Initiative 2113 (allowing dangerous police pursuits to resume) gets certified

One of six sub­mit­ted ini­tia­tives to the 2024 Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture spon­sored by Repub­li­can State Par­ty Chair Jim Walsh and fund­ed by right wing mul­ti­mil­lion­aire Bri­an Hey­wood was cer­ti­fied today, which means it is des­tined for the Novem­ber 2024 bal­lot for approval or rejec­tion by voters.

Ini­tia­tive 2113 would allow dan­ger­ous high speed police chas­es to resume by remov­ing rea­son­able safe­guards for pur­suits adopt­ed and sub­se­quent­ly revised by the Leg­is­la­ture in recent ses­sions in response to protests over unsafe, inequitable polic­ing in Wash­ing­ton State and across the country.

Accord­ing to the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Divi­sion, 25,687 pages of sig­na­tures were received for I‑2113, con­tain­ing 434,594 lines.

324,516 valid sig­na­tures are cur­rent­ly required to qual­i­fy a statewide initiative.

Ini­tia­tive 2113 had a suf­fi­cient cush­ion of extra sig­na­tures to qual­i­fy for a ran­dom sam­ple check as allowed by state law, which con­sist­ed of 13,038 signatures.

Of those, 10,579 were accept­ed and 2,459 were reviewed. 2,447 sig­na­tures were deter­mined to be invalid, and twelve were deter­mined to be duplicate.

Sec­re­tary Hobbs today trans­mit­ted a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion mes­sage to the Leg­is­la­ture affixed with the state seal, advis­ing of I‑2113’s qualification.

Leg­isla­tive staff have giv­en I‑2113 its own bill-style page on leg.wa.gov.

The bal­lot title for I‑2113 is as follows:

Ini­tia­tive Mea­sure No. 2113 con­cerns vehic­u­lar pur­suits by peace officers.

This mea­sure would remove cer­tain restric­tions on vehic­u­lar pur­suits, allow­ing them upon con­di­tions includ­ing an officer’s rea­son­able sus­pi­cion a per­son has vio­lat­ed the law and pos­es a threat to the safe­ty of others.

Should this mea­sure be enact­ed into law? Yes [ ] No [ ]

The sum­ma­ry is as follows:

This mea­sure would remove cer­tain restric­tions on when peace offi­cers may engage in vehic­u­lar pur­suits. Such pur­suits would be allowed when the offi­cer has a rea­son­able sus­pi­cion a per­son has vio­lat­ed the law, pur­suit is nec­es­sary to iden­ti­fy or appre­hend the per­son, the per­son pos­es a threat to the safe­ty of oth­ers, those safe­ty risks are greater than those of the pur­suit, and a super­vi­sor autho­rizes the pursuit.

Leg­is­la­tors have three choic­es as to how to respond to I‑2113:

• Do noth­ing, in which case it goes to voters
• Adopt the mea­sure into law
• Send it to the Novem­ber 2024 bal­lot with an alternative

NPI oppos­es Ini­tia­tive 2113 and is work­ing for the mea­sure’s defeat. If you’d like to help oppose I‑2113 and its brethren, you can donate to Stop Greed here.

“The Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture has tak­en impor­tant steps in recent years to pre­vent deaths and injuries result­ing from unnec­es­sary high-speed police pur­suits, and to ensure that all stu­dents feel safe in Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic schools,” the ACLU of Wash­ing­ton not­ed last year in a state­ment oppos­ing I‑2113. “Let’s not allow reac­tionary forces to roll back this progress for civ­il lib­er­ties and civ­il rights.”

We agree and will be work­ing to pro­tect Wash­ing­ton from I‑2113.