State Senate sends bill to perfect De-Escalate Washington’s I‑940 to Governor Jay Inslee

Leg­is­la­tion to pol­ish and per­fect De-Esca­late Washington’s Ini­tia­tive 940 received its sec­ond resound­ing stamp of approval today in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate. By a vote of forty-sev­en to zero (yes, real­ly), sen­a­tors vot­ed to send SHB 1064 to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee for his sig­na­ture. It pre­vi­ous­ly received a unan­i­mous vote of sup­port (nine­ty-eight to zero) in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

A two-thirds vote was required to approve the bill in each cham­ber because it amends an ini­tia­tive passed by a vote of the people.

Prime spon­sored by State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Roger Good­man, this bill cleans up pro­vi­sions in I‑940 “relat­ing to train­ing, the crim­i­nal lia­bil­i­ty stan­dard for use of dead­ly force, inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions of dead­ly force inci­dents, and ren­der­ing of first aid.” A sim­i­lar bill was passed last year dur­ing the short ses­sion, but the Supreme Court inval­i­dat­ed it after Tim Eyman filed a legal chal­lenge.

We don’t often see unan­i­mous roll calls on major bills. It is tru­ly remark­able that both the House and Sen­ate passed this leg­is­la­tion with­out a sin­gle dis­sent­ing vote.

Roll Call
HB 1064
Law enforcement
3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
1/30/2019

Yeas: 47; Excused: 1

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Bai­ley, Beck­er, Bil­lig, Braun, Brown, Car­lyle, Cleve­land, Con­way, Darneille, Das, Dhin­gra, Erick­sen, For­tu­na­to, Frockt, Hasegawa, Hawkins, Hobbs, Holy, Hon­ey­ford, Hunt, Keis­er, King, Kud­er­er, Liias, McCoy, Mul­let, Nguyen, O’Ban, Pad­den, Palum­bo, Ped­er­sen, Ran­dall, Rivers, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Salomon, Schoesler, Shel­don, Short, Takko, Van De Wege, Wag­oner, Walsh, War­nick, Well­man, Wil­son (Claire), Zeiger

Excused: Sen­a­tor Wil­son (Lyn­da)

Togeth­er, I‑940 and Goodman’s SHB 1064 accom­plish the fol­low­ing, accord­ing to a sum­ma­ry pre­pared by the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic caucus:

• Require annu­al train­ing for law enforce­ment, includ­ing train­ing on implic­it bias, de-esca­la­tion tac­tics, men­tal health, and less lethal alternatives;
• Estab­lish that law enforce­ment offi­cers have a solemn duty to pre­serve life, includ­ing pro­vid­ing or sum­mon­ing first aid at the ear­li­est safe opportunity;
• Insti­tute process­es for inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions of dead­ly force incidents;
• Estab­lish stan­dards for fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty noti­fi­ca­tion, includ­ing a require­ment to noti­fy tribes if an officer’s use of force results in the death of a trib­al mem­ber; and
• Remove the require­ment that police “mal­ice” be proven in order to bring crim­i­nal charges and replace it with an objec­tive “good faith” or rea­son­able police offi­cer stan­dard by which pros­e­cu­tors can more fair­ly eval­u­ate dead­ly force incidents.

SHB 1064 enjoyed the sup­port of both the De-Esca­late Wash­ing­ton coali­tion and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of orga­ni­za­tions that rep­re­sent law enforcement.

NPI con­grat­u­lates the Leg­is­la­ture on pas­sage of SHB 1064. This is the first bill to clear the House and Sen­ate this ses­sion and head to the Gov­er­nor’s desk.