Issue Team Chair: Amy Davis – adavis [at] lwvwa.org – (360) 427-1956
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2019 Legislative Session Recap
One of our goals this session was to support measures to ensure equality of opportunity. We advocated for Initiative 1000 which would overturn the 20 year ban on Affirmative Action and close the Opportunity Gap for women, veterans, minorities and disabled persons seeking opportunities in public education, employment, or public contracting. We will continue to monitor and rally against any ballot measure to reverse this hard won success.
HB 1696 passed prohibiting an employer from seeking the wage or salary history of an applicant for employment. This meets our objective to promote fair policies for all by encouraging practices fair to all individuals regardless of gender. The passage of SB 5497 will establish a statewide policy supporting Washington state’s economy and immigrants’ role in the workplace – protecting their inherent rights and dignity as part of a strong economy. SB 5258 prevents the sexual harassment and sexual assault of certain isolated workers.
And under the vast umbrella of preventing and reducing poverty are several successfully passed bills. SB 5233 creates an alternative process for sick leave benefits for workers represented by collective bargaining agreements. SB 5035 raises the penalties for failure to pay prevailing wages.
One of our disappointments is the HEAL ACT - HB 2009 which lost ground in the last round of negotiations. This would have created a task force to address health disparities due to environmental impacts – environmental justice for those vulnerable populations wherein life expectancy, health and quality of life outcomes demand increased awareness and resources.
Next year’s challenge will be to continue to seek justice for those struggling to realize their human potential. Our list will include the HEAL ACT, HB 1783 to create a Washington state office of equity, and if necessary, campaigning for enduring Affirmative Action reform.
HB 1001 Concerning service contract providers. Passed the House, 98-0. Passed the Senate, 46-0, 3 excused. Signed by the Governor on April 8, 2019.
HB 1696 Prohibiting an employer from seeking the wage or salary history of an applicant for employment. The League supports employment laws and regulations which encourage practices fair to all individuals regardless of gender. HB 1696 protects employees in the private sector from wage discrimination. Passed the House, 56-40, 2 excused. Passed the Senate 37-10, 2 excused. Signed by the Governor on May 9, 2019.
SB 5035 Enhancing the prevailing wage laws to ensure contractor and owner accountability and worker protection. This bill raises the penalties for failure to pay prevailing wages. Passed the Senate, 40-7, 2 excused. Passed the House 59-36, 3 excused. Signed by the Governor on May 7, 2019.
SB 5233 Creating an alternative process for sick leave benefits for workers represented by collective bargaining agreements. Passed the Senate, 48-0, 1 excused. Passed the House, 92-1, 5 excused. Signed by the Governor on April 30, 2019.
SB 5258 Preventing the sexual harassment and sexual assault of certain isolated workers. Passed the Senate 47-0, 2 excused. Passed the House 57-35, 6 excused. Senate refused to concur in House amendments. After Conference, House passed 73-25. Signed by the Governor on May 13, 2019.
HB 1033 Concerning relocation assistance for manufactured/mobile home park tenants. Re-locating can be very expensive for mobile home park tenants. This will free up some funds for those vulnerable individuals facing this dilemma.
HB 1056 Creating a task force to identify the role of the workplace in helping curb domestic violence. Passed the House, 97-0, 1 excused. (May be Necessary to Implement the Budget)
HB 2009 / SB 5489 Establishing a healthy environment for all by addressing environmental health disparities. A task force will set out to identify environmentally impacted communities. This is an environmental justice issue. Its value is that everyone thrives when we work together to help children reach their full potential in all parts of the state.
Issue Team Chair: Heather Kelly – hkelly [at] lwvwa.org
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Our legislative agenda this year was to support legislation instituting criminal justice reforms for those both in and out of custody. People subject to forensic commitments will now have access to timely competency evaluations as required by the Trueblood settlement (2SSB 5444). Formerly incarcerated individuals will have earlier and easier access to the vote (SB 5207) and an easier time cleaning up their criminal record to improve employment, housing, and education prospects (SHB 1041). HB 1064 codified a modified version of the law enforcement reform instituted under De-Escalate Washington initiative I-940.
Reforms that did not pass this session, such as ending the death penalty (SB 5339), will hopefully be re-introduced in the next session.
Ensure access for all residents to comprehensive, uniform and affordable physical and behavioral health care and reproductive services.
Reproductive health care should be affordable, available, and should provide a comprehensive range of services including abortions.
Issue Team Chair: Kim Abbey – kabbey48 [at] gmail.com – (206) 387-6134
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2019 Legislative Session Recap
Below you can read the list of bills that were passed by the end of the legislative session on April 28, 2019. With the passage of 2SHB 1087, Washington State is the first in the nation establish a Long-term Care Trust Act. Several other bills that passed are steps toward improved transparency for consumers of health insurance and price control of health services. Behavioral health and reproductive health services both have new laws for expanded services and protections. The bills listed below under ‘Did Not Pass’ will be introduced again in January 2020.
Health Care
Behavioral Health
Reproductive Rights
Issue Team Chair: Cynthia Stewart – stewdahl [at] comcast.net
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The goal for the League of Women Voters in the 2019 Legislative session was to achieve policies and funding necessary to address the homelessness crisis and assure an adequate supply of affordable housing for middle-to-low income people. To evaluate whether this was achieved or not, it is important to examine the context.
Lack of affordable housing is among the many issues in the national and regional economies that are leading to the high rate of homelessness in Washington State. The disparity between growth in average income vs growth in property values and rental rates, combined with the fact that most Americans are one or two paychecks away from financial disaster, looms large as a cause of homelessness. This is exacerbated by the high cost of medical care and education, the changing nature of work in demand, and the lack of behavioral health treatment options. Landlord-tenant relationships have also exacerbated the homelessness problem, particularly for people with felony records and certain minorities.
One of the effects of homelessness has been the inability of local jurisdictions to provide shelter and illumination of the fact that most jurisdictions had little or no planning to address affordable housing, in spite of the long-standing requirement in the Growth Management Act that they do so. Another effect has been to raise the cost of local law enforcement and emergency room services in response to needs of people experiencing homelessness and those who encounter them.
All of this is exacerbated by the fear, frustration and mythology that has developed because of seeing so many people “on the street”. Despite that increase in visible homelessness, the majority of people experiencing homelessness are not visible to the public at large but the proposed solutions for them have been colored by the fear and mythology about homelessness.
When the 2019 legislative session began, lawmakers were aligned in a wide spectrum of knowledge- or lack thereof - about homelessness, its causes and effects. Many legislators had some knowledge; more did not. The Senate formed a special committee, Housing Stability & Affordability, to focus on these issues. That committee engaged in a number of briefings about the basics of what is going on and also passed a number of good bills out of committee. The House used its Housing, Community Development & Veterans Committee to discuss and pass legislation out.
The session began with a revenue shortfall of $4.5 billion, the difference between what it would take to sustain ongoing programs and forecast revenue – even considering the increase in revenue from the improving economy. This and the Trueblood lawsuit related to mental health services set back the legislature’s ability to add new programs without new sources of revenue. For that reason, the capital gains tax was proposed. If passed, the capital gains tax would increase the funds available while also addressing the current tax structure’s regressivity. It would have generated more money by taxing those with higher incomes, rather than all people.
Unable to address the income inequality factor directly, most of the legislation centered on landlord-tenant laws and the budget for providing additional financial support that might deter homelessness as well as capital funding for some affordable housing. What it took to move this legislation through was formidable, so even though the net results may not be dramatic, the legislation that passed is a significant achievement. But so much more is needed!
What’s Next
The capital gains tax did not pass, which means that passage of the HEN and Housing Trust Fund appropriations and the local retention of state sales tax (which reduces money available to the state) were impressive and important actions. That said, more progressive revenue is needed in order to do more.
It will be important to continue to educate legislators, local lawmakers and the public about the economic structural imbalance that is the primary driver of homelessness and to encourage them to provide additional resources. There is not a full understanding that this crisis is far from being solved or even that the Department of Commerce has found a shortfall in affordable housing of over 200,000 units statewide and the order of magnitude that solutions would need to address this properly.
Action plans should include:
Funding for Housing
Funding that was achieved was hard-fought, but it will not make a significant difference in the rate of homelessness.
Bills Intended to Allow Additional Non-Traditional Housing
Protection for Tenants, Providing Financial Support and Reducing Evictions
The ability of these bills to change the rate of homelessness remains to be seen. While all these are important tenant protections, their impacts will be hard to measure in the short term.
Support for Youth Experiencing Homelessness
These are all positive moves but considering recent reports that half of all students are hungry, that about a third of people experiencing homelessness are youth, and that youth are traumatized by homelessness, these are insufficient to meet the need.
Issue Team Chair: Pat Griffith – pgriffith [at] lwvwa.org – (206) 285-2452
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Mark your calendar for Wear Orange for Gun Safety March, June 9, 10:00am. Walk from Sam Smith Park in Seattle to Mercer Island. Sponsored by Moms Demand Action and League of Women Voters Seattle-King County. #WearOrange
2019 Legislative Session Recap
Our major legislative agenda was to restrict large capacity magazines and ban so-called “ghost guns” as well as empowering law enforcement to remove weapons in domestic violence and Extreme Risk Protection order cases.
The recently complete legislative session made significant improvements to gun safety though two priority bills which passed both House and Senate committees never reached the floor for a vote. Gun safety supporters made their presence known at committee hearings though past years have been dominated by pro-gun interests.
Bills that passed and were signed by the governor built on recent initiatives and legislation. Among those was SSB 5954 which funds the state bump-fire stock buy-back program, based on last year’s bump stock ban.
Other bills strengthened Extreme Risk Protection Orders and clarified how firearms can be removed from households considered in danger and in domestic violence situations (SHB 1225, SHB 1786, SSB 5027).
Washington became the second state nationally to ban so-called “ghost guns”, which are undetectable weapons that cannot be detected by commonly used security screenings. These weapons can be printed with a 3-D printer. Federal legal proceedings are going through the courts to prohibit distribution of plans for 3-D weapons. (SHB 1739).
Other loopholes closed include requiring concealed pistol permit holders to undergo background checks when purchasing additional weapons; disallowing persons with a history of violence who were found incompetent to stand trial to purchase or possess firearms,
New legislation also seeks to clarify how background checks for concealed pistols are processed.
Disappointments included the failure of the restrictions on large capacity ammunition to proceed to a floor vote. Also, a bill to add childcare centers to the gun-free zones and to require safe storage for family day cares did not emerge from Rules Committee. The bill to change the state pre-emption law to allow municipalities to regulate firearms in public facilities failed to emerge from committee. These are measures we will be supporting in the 2020 session.