Manka Dhingra’s youth-inspired bill to ban gender-based price discrimination advances

Leg­is­la­tion that would ban gen­der-based price dis­crim­i­na­tion is halfway to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s desk fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful vote by the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate to approve Sen­ate Bill 5171, prime spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhin­gra (D‑45th Dis­trict: Red­mond, Kirk­land, Sam­mamish, Duvall).

SSB 5171 is youth-inspired leg­is­la­tion that Dhin­gra, a North­west Pro­gres­sive Foun­da­tion board­mem­ber, intro­duced in part­ner­ship with civi­cal­ly-ori­ent­ed stu­dents from Lake Wash­ing­ton High School in Kirk­land. If passed, it will stop retail­ers from charg­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans (espe­cial­ly those who iden­ti­fy as female) extra for prod­ucts mere­ly because they are mar­ket­ed to a par­tic­u­lar gender.

“There’s no rea­son a prod­uct in a pink pack­age should be more expen­sive than one in a blue pack­age,” said Dhin­gra in a state­ment released by the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus. “If there is a legit­i­mate rea­son that one prod­uct is more expen­sive than anoth­er, like more expen­sive ingre­di­ents or more dif­fi­cult man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es, those prod­ucts would not be affect­ed by this law.

“But pure gen­der-based price dis­crim­i­na­tion? That shouldn’t be allowed to stand. Let’s elim­i­nate the pink tax — and let’s be more inclu­sive than sim­ply pink or blue.”

“Even when price dif­fer­ences are small, over time they add up,” cau­cus staff note.
“A study in Cal­i­for­nia found that gen­der-based pric­ing costs women about $1,300 per year. In 2020, women in Wash­ing­ton made 80 cents for every dol­lar made by men, a dis­par­i­ty exac­er­bat­ed by pay­ing more for many con­sumer goods. Based on exist­ing law in New York and Cal­i­for­nia, SB 5171 autho­rizes the Attor­ney Gen­er­al to enforce the ban on dis­crim­i­na­to­ry pricing.” 

The roll call vote on Sen­ate Bill 5171 was as follows:

Roll Call
SB 5171
Con­sumer products/gender
3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
3/7/2023

Yeas: 27; Nays: 21; Excused: 1

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

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Boehnke, Braun, Dozi­er, For­tu­na­to, Gildon, Hawkins, Holy, King, MacEwen, McCune, Muz­za­ll, Pad­den, Rivers, Schoesler, Shew­make, Short, Tor­res, Wag­oner, War­nick, Wil­son (Jeff) Wil­son (Lyn­da)

Excused: Sen­a­tor Kauffman

No Repub­li­cans vot­ed for the bill.

A sub­sti­tute ver­sion was adopt­ed in a floor vote pri­or to the vote on final passage.

Front­line Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Sharon Shew­make (D‑42nd Dis­trict: What­com Coun­ty) vot­ed against it. Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Clau­dia Kauff­man missed the vote.

The bill has faced oppo­si­tion from the Wash­ing­ton Food Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion (WFIA), which rep­re­sents inde­pen­dent and fam­i­ly gro­cers. It is sup­port­ed by Red­mond City Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Jes­si­ca Forsythe and Kirk­land May­or Pen­ny Sweet, who rep­re­sent the biggest cities in the Lake Wash­ing­ton School District.

NPI con­grat­u­lates Sen­a­tor Dhin­gra and the Lake Wash­ing­ton High School stu­dents who helped bring this leg­is­la­tion to fruition on the suc­cess of today’s vote. We urge the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to fol­low suit and approve this legislation.