the Vashon Community Pool.

“This funding will be instrumental in developing concepts for improvements at the pool,” said Park District Executive Director Tim Stapleton. “We extend our deepest appreciation to everyone who loves and uses the pool, our invaluable community partners, Vashon Seals, and the Vashon Parks Foundation.”

The Park District was also awarded a $521,000 grant through the Aquatic Lands Enhancement Account (ALEA) program for work on rebuilding Tramp Harbor Dock. However, the district turned the money down because it required a matching amount, and the district is unlikely to receive another grant which it intended to use as the match for that ALEA grant, Stapleton said.

Pregnancy and advanced directives

Any adult can write an advanced health care directive — commonly called a living will — with their preferences for life-sustaining treatment if they are rendered terminally ill or permanently unconscious.

The law includes a suggested model form for such a directive, which includes a provision that if the person has asked to have life-sustaining care withdrawn, that request won’t be in effect if they’re pregnant and their physician knows of the pregnancy.

Those writing a living will could already alter that provision or other parts of the model form, but they had to do so proactively, and not everyone is aware that they can. And in 2021, an Idaho court ruled a similar provision in their laws unconstitutional as it created ambiguity and the risk that an incapacitated person’s wishes would be refused or denied.

Now, HB 1215 — a bill passed and signed into law in large part due to island advocate Hilary Emmer — simply removes the pregnancy provision from the suggested model form. Someone writing their will could add the pregnancy provision back in; it will simply no longer be an assumed exception to their wishes.

Emmer stood alongside Gov. Ferguson as he signed the bill into law on April 16.

“We can’t have women lose their rights because they happen to be pregnant,” said Emmer, who has fought for decades to see this change in law. “I just think women need to be an equal member of society. And that one sentence basically said we are not considered equals.”

Emmer’s campaign began soon after moving to Washington in 1999 with her partner and noticing the pregnancy provision when filling out her advanced directive.

“I said, ‘this is bullsh*t, I’m not signing it, take it out,’” Emmer recalled.

Despite her efforts to convince lawmakers to remove it from the model form, Emmer said, legislators have ignored her or kicked the can on the issue year after year.

But “this year, they decided to take it up,” she said. “It made me feel good that there’s one more thing women have control over, which is their life and death decisions,” she said.

Legislators rejected amendments to the bill, suggested by Republicans Rep. Hunter Abell and Sen. Phil Fortunato, which would essentially have rephrased the pregnancy provision as a yes/no option. Emmer said she’s glad those amendments were rejected. “If the family wants something, they can have it,” she said. “[But] we don’t put anything in for men. Men get to make their choices right away.”

34th District bills

These bills, now passed into law, were among those proposed and passed by the 34th Legislative District coalition, which represents Vashon Island and West Seattle.

Brianna Thomas:

• Rest breaks for hospital workers: HB 1879 allows hospitals to waive break timing requirements when workers and hospitals voluntarily and mutually agree to do so. The law aims to provide more flexibility to hospitals and allow the timing of meal breaks to better reflect the realities of a hospital shift. It becomes law effective January 1, 2026.

• Boosted reimbursement for displaced people: HB 1733 increases the cap on relocation assistance payments (and sets that cap to adjust to inflation) to reestablish a farm, nonprofit or small business displaced by eminent domain.

Joe Fitzgibbon:

• Stricter carbon emission standards: HB 1409 tightened the standards in the state Ecology department’s Clean Fuels Program and swapped out criminal penalties for violating those standards for a set of fine-based penalties instead.

• Business and occupation taxes for state services: HB 2081 boosts the business and occupation tax for certain activities, and adds a 0.5% B&O surcharge for taxpayers with more than $250 million Washington taxable income.

• Duty-free fees: HB 2061 allows the state to collect a concession fee on duty-free sales in the state — primarily found at SeaTac airport and along the Canadian border — to fund state tourism and sustainable aviation fuel efforts.

Emily Alvarado:

• SB 5498 requires health plans to reimburse for a 12-month supply of contraceptives to all prescriptions, not just refills, which means those using birth control will have more stable access, especially when in-between jobs or insurance coverages, and will need to make fewer trips to the doctor.

• SB 5509 expands the places where childcare centers can be built, requiring cities and towns to allow them as permitted uses in all zones except industrial, light industrial and open space zones.

• SB 5595: Allows cities to establish any nonarterial, non-state-highway as a “shared street” where pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles share a portion or all of the street, and where a maximum speed limit of 10 miles per hour can be established.

• HB 1217 sets limits on rent increases. Referred to as rent stabilization by Alvarado and its supporters — and as rent control by critics — the bill limits most rent increases to the lower of 7% plus inflation or 10%. For manufactured homes, the limit is 5%. (Alvarado started the session in the House and switched to the Senate to take outgoing Sen. Joe Nguyen’s seat, so she proposed legislation in both the House and Senate this year.)

“I’m proud we were able to pass a bill that protects renters and manufactured home owners from excessive rent increases … in a time of economic uncertainty,” Alvarado told The Beachcomber. “In the 34th district, 40% of people are renters or manufactured homeowners. So I think that’s a big win for the district and for the state.”

Other bills

More legislative efforts, while not proposed by Vashon’s delegation, were of wide interest across the state or on Vashon:

HB 1923, Rep. Greg Nance’s Mosquito Fleet Act, didn’t pass the legislature. It would have allowed more places around the state to run their own small-scale foot ferry operations. Nance said in an interview that he’ll bring the bill back to the Legislature next year.

HB 1163, passed on party lines, requires would-be gun buyers to earn a permit from the Washington State Patrol, provide fingerprints, pay a fee and complete a certified firearms safety training program within the previous five years, with some exceptions. Supporters said the law will help reduce gun violence and suicides. Critics levied the bill is unconstitutional and that if people don’t need a permit to practice free speech, they shouldn’t need a permit to exercise their second amendment rights either.

HB 1264 modifies the salary survey used by Washington State Survey in order to make ferry worker salaries more competitive. In a press release, WSF union members praised the bills’ passage and called it an “important first step toward addressing uncompetitive wages that are making it difficult for WSF to attract and retain experienced mariners.”

HB 1296, passed entirely on party lines, goes into effect immediately due to an emergency clause. It rewrites parts of the “Parents’ Bill of Rights’ passed by voters last year via citizen Initiative 2081, which expanded parental access to their children’s’ school materials and medical records, among other changes.

The newly-passed bill empowers the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to investigate noncompliance with certain state laws and impose penalties; adds ethnicity, homelessness, immigration or citizenship status, and neurodivergence as protected classes for nondiscrimination purposes; and establishes a statement of student rights, among numerous other changes. It also takes away the right to immediate notice for parents when their kids receive non-emergency medical treatment.

HB 1631, by Rep. Nance, designates bull kelp forests as the official marine forest of Washington State.

HB 1837 calls on the state to improve passenger rail and establish goals for Amtrak Cascades services for trip volume, reliability, connection improvements and emissions reduction between Portland and Vancouver, B.C. It’s heralded by Backbone Campaign Executive Director Bill Moyer, an advocate for rail as a solution to the country’s clean energy, transportation and other needs .

SB 5716 adds Washington State Ferries to the places legally protected from unlawful transit conduct. Smoking, littering, disruptive behavior including spitting or defecating, consuming alcohol or other hazardous substances, defacing property and falsely impersonating a transit employee are illegal on buses, light rail, and other transit services, and this bill expands that law to apply to ferries, too.