News Releases

Taking action to interrupt the cycle of homelessness before it begins, the Washington state Senate today passed legislation that would require 14 days notice to evict a tenant. Senate Bill 5600, sponsored by Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue), also expands legal access for tenants and standardizes the requirements for an eviction notice. The current requirement notice for an eviction is three days. ...

Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue) was sworn in today for her first full term serving Washington’s 48th Legislative District, which includes Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, the Points communities, and Medina. Kuderer joined the Senate in 2017 upon appointment and quickly established herself as a leading advocate for expanding access to democracy, reforming the juvenile justice system, and finding ways the state can ...

Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue) will lead efforts to address the growing crises related to housing and homelessness in Washington state as chair of the newly created Senate Housing Stability & Affordability Committee. Selected by her colleagues in the Senate Democratic Caucus, Kuderer will focus the committee on short- and long-term solutions to the broad range of causes, barriers and impacts that ...

From The Seattle Times: Gov. Jay Inslee recently signed legislation that represents what one lawmaker called "a seismic shift" in the state's efforts to reform the juvenile-justice system. The new law removes a handful of crimes from the list of what are known as auto-decline offenses and extends juvenile justice jurisdiction for those specific crimes to age 25. The new law ...

A package of bills to improve the lives of women throughout the state were signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Jay Inslee. The “Putting Women First” package runs the gamut from equal pay, to the Reproductive Parity Act, to sexual harassment non-disclosure agreements, to removing barriers for harassment lawsuits, to prohibiting discrimination in employment contracts, to requiring breast density screenings and ...

Five bills aimed at increasing voting access, representative government and exposing hidden money in elections were signed into law Monday by Gov. Jay Inslee. The Access to Democracy package – which includes The Washington Voting Rights Act, automatic voter registration, same-day registration, 16-17 year old pre-registration and The DISCLOSE Act – were all part of the Senate Democrats’ early action ...

The Washington state Senate today passed legislation to alleviate recent cost increases for car tabs in the Puget Sound. Senate Bill 5955, sponsored by Sen. Patty Kuderer, D-Bellevue, would implement a car tab calculation scale which more accurately reflects true car valuations and provides credit refunds to taxpayers who purchased tabs before September 1, 2018. “We have heard clearly from ...

The Washington state Senate today passed groundbreaking legislation extending juvenile justice jurisdiction for some youthful offenders to age 25. Current Washington law requires that 16-17 year olds who commit certain crimes are automatically tried as adults without any consideration of brain development, criminal history, upbringing or other potentially mitigating circumstances. Some of these crimes include: first degree robbery, first-degree burglary (if ...

The Washington State Senate today voted to expand protections for women’s health by requiring that three-dimensional mammography be covered by health insurance providers. 3D mammography, also known as tomosynthesis, has been shown to improve early detection by 40-percent, which is paramount in winning the fight against cancer. “About one-in-eight women in the United States can expect to develop breast cancer over the ...

News broke on Thursday that the Washington State Department of Licensing (DOL) has been sharing information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after being directed not to do so by an executive order issued by Gov. Jay Inslee in 2017. Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, D-Seattle, released the following statement in response: “Yesterday, our worst fears were confirmed ...