NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monday, March 7th, 2022

Two NPI priority bills get concurrence and head to Governor Jay Inslee for signature

Two more of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s 2022 pri­or­i­ty bills have fin­ished their jour­ney through the leg­isla­tive process and will head to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee for exec­u­tive bill action once they are signed by Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Den­ny Heck (the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate) and House Speak­er Lau­rie Jinkins.

By a vote of 29 to 18, the Sen­ate vot­ed to con­cur in the House amend­ment to Sen­ate Bill 5228, which estab­lish­es flex­i­ble new rev­enue author­i­ty for Sound Tran­sit, allow­ing it to cre­ate enhanced ser­vice zones con­sist­ing of a city or a city and adja­cent areas. Sound Tran­sit will gain the abil­i­ty to send a fund­ing pro­pos­al to just one zone, as opposed to its whole jurisdiction.

SB 5228 is spon­sored by Sen­ate Major­i­ty Floor Leader Jamie Ped­er­sen (D‑43rd Dis­trict: Seat­tle) and sup­port­ed by NPI, Seat­tle Sub­way, the Sier­ra Club, Trans­porta­tion Choic­es Coali­tion, and The Urbanist.

The final roll call on SB 5228 in the Sen­ate was as follows:

Roll Call
SB 5528
RTA addi­tive revenue
Final Pas­sage as Amend­ed by the House
3/7/2022

Yeas: 29; Nays: 18; Absent: 1; Excused: 1

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Bil­lig, Car­lyle, Cleve­land, Con­way, Das, Dhin­gra, For­tu­na­to, Frockt, Hawkins, Hunt, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, Lovick, Mul­let, Muz­za­ll, Nguyen, Nobles, Ped­er­sen, Ran­dall, Robin­son, Sal­daña, Salomon, Shel­don, Stan­ford, Trudeau, Van De Wege, Wil­son (Claire)

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Braun, Brown, Dozi­er, Gildon, Hasegawa, Holy, Hon­ey­ford, King, McCune, Pad­den, Rivers, Schoesler, Sefzik, Short, Wag­oner, War­nick, Wil­son (Jeff), Wil­son (Lyn­da)

Absent: Sen­a­tor Rolfes

Excused: Sen­a­tor Wellman

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Chris­tine Rolfes and Lisa Well­man did­n’t par­tic­i­pate in the vote (they pre­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ed the bill, so we can assume they would have vot­ed yes). Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Bob Hasegawa (who rep­re­sents part of Seat­tle) dis­ap­point­ing­ly remained opposed to the bill on final passage.

How­ev­er, Repub­li­cans Brad Hawkins, Phil For­tu­na­to, Ron Muz­za­ll, and Tim Shel­don vot­ed for final pas­sage. Shel­don, For­tu­na­to, and Muz­za­ll had been nays a few weeks before when the Sen­ate pre­vi­ous­ly passed the bill.

Hawkins had been a yes vote, the only Repub­li­can to back the bill initially.

For­tu­na­to’s switcheroo was the biggest sur­prise. For­tu­na­to despis­es Sound Tran­sit, so we’re not sure why he changed his vote along with Muz­za­ll and Shel­don, but what­ev­er his rea­son­ing, it’s appreciated.

On the oth­er side of the rotun­da, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed 57–41 to con­cur in the Sen­ate amend­ments to House Bill 1630, which pro­hibits the car­ry­ing of weapons at local gov­ern­ment meet­ings and elec­tion sites.

Spon­sored by State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tana Senn (D‑41st Dis­trict: Mer­cer Island, Belle­vue, New­cas­tle), the bill is sup­port­ed by NPI, the Alliance for Gun Respon­si­bil­i­ty, the League of Women Vot­ers, the Brady Cen­ter to Pre­vent Gun Vio­lence, Anti-Defama­tion League, Every­town for Gun Safe­ty, audi­tors like Mary Hall (Thurston Coun­ty), and pros­e­cu­tors like Eric Richey (What­com County).

The final roll call on HB 1630 was as follows:

Roll Call
HB 1630
Weapons/certain meet­ings
Final Pas­sage as Amend­ed by the Senate
3/7/2022

Yeas: 57; Nays: 41

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bate­man, Berg, Bergquist, Berry, Bronoske, Callan, Chap­man, Chopp, Cody, Davis, Dolan, Don­aghy, Duerr, Enten­man, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Good­man, Gregerson, Hack­ney, Hansen, Har­ris-Tal­ley, John­son, Kir­by, Klo­ba, Leav­itt, Lekanoff, Macri, Mor­gan, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Paul, Peter­son, Pol­let, Ramel, Ramos, Ric­cel­li, Rule, Ryu, San­tos, Sells, Senn, Shew­make, Sim­mons, Slat­ter, Springer, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Tay­lor, Thai, Tharinger, Valdez, Walen, Wicks, Wylie, Jinkins

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Abbarno, Barkis, Boehnke, Caldier, Cham­bers, Chan­dler, Chase, Cor­ry, Dent, Dufault, Dye, Eslick, Gil­day, Goehn­er, Gra­ham, Grif­fey, Har­ris, Hoff, Jacob­sen, Klick­er, Klip­pert, Kraft, Kretz, MacEwen, May­cum­ber, McCaslin, McEn­tire, Mos­bruck­er, Orcutt, Robert­son, Rude, Schmick, Steele, Stokes­bary, Suther­land, Vick, Volz, Walsh, Wilcox, Ybar­ra, Young

As before, HB 1630 passed along with par­ty lines, with Democ­rats uni­form­ly back­ing the bill and Repub­li­cans firm­ly opposed.

The final bill incor­po­rates an amend­ment from Sen­a­tor Kevin Van De Wege (D‑24th Dis­trict: Olympic Penin­su­la) that “exempts con­cealed pis­tol license hold­ers and per­sons exempt from the con­cealed pis­tol licens­ing require­ment from restric­tions on the pos­ses­sion of a pis­tol while attend­ing offi­cial meet­ings of a school dis­trict board of direc­tors held off school dis­trict owned or leased property.”

About two-thirds of 2022 like­ly Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers sur­veyed for NPI last month sup­port House Bill 1630, while just 30% are opposed.

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee is expect­ed to sign both bills with­in the next few weeks.

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