Budget, religious liberty and burial grounds were the tip of the iceberg of what Washington’s 7th District Rep. Hunter Abell, R-Inchelium, discussed in regards to the 60-day state legislative session starting this week. The 7th District covers Pend Oreille, Stevens, Ferry, and some of Spokane and Grant counties. Abell gave RANGE his rundown on the upcoming legislative session.
“It's a track meet in pads,” Abell said. “We'll be running and moving quite a bit.”
While the state budget will be the main focus of the legislative body, Abell said there are also bills important to him that he wants to advance, like the Jim Judd Memorial Act (HB 1541), which would reconfigure the Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee that advises Governor Bob Ferguson on issues affecting veterans, military families and military preparedness. Under the proposed legislation, the 17-member committee must include a member of the National Guard, a tribal member and a veteran with “lived experience,” which could include experience with post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorder or homelessness. The bill passed out of the House unanimously last session but got hung up in the Senate, Abell said.
“I named it after a local veteran who passed away a number of years ago in Ferry County,” Abell said. “I think it will improve the process by which the governor gets advice on issues that impact veterans throughout the state.”
Abell is also sponsoring HB 2239, which would allow families to bury loved ones on their own property.
“Public cemeteries, of course, have got a public taxpayer piece that goes to their establishment,” Abell said. “Private cemeteries can be established, but there's a pretty significant financial hurdle.”
According to the Washington State Department of Licensing, people who want to create a cemetery on their property must have $25,000 in an endowment care fund on top of paying cemetery fees that can exceed $1,000.
Abell said that HB 2239 will have some guardrails: residents wanting to be buried at home have to own the property, and they must notify their county of the cemetery’s details and to potential buyers if the property is sold.
The idea for the bill came from one of Abell’s neighbors in Inchelium, where Abell owns a ranch. Abell said his neighbor came to him several years ago hoping to have his parents buried at their family home, “but it was too expensive for their family to establish a cemetery,” Abell said.
Some rural communities don’t have local cemeteries, meaning some rural Washingtonians have to travel a long way to visit their late loved ones.
Abell said his neighbor’s parents are dead and buried in Kettle Falls, a 45 minute drive from his neighbor’s house.
“This is primarily for folks who live in rural areas,” Abell said of the bill, “people who spend their whole lives on their family farm or the ranch and would really love to be buried out on the south 40 rather than in town, which can end up being farther away.”
HB 2342 would create a religious liberty commission in Washington to advise the governor and the legislature on religious liberty issues This commission would also be charged with hearing and investigating claims of discrimination based on religion and either offering mediation or referring the matter to the state Human Rights Commission.
Abell is also working on HB 2197 that would declare English as Washington’s official language. He said the bill would be in honor of the United State’s 250th anniversary this year.
“This idea that we're a nation of immigrants, we're a melting pot, and part of that melting pot involves having a common language,” Abell said.
The bill language also specifies that “no state agency or political or taxing subdivision of the state may be required to provide any documents, information, literature, or other written materials in any language other than English.” It does not prohibit those agencies from using another language where it’s required by state or federal law or at their discretion as long as the record is also published in English.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March establishing English as the official language of the US. It reversed earlier reforms designed to give people whose first language is not English better access to government services. Some groups, including the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL), opposed the order later that month.
The AAAL wrote, “the order does not cultivate national values, shared American culture, or national unity. If anything, it could precipitate the direct opposite effect by creating a linguistic hierarchy among languages, which in turn could potentially be divisive.”Although Ferguson has said his goal is to deal with the budget deficit through cuts rather than increased taxes, Abell said he is skeptical, citing Ferguson’s inaugural address in 2025 where he stated that the state couldn’t tax its way out of the deficit.
“Then he signed every tax increase that the legislature passed,” Abell said.
Abell added that he thinks the Democratic majority in the state legislature will seek more tax revenue increases this year as the state faces another multibillion-dollar two-year budget deficit.
“My observation is the appetite in Olympia for more taxpayer dollars is really insatiable,” he said, adding that he will fight against what he describes as an ever-expanding state government.
“The governor has said he’s producing an all-cuts budget. We’ll see what that looks like,” Abell said.
Sophia Mattice-Aldous is a Murrow News fellow working directly with newsrooms at The Newport Miner and RANGE Media through a program administered by Washington State University. Her reporting is available for use via Creative Commons with credit.
