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.