By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Pushing their way past the budgetary roadblocks that have kept legislators stuck in Olympia have been at least two pieces of legislation to benefit the Jewish community. The first is a small benefit, adding up to just two words, but the effect may have a big impact.
Senate Bill 6398, which amended the words “immediate or” to the state’s malicious harassment statute, Washington’s hate crimes law, means that crimes against any person based upon traits such as gender, race, religion, disability or sexual orientation in the heat of the moment are now covered under the statute. Previously, the law protected people based upon threats based in the future.
“Most of the time, most of those threats that are made toward those targeted based on something having to do with their identity…[are] an immediate threat,” Hilary Bernstein, director of the Pacific Northwest chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, told JTNews.
“It’s a good change,” said Zach Carstensen, director of government affairs for the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, who worked to help craft the legislation. “It fixes a problem in the law.”
The ADL and the Federation worked with the King County Prosecutor’s office to pass the legislation.
Bernstein said the updated statute would be a useful tool for prosecutors, who were previously hamstrung by those two missing words from being able to prosecute cases as hate crimes.
“We want to make sure that our prosecutors and law enforcement folks have the best and most thorough tools available in order to keep the community safe,” Bernstein said.
Governor Christine Gregoire signed the bill into law on the week of March 23.
Another passed bill the ADL was paying attention to, House Bill 2801, added more teeth to a current law that prohibits bullying and cyberbullying.
“Despite those things on the books… there still is widespread documentation of continued bullying and harassment in schools,” Bernstein said. “It hasn’t declined since that law was originally enacted, so there was a new section enacted…to underscore the school districts’ need to educate parents and community members and students on how to report bullying and how to address it.”
House Bill 2497, which would have provided penalties for any crimes committed against a person perceived to be homeless, passed the House unanimously but died in the Senate.
A section of the bill not supported by the ADL that would have protected the homeless under the malicious harassment statute was removed, while provisions for more serious penalties at the sentencing phase were added. That version of the bill will likely be reintroduced next session by its primary sponsor, Rep. Scott White (D–N. Seattle).
Having a condition such as homelessness as a part of the malicious harassment statute “would open up a slippery slope where you could start adding all sorts of things” such as political leanings, Bernstein said. “We felt that that was not the appropriate place to address this serious issue of targeting homeless people, because those other characteristics that currently exist in the hate crimes bill, those are more permanent types of characteristics.”
However, Carstensen said the Federation supported the bill in its original form.
“If people are being targeted because of who they are, there should be protections,” he said.
With the legislature dickering over sin taxes and trying to find other ways to close the approximately last $200 million gap in the state’s $2.6 billion projected deficit, items such as the future of the General Assistance–Unemployable stipend for people unable to work are still up in the air. Some policy language contains the cuts to $30 million, though they could go deeper if the two chambers are unable to come to an agreement by next week and the governor chooses to balance the budget through making across-the-board cuts.
A possible bed tax for nursing homes that would have been opposed by the Kline Galland Jewish assisted living and nursing facilities was introduced but rejected before coming to a vote.