Washington State Senate Democratic Caucus leaders touch on a number of hot button issues 

Brett Davis
The Center Square Washington

Washington State Senate Democratic Caucus leaders on Wednesday afternoon offered a glimpse of their priorities for the fast-approaching 2023 legislative session.

They touched on a number of hot button issues during a virtual press conference from Olympia, including drug possession, police vehicle pursuits, energy plans, and protecting abortion rights.

Next year’s 105-day legislative session runs from Jan. 9 through April 23.

Drug possession

Lawmakers will have to deal with the fallout from the state Supreme Court’s February 2021 decision finding Washington’s simple possession law unconstitutional because it did not require the state to prove intent. The ruling came in the case of a Spokane woman, Shannon Blake, who had received a pair of jeans from a friend with a small bag of methamphetamine in a pocket.

In April 2021, the state Supreme Court rejected a request from the state to reconsider its Blake ruling.

Later that month, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 5476, reclassifying drug possession as a gross misdemeanor with fines up to $125.

Gov. Jay Inslee signed the bill into law the following month, vetoing a portion that would have created a state fund to reimburse local governments and individuals who incur legal fees resulting from resentencing under the Blake decision.

The bill’s provisions expire by July 1, 2023.

“I’m highly skeptical that decriminalization will pass the Senate,” Deputy Majority Leader Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, said. “I don’t believe we have the votes for that.”

There are plans to introduce a bill that includes treatment, recovery, and behavioral services, she indicated.

“I feel like there’s a consensus building to do something that’s public health focused but also a little bit of increased role of the criminal justice system from what we saw in the last version,” Sen. Majority Leader Andy Billig, D-Spokane, added.

He went on to say, “My prediction is you will see a bipartisan sort of middle-of-the-road public health-focused bill that also involves the criminal justice system. That has a good chance.”

Police vehicle pursuits

What, if anything, the Legislature does to address the impacts of House Bill 1054, passed in 2021, limiting police to engaging in a pursuit if there is “probable cause” to arrest a person in the vehicle for committing a specific violent crime or sex offense such as murder, kidnapping, drive-by shooting, and rape.

In April 2022, the Washington Association of Sheriffs reported that vehicle thefts increased 88% year-to-date for 2022 compared to 2021 through the end of March. Vehicle thefts increased 93% since the pursuit law and others went into effect at the end of July 2021.

Between Jan. 1 and May 17 of this year, 934 drivers on the state’s highways kept going when troopers tried to pull them over for a traffic stop. 

“And so the question really is what have been the impacts of vehicle pursuit, and is there a problem that has been identified that we need to fix?” Dhingra asked.

She noted that about half of people killed in police pursuits were innocent bystanders and that the vehicle pursuit law had saved lives in terms of fewer such deaths.

An analysis by Dr. Martina Morris, a retired professor of statistics and sociology at the University of Washington who provided data for HB 1054, found 30 people died in pursuits in Washington between 2015 and 2021, nearly half of them bystanders or passengers in the fleeing vehicle.

As for the unintended consequences of an increase in drivers fleeing police, Dhingra said she’d been told, without supporting evidence, that most of those fleeing are caught a short time later.

She said she was open to tweaking the law, mentioning GPS tracking systems and license plate readers for police vehicles.

“And I think we should absolutely make dollars available for that technology,” Dhingra said. “And then we’ll just see what other kinds of bills people are interested in sponsoring, and we’ll have those hearings in Law & Justice [Committee] and see where we land.”

Energy plans

Republicans’ “Power Washington” energy package that was unveiled Tuesday was brought up at the press conference.

Presented as a more affordable and realistic approach to Democratic energy policies, the package includes incentivizing hybrid vehicles instead of only electric vehicles, expanding hydropower, cutting the gas tax, and promoting nuclear energy and natural gas.

Democrats appeared to be in favor of staying the course, but didn’t completely close the door to working with their Republican colleagues at a time of high gas prices and Inslee’s stated goal of banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

“You know, we always have to have a balance that we are doing it in a way that does not create some other significant harm,” Billig said. “I think we’re always open to making adjustments to make sure we got that balance right, but we’re headed in the right direction. I’m proud of that record.”

Protecting abortion rights

Democrats may try to get an amendment to the state constitution off the ground to protect abortion rights in Washington, which are already strong.

In its Dobbs v. Jackson decision earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a constitutional right to abortion, sending the controversial practice back to individual states to set their own abortion laws.

“I do expect that we’ll see a constitutional amendment introduced,” Sen. Emily Randall, D-Bremerton, said. “Whether we get Republican votes to pass that policy and send it to the voters is a question that I have because we don’t have quite enough to pass it, you know, just with Democratic support.”

She said there are also plans to reintroduce legislation to protect the right to abortion services in Washington amid health care organization mergers and acquisitions.

This report was first published by The Center Square Washington.