News Releases

OLYMPIA – Ria Sinha, 14, served as a page in the Washington State Senate during the week of Jan. 20. Pages are typically sponsored by the senator from their legislative district. Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue) sponsored Sinha’s week in the Legislature.

Gov. Inslee today signed legislation extending the requirement for pay-or-evict notices in Washington state to 14 days in an effort to pre-empt the cycle of homelessness before it begins. Sponsored by Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue), Senate Bill 5600 brings Washington state into the national norm for eviction notices. Until now, Washington required only three days’ notice to tenants before an eviction, ...

Legislation suspending access to firearms for those who have been detained under Washington’s Involuntary Treatment Act (ITA) was signed into law today by Gov. Jay Inslee. Senate Bill 5181, sponsored by Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue), would prohibit someone detained for 72 hours on the basis they present a likelihood of serious harm to themselves or others from possessing a firearm for ...

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 ...