
Bill Would Dissolve WA Fish & Wildlife Commission Authority, Move WDFW To Governor’s Cabinet
A bill slated to drop in Olympia Wednesday morning would make WDFW’s director a political appointee again and turn the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission into an advisory panel.

House Bill 1685 is sponsored by Representative Larry Springer (D-Kirkland) and Representative Joe Fitzgibbon (D-Seattle), the deputy majority and majority leaders of the lower chamber of the state legislature, and would essentially enact option 2 of the still-being-digested Ruckelshaus Center report on WDFW and the commission and their governance.
The not unexpected legislation has already caught the eye of sportsmen on the Hunting-Washington forum this evening and others and it will likely be a subject of conversation tomorrow and through the weekend in the aisles of the big Washington’s Sportsmen’s Show in Puyallup.
The bill would need to receive a public hearing and pass out of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources and other committees, be approved by majorities in both chambers and then be signed into law by Governor Bob Ferguson. That’s a taller order, given state budget concerns this session, but if all that happens, it would go into effect January 15, 2026.
As written, HB 1685 would consolidate WDFW’s director as the lone executive and administrative chief of the department, and he or she would be appointed by the governor “with the consent of the senate.” Currently, the director is hired by the nine-member commission, which also sets WDFW policies.
No longer would the director need to be knowledgeable about the “habits and distribution of fish and wildlife” of Washington or “the fisheries and wildlife resources and of the commercial and recreational fishing industry” in the state, as the bill strips out those current job requirements for the $200,000-plus-a-year gig.
The bill would also have the director convene a work group with the elected Commissioner of Public Lands, appointed Departments of Ecology, Commerce, Parks and Recreation Commission, Transportation and Puget Sound Partnership heads and a representative of the Governor’s Office of Indian Affairs “to improve interagency cooperation and collaboration on wildlife issues” and deliver a report to the legislature on how to do that by August 2026.
Meanwhile, in its advisory role, the commission would be tasked with holding public meetings to gather input and hold hearings on various fish and wildlife rules, policies, plans or matters and submit written recommendations to the director for his or her consideration. The director would be charged with responding to the commission and public about decisions they reached and how it “is consistent with the department’s mandate, strategic plan, other applicable high-level plans,” etc.
The governor would also consult with commissioners on the search for a new director should the position come open, and the panel would interview finalists and provide their recommendations on who should be in charge of WDFW.
Come mid-January 2026 and the effective date of HB 1685, commissioners could choose to stick around in their diminished capacities or hit the highway and be replaced by the governor.
A preamble to the bill explains, “The legislature intends to create a more accountable, transparent, and effective department of fish and wildlife by consolidating the executive and administrative power of the department into the hands of a director appointed by the governor with the consent of the senate. This structure will facilitate improved government-to-government communication with the tribes and allow for increased collaboration with other state agencies, while retaining the value of the fish and wildlife commission as an advisory body that will provide transparency and an avenue for public input and participation.”
This is not the first WDFW and commission reorganization bill of recent years.
In 2022, Fitzgibbon and fellow Representatives Mike Chapman and Steve Tharinger introduced HB 2027 to study WDFW’s governance and the mandate of the commission. That same year, Senators Kevin Van De Wege and Jesse Salomon introduced SB 5721 to stuff the department under the Commissioner of Public Lands.
Neither went anywhere, but in an 11th hour move in 2023, a budget proviso was slipped into WDFW’s $23 million biodiversity package to have the Ruckelshaus Center, a jointly operated project of WSU and UW, review the agency and come up with a slate of options for changing the mandate and governance structure.
Following interviews with 113 close observers, the center suggested backburnering any tweaking of the famous dual mandate – “preserve, protect, perpetuate, and manage” and “attempt to maximize the public recreational game fishing and hunting opportunities” – given all the heat swirling around the “dysfunctional” commission, but came up with three options for the overall agency: 1) status quo; 2) move WDFW into the governor’s cabinet and restrict or eliminate the commission’s authority; or 3) keep the commission but fix the appointment process, accountability and protocols, among other functions that were wrenched out of whack during Governor Inslee’s third term.
While preservationist groups like Washington Wildlife First favor option 2, sportsmen prefer option 3.
“I still believe a commission is the best form of governance for the Department of Fish and Wildlife,” said Brian Blake, a former state lawmaker from Aberdeen who once headed up the committee HB 1685 would be heard by, “and my position is we should table this bill and give the new governor a chance to make the commission work properly.”
WDFW was originally two separate departments – Game and Fisheries. The latter had a governor-appointed director, the former a six-person commission until 1987 when its director was also made a gubernatorial appointee.
Following 1993’s merger of Game and Fisheries into today’s Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, voters in 1995 approved handing the responsibility of hiring and firing WDFW’s director to the Fish and Wildlife Commission by a 61 percent to 39 percent margin. Backers’ idea was to remove politics from fish and wildlife management via an independent commission, while opponents called it “disguised special interest politics.”