Victory! Washington State House votes to toughen penalties for corporate crimes

Cor­po­ra­tions that break the law in Wash­ing­ton State could soon be forced to pay more appro­pri­ate penal­ties for their wrong­do­ing thanks to the work of State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti (D‑30th Dis­trict: Fed­er­al Way). By a vote of nine­ty-sev­en to one, the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives today vot­ed to pass ESHB 2362, which would sub­stan­tial­ly increase fines for cor­po­rate crimes.

Present­ly, the fine for a cor­po­rate crime is just ten thou­sand bucks. Cur­rent law dates all the way back to the Roar­ing Twen­ties — specif­i­cal­ly, 1925.

“It’s ridicu­lous that the leg­is­la­ture has failed to update cor­po­rate crim­i­nal penal­ties for near­ly a cen­tu­ry,” said Pel­lic­ciot­ti. “It is past time to hold cor­po­rate enti­ties account­able when man­age­r­i­al actions harm the public.”

Pel­lic­ciot­ti’s bill would do two things, as assessed by non­par­ti­san staff:

• Expand the lia­bil­i­ty stan­dards and penal­ties for crimes com­mit­ted by cor­po­ra­tions to include oth­er spec­i­fied busi­ness entities.
• Increase max­i­mum fines for crimes com­mit­ted by busi­ness entities.

The max­i­mum penal­ties for a mis­de­meanor would increase to $50,000 for a mis­de­meanor, $250,000 for a gross mis­de­meanor, $750,000 for a Class C felony, and $1 mil­lion for Class A or B felony. This bill rep­re­sents a big step for­ward for cor­po­rate account­abil­i­ty, and we thank Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Pel­lic­ciot­ti for spon­sor­ing it.

This bill makes so much sense that only Repub­li­can vot­ed against it. Every oth­er mem­ber of the House backed it with their aye vote, as the roll call shows:

Roll Call
ESHB 2362
Busi­ness entities/crime
Final Passage
2/8/2018

Yeas: 97 Nays: 1

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Apple­ton, Barkis, Bergquist, Blake, Buys, Caldier, Chan­dler, Chap­man, Clib­born, Cody, Con­dot­ta, DeBolt, Dent, Doglio, Dolan, Dye, Eslick, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Good­man, Graves, Gregerson, Grif­fey, Haler, Hansen, Har­grove, Harmsworth, Har­ris, Hayes, Holy, Hud­gins, Irwin, Jenkin, Jink­ins, John­son, Kagi, Kil­duff, Kir­by, Klip­pert, Klo­ba, Kraft, Kretz, Kris­tiansen, Lovick, Lyt­ton, MacEwen, Macri, Man­weller, May­cum­ber, McBride, McCabe, McCaslin, McDon­ald, Mor­ris, Muri, Nealey, Orcutt, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Pel­lic­ciot­ti, Peter­son, Pet­ti­grew, Pike, Pol­let, Reeves, Ric­cel­li, Robin­son, Rodne, Ryu, San­tos, Sawyer, Schmick, Sells, Senn, Shea, Slat­ter, Smith, Springer, Stam­baugh, Stan­ford, Steele, Stokes­bary, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Tar­leton, Tharinger, Valdez, Van Wer­ven, Vick, Volz, Walsh, Wilcox, Wylie, Young, Chopp

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Taylor

This bill unfor­tu­nate­ly went right into the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ grave­yard of progress after it passed the House last year, but now that the Sen­ate has a Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty, it is assured of receiv­ing the hear­ing it deserves — and hope­ful­ly a floor vote in the Sen­ate too — after it makes its way across the Dome.

POSTSCRIPT: And just like that, ESHB 2362 has its hear­ing date. The bill will be heard in the Sen­ate Law & Jus­tice Com­mit­tee on Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 15th at 10 AM.