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A bill that would bring an end to no-cause evictions in Washington (HB 1236) had a confusing day on the Senate floor on Monday. Republicans managed to get three amendments added to the bill, stripping away its protections for tenants facing no-cause evictions and exempting small rental properties from the bill entirely, before it was eventually taken off the floor. An updated version of the bill is heading to a senate floor vote today. The legislation lists 16 possible causes for a landlord to evict a tenant. “They’re very expansive,” Representative Nicole Macri (D-43, Seattle), the bill’s primary sponsor, ...

From 2014 to 2019, Michelle McClendon was without a driver’s license after she could not afford to pay a parking ticket she incurred while living out of her Toyota Camry. She also could not afford to be relicensed, so when public transit could not get McClendon to school, work or the grocery store, she would take a chance driving without a license.

She would pray on her way to work, asking in her words that “the universe be gracious” to her. Driving without a license in Washington state is a criminal offense punishable by 90 days in jail ...

At some point, Washington’s housing crunch will become a housing crisis. Meanwhile, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and legislative attempts to address housing issues will reverberate for decades to come.

Most pressing is a looming deadline for an eviction moratorium put in place by Gov. Jay Inslee. Shortly after the arrival of COVID-19, Inslee made it temporarily illegal for tenants to be evicted because of an inability to pay.

WASHINGTON – Democrats moved Tuesday to revive efforts in Congress to change gun laws after two high-profile mass shootings less than a week apart, but a stubborn partisan divide threatens to block even modest reforms.

After a 21-year-old man shot and killed 10 people at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, on Monday, congressional Democrats called for swift action on legislation to stem gun violence.

“What happened in Boulder yesterday is a tragedy,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote Tuesday on Twitter, “and unfortunately it’s one that’s all too common in our country. The best way to honor these victims & ...

Olympia, WA — Clean Cars 2030 (originally HB 1204), groundbreaking legislation that calls for all model year 2030 or later passenger and light-duty vehicles sold in Washington State to be electric vehicles (EVs), took one step closer to becoming law yesterday when it advanced out of the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology as an amendment to SHB 1287. The combined bill now heads to the Senate Transportation Committee.

Introduced in the legislature by Rep. Nicole Macri (D-Seattle), the target date for phasing out gas cars established in Clean Cars 2030 is five years earlier than the ...

The mass shootings in Boulder and Atlanta are igniting new calls for gun control and a heated debate all over the country.

Here in Washington state, one high profile bill is still alive in the state legislature after previous gun control measures have failed.

Eight lives were lost in Atlanta and 10 were lives lost in Boulder during back-to-back mass shootings.

Lawmakers said the killings are a wake-up call.

After last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, Washington state lawmakers set out to enact a sweeping collection of police accountability reforms in 2021.

Some of those measures are advancing swiftly through the Legislature, including a proposal to ban chokeholds and a bill to beef up the state’s system for decertifying police officers.

But other police reform bills have stalled — including a plan to end the qualified immunity that can shield officers from civil lawsuits and a measure to stop arbitrators from reversing police discipline.

(Photo: ERIC J. RICHEY COURTESY TO THE BELLINGHAM HERALD) The role of a prosecuting attorney is to hold individuals accountable for their actions and keep Washingtonians safe. Every day, I and my staff hold individuals accountable for crimes against our state and those within it. It is important that we spend as much of our time and resources as we can on this mission and providing safety and security to victims. However, it is not our desire, nor our job, to punish people for actions outside the public safety sphere. Click here to read more...

A bill moving through the Washington legislature may make the state only the second in the U.S. with hopes of distributing its own line of generic drugs, an idea hatched last year in California as a way to combat the rising cost of prescription medicines that are straining government budgets.

The legislation would authorize the state Health Care Authority to form partnerships with other state agencies or nonprofits to distribute generics and insulin. However, any drug must be made or distributed by a pharmaceutical company that is registered with the Food and Drug Administration.

OLYMPIA — Washington would be the first state in the nation to bring the 40-hour work week to agricultural workers, some of the nation’s lowest-paid workers, under a bill passed by the state Senate.

Farmworkers were exempted from the original federal Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1938.

A late compromise negotiated by Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, and Sen. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, enabled the legislation’s passage on a bipartisan vote of 37-12 just before a key legislative deadline.