Patty In The News

A bill signed by Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday makes Washington the first state in the country to guarantee legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction. Cities such as Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, and Cleveland have passed similar laws in recent years, which require courts to appoint an attorney for any tenant earning less than 200% of the federal poverty ...

The spree of mass shootings over the past two months has led to renewed calls for more federal gun restrictions. But even before the most recent violence, state lawmakers were busy enacting measures designed to help solve a uniquely American public health crisis. After mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado, claimed the lives of 18 people, President Joe Biden earlier ...

Washington is poised to become the first state in the country to guarantee legal representation for low-income tenants facing eviction, with Senate Bill 5160 now approved by both chambers after its vote in the House of Representatives Thursday night. Some tenants may need to put that new guarantee to work right away because the House’s version of the bill adds a ...

Washington may soon become the first state in the country to ensure that low-income tenants have legal representation when faced with an eviction, an idea lawmakers see as a way to head off a feared wave of evictions once pandemic-era rental restrictions are lifted. A bill likely to pass the state Legislature follows years of organizing by tenant advocates across the ...

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 ...

(PHOTO: Crosscut) Jennifer doesn’t fit the stereotype of a tenant facing eviction. Two years ago, she thought she was on her way to buying the house she rents in an upscale King County neighborhood. She scraped together a $50,000 earnest payment, then borrowed another $50,000. But when she had trouble securing a mortgage for the balance, the LLC that owns ...

After years of trying, Washington legislators appear poised to free up doctors at Catholic hospitals to provide medically necessary abortions when pregnancies go wrong. The legislation would allow patients to sue a hospital if they are denied medical care to hasten miscarriages or terminate nonviable pregnancies that threaten their health. It also would allow providers to sue if they are disciplined ...

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 ...

(Photo: Jovelle Tamayo for Crosscut) It’s a high-stakes year in the Washington state Legislature. If you’ve been reading the news, you’ve probably heard about proposals to provide pandemic relief, tax the rich, protect tenants from mass eviction and more. But some transformative bills have been flying mostly under the radar. One of them, Senate Bill 5188, could create ...

As the end of Washington's eviction moratorium approaches, state lawmakers hope to stem the tide of a potential tsunami of evictions with a bill that would establish a "right to counsel" for tenants facing eviction statewide.

That's great! But it's not as great as it could be. The state bill, sponsored by Sen. Patty Kuderer, would only provide lawyers for people ...