WATCH: WA Majority Leader apologizes for being intoxicated during budget hearing

(The Center Square) – House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, D-West Seattle, admits he was intoxicated during a House Appropriations Committee meeting on Wednesday evening.

So much so that the committee chair at one point called a recess to take him out of the hearing room, only to have him return moments later.

The 4 p.m. hearing was an executive session on House Bill 2289: Making 2025-2027 fiscal biennium supplemental operating appropriation.

Just over two hours into the debate, Fitzgibbon was offering final remarks on the proposed budget.

He appeared glassy eyed, with speech slurred as he urged support for the legislation.

“I am grateful to all the members of this committee, all the members of the House for putting forward their ideas and making sure that the operating budget that we’ve put forward does not forget that the people we are working to represent, people that we are working t...