Washington State Senate passes two critically important gun safety bills in evening session

A pair of extreme­ly impor­tant, much need­ed gun safe­ty bills pre­vi­ous­ly approved by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives each received con­sti­tu­tion­al majori­ties in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate tonight and are one step clos­er to becom­ing laws.

House Bill 1630, which pro­hibits the car­ry­ing of weapons at local gov­ern­ment meet­ing facil­i­ties and elec­tion sites, passed the Sen­ate with a vote of 28 to 20, while House Bill 1705, which would tough­en state laws to pro­tect Wash­ing­to­ni­ans against untrace­able “ghost” guns, passed the Sen­ate with a vote of 26 to 23.

66% of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans sur­veyed for NPI two weeks ago sup­port HB 1630, with a major­i­ty of the respon­dents strong­ly sup­port­ive. We released that poll find­ing about one week ago, on the day HB 1630 had its Sen­ate pub­lic hearing.

Although HB 1630 has sup­port among vot­ers of all ide­olo­gies and all regions of the state accord­ing to our research, Repub­li­cans in the Sen­ate refused to sup­port the bill, and it passed with Demo­c­ra­t­ic votes only.

The roll call on HB 1630 was as follows:

Roll Call
HB 1630
Weapons/certain meetings
3rd Read­ing & Final Pas­sage as Amend­ed by the Senate
3/1/2022

Yeas: 28; Nays: 20; Absent: 1

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

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

Absent: Sen­a­tor Rivers

Sen­a­tor Ann Rivers was the only sen­a­tor who did not cast a vote.

Due to hav­ing been amend­ed in the Sen­ate, the bill now goes back to the House. The House can ask the Sen­ate to recede from its amend­ments, or it can con­cur in the amend­ments and send the bill to Gov­er­nor Inslee. If the House asks the Sen­ate to recede and it refus­es to, the bill would be sub­ject­ed to the con­fer­ence com­mit­tee process to rec­on­cile the dif­fer­ences between the two chambers.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus did not stay ful­ly unit­ed on HB 1705, the “ghost gun” bill, which would restrict the man­u­fac­ture, assem­bly, sale, trans­fer, pur­chase, pos­ses­sion, and receipt of untrace­able firearms, along with the sale, trans­fer, pur­chase, trans­port, and receipt of unfin­ished frames and receivers.

The roll call on HB 1705 was as follows:

Roll Call
HB 1705
Untrace­able guns
3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
3/1/2022

Yeas: 26; Nays: 23

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Bil­lig, Car­lyle, Cleve­land, Con­way, Das, Dhin­gra, Frockt, Hasegawa, Hunt, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, Lovick, Mul­let, Nguyen, Nobles, Ped­er­sen, Robin­son, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Salomon, Stan­ford, Trudeau, Well­man, Wil­son, C.

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Braun, Brown, Dozi­er, For­tu­na­to, Gildon, Hawkins, Holy, Hon­ey­ford, King, McCune, Muz­za­ll, Pad­den, Ran­dall, Rivers, Schoesler, Sefzik, Shel­don, Short, Van De Wege, Wag­oner, War­nick, Wil­son, J., Wil­son, L.

As with HB 1630, HB 1705 was opposed by the Repub­li­can caucus.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Kevin Van De Wege (D‑24th Dis­trict: Olympia Penin­su­la) and Emi­ly Ran­dall (D‑26th Dis­trict: North Pierce Coun­ty, South Kit­sap Coun­ty) joined them in vot­ing no. Sen­a­tor Van De Wege is from a rur­al coastal dis­trict with an elec­torate where there are a high­er num­ber of gun enthu­si­asts than oth­er leg­isla­tive dis­tricts rep­re­sent­ed by Democ­rats. Sen­a­tor Ran­dall is a front­line mem­ber fac­ing a tough reelec­tion cam­paign. As the Sen­ate only need­ed twen­ty-five votes to pass the bill, their oppo­si­tion was not a prob­lem for HB 1705.

HB 1705 was­n’t amend­ed in the Sen­ate — a num­ber of amend­ments offered by Repub­li­cans like Phil For­tu­na­to and Kei­th Wag­oner were reject­ed in floor debate — so the bill now heads to Gov­er­nor Inslee to be signed into law.

NPI con­grat­u­lates the Sen­ate on the pas­sage of these his­toric and much need­ed gun safe­ty bills. Con­trary to what Sen­a­tor Ron Muz­za­ll and oth­er Repub­li­cans said in floor debate tonight, these new laws will make a dif­fer­ence for Wash­ing­ton’s fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. Gun vio­lence is pre­ventable, but only if we work togeth­er to make pro­tect­ing each oth­er a pri­or­i­ty. That is what these new laws will do. They pro­vide tools with with we can pro­tect our­selves and each other.

No Wash­ing­ton­ian needs an untrace­able gun, and no Wash­ing­ton­ian should be bring­ing weapons to a local gov­ern­ment meet­ing. These new gun safe­ty laws will make our com­mu­ni­ties safer and hap­pi­er. Every Wash­ing­ton­ian deserves a healthy and peace­ful future that’s free of gun vio­lence and its horrors.