VICTORY! Washington State House passes NPI’s even year elections for localities bill

This morn­ing, the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives took a his­toric bipar­ti­san step towards a health­i­er democ­ra­cy when it passed leg­is­la­tion devel­oped by the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mia Gregerson that would allow local­i­ties now required to hold their reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled elec­tions in odd years to switch to high­er turnout even years.

House Bill 1932, first intro­duced about a month ago, received the sup­port of fifty-two state rep­re­sen­ta­tives, with forty-five in oppo­si­tion and one excused.

The leg­is­la­tion is NPI’s top pri­or­i­ty for the 2024 leg­isla­tive ses­sion and is also enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly sup­port­ed by the Wash­ing­ton Vot­ing Jus­tice Coali­tion, Wash­ing­ton For Equi­table Rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and the Sight­line Institute.

“This is about address­ing dis­par­i­ties in par­tic­i­pa­tion,” said Gregerson in a state­ment pub­lished by the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus, observ­ing that odd year turnouts are often just a frac­tion of what they are in even years, result­ing in local lead­ers being cho­sen by a few rather than the many. “It’s about ensur­ing that elec­tions reflect the broad­er pop­u­la­tion and fos­ter inclu­sive governance.”

It has been over a decade since a major­i­ty of Wash­ing­ton vot­ers turned out in an odd year. Each elec­tion held since 2011 ranks among the top ten worst vot­er turnouts in Wash­ing­ton State his­to­ry: 2023 is the worst, 2017 is the sec­ond worst, 2015 is the third worst, 2021 is the fourth worst, 2019 is the ninth worst, and 2013 is the tenth worst. The trend shows no sign of chang­ing. Few­er than two in five Wash­ing­ton vot­ers are now reg­u­lar­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in odd year elections.

Elec­tion fatigue is what is at the root of the turnout cri­sis. It’s a grave prob­lem for democ­ra­cy we can­not con­tin­ue to ignore. Local lead­ers make crit­i­cal deci­sions about land use, trans­porta­tion, hous­ing, pub­lic safe­ty, and a host of oth­er issues. They should be cho­sen by the broad­est and most diverse elec­torate possible.

HB 1932 is based on Sen­ate Bill 5723, draft­ed by NPI and intro­duced by Sen­a­tor Javier Valdez last ses­sion. The key dif­fer­ence between SB 5723 and HB 1932 is that 1932 includes more lev­els of local gov­ern­ment. 5723 only per­tained to cities and towns. As passed by the House, 1932 would give ports, school dis­tricts, and oth­er lev­els of local gov­ern­ment that very same free­dom to set their timing.

Some local gov­ern­ments — like Wash­ing­ton’s char­ter coun­ties — already have the free­dom to choose their elec­toral tim­ing. And oth­ers — like code coun­ties and pub­lic util­i­ty dis­tricts — are in even years by default. But cities, towns, ports, school dis­tricts, and oth­ers have no such free­dom, because the Leg­is­la­ture unwise­ly took it away in the 1960s. Our leg­is­la­tion would give it back.

What we’re propos­ing has ample precedent.

1932 is a local options bill — switch­ing would be entire­ly vol­un­tary and at the local juris­dic­tion’s dis­cre­tion. The cur­rent odd year default would not change, but local­i­ties want­i­ng to move to even years would be able to give notice to the coun­ties that they are locat­ed in and begin a switch either after get­ting vot­er approval or the approval of their gov­ern­ing body, again at their option.

To switch, local­i­ties would use bridge terms. So, a local office like may­or or city coun­cilmem­ber that nor­mal­ly has a term length of four years would be elect­ed to a term of, say, three years once, and then revert back to its usu­al length.

“Local juris­dic­tions that elect to switch to even-num­bered year elec­tions would need to pro­vide a trans­par­ent process, requir­ing two pub­lic hear­ings with a thir­ty-day gap before adop­tion. By encour­ag­ing com­mu­ni­ty feed­back and trans­paren­cy, the bill ensures that deci­sions align with the col­lec­tive will of res­i­dents,” the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus press release notes.

The idea to require two pub­lic hear­ings spaced thir­ty days apart was inspired by con­ver­sa­tions we had with friends like Shore­line City Coun­cilmem­ber Chris Roberts, who has pre­vi­ous­ly guest post­ed here on The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate in sup­port of allow­ing local­i­ties to switch their reg­u­lar elec­tions to even years. Our objec­tive is to ensure that any local­i­ty mak­ing the change coun­cil­man­i­cal­ly does so only after giv­ing peo­ple in that com­mu­ni­ty a chance to weigh in.

Repub­li­cans pro­posed a slew of amend­ments to HB 1932, some of which, in our view, are good ideas we feel should be imple­ment­ed sep­a­rate­ly, like pro­vid­ing more resources to coun­ty audi­tors to ensure their admin­is­tra­tive and imple­men­ta­tion con­cerns are addressed. Giv­en the bud­get is the bet­ter vehi­cle for some of what Repub­li­cans pro­posed, and giv­en that the stud­ies of the switch they called for could be car­ried out with­out need­ing to oblig­ate pub­lic agen­cies to con­duct research, Democ­rats vot­ed those amend­ments down.

Two amend­ments from Gregerson were adopt­ed. One was a tech­ni­cal fix per­tain­ing to munic­i­pal judges. The oth­er allows local juris­dic­tions to switch back to odd years if they want, in keep­ing with the theme of local options.

The roll call was as follows:

Roll Call
HB 1932
Even-num­bered year elections
3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
2/8/2024

Yeas: 52; Nays: 45; Excused: 1

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Alvara­do, Bate­man, Berg, Bergquist, Berry, Callan, Cheney, Chopp, Cortes, Davis, Doglio, Don­aghy, Duerr, Enten­man, Fari­var, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Fos­se, Good­man, Gregerson, Hack­ney, Lekanoff, Macri, Mena, Nance, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Paul, Peter­son, Pol­let, Ramel, Ramos, Reed, Ric­cel­li, Rule, Ryu, San­tos, Senn, Shavers, Sim­mons, Slat­ter, Springer, Stearns, Stonier, Street, Tay­lor, Thai, Tharinger, Tim­mons, Walen, Jinkins

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Abbarno, Barkis, Barnard, Bronoske, Caldier, Cham­bers, Chap­man, Chris­t­ian, Con­nors, Cor­ry, Cou­ture, Dent, Dye, Eslick, Goehn­er, Gra­ham, Grif­fey, Har­ris, Hutchins, Jacob­sen, Klick­er, Klo­ba, Kretz, Leav­itt, Low, May­cum­ber, McClin­tock, McEn­tire, Mor­gan, Mos­bruck­er, Orcutt, Reeves, Robert­son, Rude, San­dlin, Schmick, Schmidt, Steele, Stokes­bary, Volz, Walsh, Waters, Wilcox, Wylie, Ybarra

Excused: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chandler

Sev­en Democ­rats vot­ed against the bill: Dan Bronoske, Shel­ley Klo­ba, Mari Leav­itt, Melanie Mor­gan, Kris­tine Reeves, and Sharon Wylie.

One Repub­li­can, Greg Cheney, vot­ed in favor, mak­ing the bill bipar­ti­san — because it only takes one, as the old leg­isla­tive say­ing goes.

HB 1932 now moves to the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate. It will get a first read­ing soon, and then be referred to the State Gov­ern­ment & Elec­tions Com­mit­tee, chaired by Sen­a­tor Sam Hunt (D‑22nd Dis­trict: Olympia). Vice Chair Javier Valdez, as men­tioned, is the spon­sor of HB 1932’s old­er sib­ling, SB 5723. We’re look­ing for­ward to work­ing with Sen­a­tor Valdez to advance HB 1932 in the Senate.

We are deeply grate­ful to every­one who worked with us to get this bill across the fin­ish line, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Wash­ing­ton Vot­ing Jus­tice Coali­tion and Wash­ing­ton For Equi­table Rep­re­sen­ta­tion, two coali­tions we belong to, and Sight­line Insti­tute, led by our good friend Alan Durn­ing, who has been a strong cham­pi­on for more inclu­sive elec­tions. Alan’s research on the penal­ty Wash­ing­ton munic­i­pal­i­ties are pay­ing for being in odd years is a must-read if you haven’t seen it.

All of us are so very for­tu­nate to have had a stal­wart cham­pi­on in Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mia Gregerson. With­out her hard work and effec­tive stew­ard­ship, we would not have been able to secure this vic­to­ry today. Three cheers also to State Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bill Ramos, Darya Fari­var, Chris Stearns, and Sharlett Mena, the oth­er mem­bers of the State Gov­ern­ment Com­mit­tee, and State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dave Paul, who gave a great speech for HB 1932 on the floor of the House.

Even year elec­tions are some­thing vot­ers real­ly, real­ly want.

Our state and local polling has con­sis­tent­ly found strong sup­port among Wash­ing­to­ni­ans for this vot­ing jus­tice reform, and in 2022, a whop­ping 69%+ of King Coun­ty vot­ers backed the char­ter amend­ment we put togeth­er with King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­bers Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci and Gir­may Zahi­lay to move twelve King Coun­ty posi­tions from odd to even years. King Coun­ty has already begun that tran­si­tion, which will con­clude in 2028.

By approv­ing HB 1932 today, the state House demon­strat­ed that it is lis­ten­ing and ready to address the prob­lem of elec­tion fatigue. Thank you, lawmakers!