Partners for Social Change has several lobbying partners that worked on many sentencing/criminal justice related bills this past session; it was extremely disappointing (especially for family members and their loved ones who are in our prison system) that none of the bills we advocated for passed.

Some of these partners and the bills we worked on together are:

Multifaith Criminal Justice Coalition – Paul serves pro bono for them and helped make their first lobby day on January 25th a success! There were five bills that made up their priority list: HB 5036-Clemency Reform, HB1169 Weapons Enhancements Reform, HB 1756 Solitary Confinement Reform, HB 1413 Juvenile Points Reform, and HB 2017 Housing Justice Act.

The Sentencing Reform Coalition – this group met weekly during the legislative session to review its long list of bills (over a dozen) and is made up of organizations and individuals who are either formerly incarcerated or have loved ones who are locked up.

The NAACP state conference policy team has been working with Sen. Dhingra (Law & Justice Committee Chair) to reform our clemency system in at least two ways – one to allow those with longer sentences of 20 years or more to be able to petition the clemency board for a hearing and two to expand the board itself with more positions for people from the community versus legal professionals.

A terrific grassroots ad hoc group from within the Sentencing Reform Coalition came together during the session with a passion to get HB 1169 (weapons enhancements systems change) out of the house rules committee. This was no easy task especially when the Speaker had a hold on it, which means it’s on a list that has a ‘red flag’ or a hold because of one or more reasons.

However, through passion and great but simple strategy we were able to move the Speaker and her leadership team to allow this bill to come to the floor for a debate and vote – and we were successful to get it passed with no amendments and over to the Senate! This bill reforms the ‘stacking’ sentencing procedure used by prosecutors and judges that in reality has ended up giving black & brown youth longer sentences. Unfortunately, as the bill got out of the Senate Law & Justice committee and into the Rules Committee there were not enough votes to pass it, even with a compromising amendment. So this group urged Senate leaders to not bring it to the floor for a vote. Another lobbying partner, the WA Defenders Association, played a key role in moving this bill forward.