Citizen initiatives become law

The Washington Legislature passed three citizen initiatives in the waning days of the session — I-2111, which prohibits the state, counties, cities and other local jurisdictions from imposing or collecting income taxes, I-2081, a parental bill of rights relating to their children’s public school education and I-2113, which lifts restrictions on police pursuits.

Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, celebrated the “historic victories,” in a post on the social media site X.

While he was happy about the outcome, Couture was frustrated about the limited testimony at the police pursuit initiative hearing Feb. 28.

In a statement, Couture and Rep. Dan Griffey, R-Allyn, said they were “shocked and frustrated” by Democrats holding the hearings because all three sheriffs serving the 35th District were not able to testify.

“The majority had only scheduled a one-hour public hearing for each of the three initiatives in the final days of the legislative session. Roughly half of that hour was taken up by questions from Democratic lawmakers designed to waste time,” the statement says.

Couture took the Mason, Thurston and Kitsap sheriffs into a hall outside the hearing room to videotape the testimony they would have provided and posted it on his website.

Mason County Sheriff Ryan Spurling said when you take away the ability to pursue a suspect, “it just opens the doors to a lot of crimes.” Spurling said police pursuits can be dangerous, but officers make solid choices because they are properly trained. “The laws require the training be there,” he said.

Kitsap County Sheriff John Gese said he wished that he could have testified because he worried that people left the hearing thinking “cops can run wild, chase people for traffic stops, license tabs that have expired. That’s not what we’re asking for at all,” he said. Gese said there were never a lot of chases, but just knowing police could pursue a criminal was a deterrent.

“If you’re a burglar, you may have the police pursue you,” Gese said.

Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders talked about the increase in auto theft, homicide and burglary.

“For the last three years, Washington state has been going through a public safety experiment. The experiment has failed,” Sanders said.

Griffey said what he took away from the hearing was that a majority of Washingtonians think that the previous laws restricting police pursuits took away “our law enforcement’s ability to proactively police and have emboldened criminal behavior” because criminals know they won’t be pursued. The initiatives will take effect 90 days after the legislative session ends.