The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
With more than 1,000 bills introduced in any legislative session, it’s not surprising that some aren’t quite ready for prime time when they get their first legislative hearing.
That doesn’t keep them from generating an interesting, unusual or heated discussion in committee. It might even be a reason the discussion is so heated.
That seemed to be the case last week with House Bill 2030, which would rewrite state law that prevents any person convicted of an “infamous crime” from registering to vote. Under current law, an infamous crime is any punishable by death or imprisonment in a state or federal corrections facility, which is to say, a felony. The proposal would change that to any “state crime punishable by death.”
There is, however, no crime punishable by death in Washington. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that capital punishment cannot be applied constitutionally, and the Legislature repealed the statute in 2023.
So essentially, it’s a proposal to let incarcerated felons register to vote, a step beyond the 2021 law that allows felons to register once they are no longer in custody. The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Tarra Simmons, D-Bremerton, who is the first former prison inmate to serve in the Legislature, was one of the driving forces behind that earlier bill.
For some Republican members of the House State Government and Tribal Relations Committee, this is a step too far. And possibly a step over a cliff. They deployed what might best be described as a “parade of horribles” as arguments against it.
Rep. Sam Low, R-Lake Stevens, for example, asked whether convicted Green River serial murderer Gary Ridgway would be allowed to vote if the bill passed. Since his sentence has been commuted, he theoretically could, Simmons said, although Ridgway has been transferred to a Colorado prison.
Thanks to the Legislature’s expansion of testimony to remote internet connections, inmates from the Washington Correctional Center at Shelton told the committee that allowing them to vote would give many of them a sense of social responsibility.
Raymond Williams, who is serving a life sentence, said losing the right to vote is a “civil death,” adding that he’d never actually had a “civil birth.” He was arrested as a juvenile but tried and convicted as an adult, and never was eligible to vote.
Williams said he understood the concern about a case like Ridgway’s, but asked the critics to consider “we’re not all Gary Ridgways.”
Registered voters can be called for jury duty, said Rep. Greg Cheney, R-Battle Ground, the top Republican on the committee. He asked Simmons if a person serving a sentence for vehicular manslaughter should serve on a jury for someone accused of driving under the influence. Not necessarily, because people regularly get removed from the jury pool, she said.
Rep. Leonard Christian, R-Spokane Valley, asked if one would open up a prison for a candidate to talk to the potential voters there. “I think candidates should go into prisons and see what’s going on there,” Simmons replied.
The Secretary of State’s office, the ultimate overseer of elections, had some more technical problems with the bill, spokesman Brian Hatfield said. For example, the bill doesn’t make it clear whether inmates would be registered in the jurisdiction where they lived before conviction or in the one where the prison is located.
Some prisons are in smaller communities, where the voting prison population might surpass the local nonincarcerated population, Hatfield said. The city of Connell, for example, has 1,164 residents; the Coyote Ridge correctional facility has 1,900 inmates, who theoretically could form a bloc that influenced local elections.
Simmons’ bill has seven Democratic co-sponsors. But it is not yet scheduled for a committee vote. Like other bills making their debut in this short session, it may be more of a place to begin discussion on a question of civic engagement and democratic equity than a well-honed policy on the fast track to the governor’s desk.
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