Local legislators and leaders established priorities for this year’s legislative session at the Legislative Agenda Breakfast held Dec. 10 in Federal Way.
The next legislative session will begin on Jan. 12, where 30th District Representatives Kristine Reeves (D) and Jamila Taylor (D) and Sen. Claire Wilson (D) will have 60 days to pass legislation to benefit Federal Way and the rest of their districts — and Washington as a whole.
Federal Way City Councilmembers, the mayor and city lobbyists met with Reeves and Taylor at the annual breakfast held at the Federal Way Community Center.
City leaders shared the priorities for the Federal Way community as follows:
• Restrictions upon sex offenders post supervision.
• Capital budget: Emergency operations center
• Transportation: SR 99 roundabout, downtown circulation, city center access, 336th/SW 340th corridor
• Other initiatives: Affordable housing and child care
At the breakfast, Federal Way leaders and the legislators discussed these priorities and celebrated actions taken throughout the past year at both the city and state level.
Taylor and Reeves also shared what they will be focusing on in addition to those priorities, based on feedback directly from constituents, their committee assignments and their personal expertise.
Wilson wasn’t able to attend the breakfast due to a scheduling conflict with her participation in the Council of State Governments in Chicago, but she did attend a community town hall with Taylor to hear from Federal Way constituents directly on Nov. 17 at Federal Way High School and shared her priorities with the Mirror via email.
Rep. Kristine Reeves
Reeves shared that she is working on over 35 pieces of legislation and that her top priority is getting to a statewide food security strategy. This work looks at access to food not just at the SNAP and WIC level, but also at the importance of local farms and food systems including food safety, transportation and more.
On the subject of benefits, she also plans to fight to make sure Washingtonians have access to healthcare, especially in the face of federal cuts.
While she said “I’m all for work requirements that address making sure folks are paying their fair share,” the majority of those utilizing these programs are those who do not have the ability to work, including 35% of whom are children and 36% who are seniors and those experiencing disabilities.
She also pointed out that it shouldn’t be acceptable that “there are more than a dozen corporations in the state of Washington who built business models of not paying their employees enough or providing them enough hours,” which then requires the state to “subsidize both their staff benefits and their healthcare benefits.”
“We think it’s your turn to pay your fair share as a multibillion-dollar corporation,” Reeves said, instead of forcing the state to subsidize their workers’ healthcare.
Two other priorities she mentioned are advocating for Federal Way and Auburn to receive their fair share of education funding, and also to advocate for the regulation of a currently unregulated substance called kratom that is often sold in convenience stores. Kratom’s effects are “at the lowest end of the spectrum, the same impacts as cannabis, and at the highest end, meaning synthetic, kratom has the same impacts as fentanyl.”
Reeves is the chair of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Vice Chair of the Joint Legislative Committee on Water Supply During Drought and a member of several other committees including the Community Economic Revitalization Board, the Joint Committee on Veterans’ and Military Affairs, Education, Consumer Protection and Business, Washington Saves Governing Board and the Wildfire Mitigation and Resiliency Standards Work Group.
Rep. Jamila Taylor
This year Taylor told the Mirror she’s focused on protecting services for the community as much as possible in order to avoid going into austerity budgets that require indiscriminate cuts.
She highlighted the importance of “looking at context and making sure that we’re getting services into community, that folks feel that they are able to navigate life,” noting that things that legislators might think of as an easy budget cut can be “devastating for the whole families and generations of families” if that context isn’t considered.
Even with limited resources, she said that supporting economic development and small businesses is important to keep in mind along with other types of services, especially when they are facing extra financial pressures with increased costs due to tariffs.
In improving systems, Taylor described how sometimes bureaucratic fixes might not seem exciting, but can have a big difference. A few examples of these type of interventions include reducing delays in mental health licensing, investing in home and community-based services that don’t tap federal funding sources, reducing procedural and permitting delays or barriers to increase the amount of available affordable housing, and working on court unification to clarify the system of local and regional courts.
Overall, Taylor’s legislative work typically centers on finding ways to save resources while supporting everyone’s access to living full and healthy lives, including in her developmental disability advocacy work.
Taylor is chair of the Civil Rights and Judiciary Committee, a member several committees including Early Learning and Human Services, Washington State Women’s Commission, Joint Administrative Rules Review Committee, Interbranch Advisory Committee and the Covenant Homeownership Oversight Committee. She is also the Chair of the Developmental Disability Advocacy Caucus and 1st Vice Chair of the Members of Color Caucus.
Senator Claire Wilson
“In 2026, I remain focused on the policy areas that I lead in the Senate – particularly childcare and early learning, child welfare, and juvenile justice,” Wilson told the Mirror, adding, “I will also continue my focus on increasing investments in our schools, lowering costs for working families, and keeping our communities safe.”
In her committee work, Wilson shared that in past sessions she has focused on “complex problems youth, emerging adults, and adults face as they move through different systems and institutions in our state.”
This year she shared that she will continue focusing on interventions and responses to these challenges like investments in childcare and early learning support. She will also focus on fighting to address overcrowding and inadequate community diversion by advocating for policy solutions that focus on the root causes of justice system involvement for youth, like involvement in the child welfare system, homelessness, housing insecurity, mental/behavioral health challenges, food insecurity, access to early parental supports.
Wilson chairs the Senate Human Services Committee which covers basic needs, child welfare, juvenile justice and corrections. She is also the vice chair of the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee and leads the early learning/childcare work for the Senate and is a member of the Ways and Means Committee and the Rules Committee.
Learn more
All three legislators encourage the community to connect with them and stay in touch. Aside from contacting legislators directly, there are many ways to stay informed and engaged during this next legislative session. To sign up for newsletters from local legislators see links below:
Rep. Jamila Taylor (enter email at bottom of newsletter page)
Ways to participate in the lawmaking process
Rep. Kristine Reeves (D-District 30) and Rep. Jamila Taylor (D-District 30) at the Legislative Agenda Breakfast on Dec. 10, 2025.
Federal Way community members got up early to attend the the Legislative Agenda Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Dec. 10 at the Federal Way Community Center. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang/the Mirror
Federal Way City Councilmembers and Mayor Jim Ferrell present their priorities to Rep. Kristine Reeves (D-District 30) and Rep. Jamila Taylor (D-District 30). Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror
City staff present to Rep. Kristine Reeves (D-District 30) and Rep. Jamila Taylor (D-District 30) at the Legislative Agenda Breakfast. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror
