Formerly incarcerated Washington lawmaker leads drive to restore felons’ voting rights
Several formerly incarcerated Washington state residents last week voiced support for a bill that would automatically restore voting rights for people convicted of felonies. One of them was the bill’s sponsor.
If it passes the full Legislature, the bill would restore that right as soon as a person is no longer spending 24 hours a day in a corrections facility. Its passage could restore voting rights for about 26,000 people.
That number was offered by officials with the Department of Corrections (DOC), who testified in support of the bipartisan bill at a public hearing. All testifiers supported the bill, but Republicans on the House State Government & Tribal Relations Committee say the measure goes too far.
The committee approved the bill along party lines, advancing it to the House Rules committee for further consideration.
Its prime sponsor, Rep. Tarra Simmons, is a newly elected Democrat from Bremerton. She’s believed to be the first person convicted of a felony ever elected to the Washington state legislature.
Simmons was convicted of assault in 2001, and in 2011 was convicted of retail theft and drug charges and unlawful possession of a firearm. After her release from prison, she attended the Seattle University law school and graduated with honors, then fought for and won the right to take the state bar exam. The state Supreme Court unanimously ruled in her favor.
The high court’s opinion includes the context of her childhood, when she was surrounded by substance abuse, poverty, trauma, and crime — and of a changed life since 2011 that “can only be deemed remarkable, in terms of the efforts she has put forth and the positive results she has achieved.”
“This bill is very personal to me, as a person who lost my right to vote due to a felony conviction,” Simmons said at the bill’s public hearing. “It is also a true honor to be here today as a state representative, an honor that is directly tied to my ability to successfully re-enter the community after incarceration and become a voter again.”
This year’s bill is not the first effort with its aims — a “very large coalition” has worked on it for years, Simmons said. Sen. Patty Kuderer, D-Bellevue, and Rep. Laurie Dolan, D-Olympia, have brought forward similar legislation in years past. Kuderer’s bill with the same goal didn’t make it off the Senate floor.
Simmons was involved in the bill’s development before she was a legislator. She co-founded and directs the Civil Survival Project, which helps formerly incarcerated people overcome barriers to reintegration, within the Public Defender Association. She worked as an advocate for several years on policy priorities, she told McClatchy.
When she was elected, she said Kuderer and Dolan asked if she’d be the bill’s prime sponsor. She makes a fitting spokesperson — her knowledge of re-entry is deep and personal, and her path to Olympia made national headlines.
What the bill would do
When a person is convicted of a felony in a Washington state, staff said at the hearing, they lose their right to vote. Today, a person can have that right provisionally restored if they’re not serving a sentence of confinement with the Department of Corrections, aren’t in community custody, and aren’t incarcerated for a felony conviction in a federal or out-of-state court.
Courts have to order community custody — part of a sentence that’s served out in the community under conditions imposed by the court and DOC — for people convicted of certain crimes, according to a nonpartisan bill analysis.
A person’s provisional right to vote can be revoked if a sentencing court finds they’ve “willfully failed to pay” court-ordered legal financial obligations, such as restitution or fees, according to the analysis. Simmons has likened that to a sort of “poll tax” that penalizes people who don’t have enough money to pay obligations by taking away a fundamental right.
The permanent right to vote can be restored in one of several ways, including a certificate of discharge from the sentencing court or a court order restoring the right.
Simmons said the bill up for consideration this session would simplify the current process while restoring “some amount of dignity for our neighbors when we welcome them home.”
People convicted of felonies would have their right to vote automatically restored when they’re no longer in 24-hour confinement inside a state facility or institution — so, a person could vote if they were on work release, in community custody, or in another arrangement.
And, a person’s right to vote could not be revoked for failing to make those court-ordered payments.
Sean Morales-Doyle, deputy director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, said Washington lags behind 20 other U.S. states and Washington, D.C., in this area.
Eighteen states automatically restore voting rights to people upon release from prison, he said while testifying in support of the bill; Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia don’t take the right to vote away from felons at all.
The bill is sponsored by Simmons and Republican Rep. Jesse Young of Gig Harbor, along with dozens of other lawmakers.
A bipartisan bill
When a person is released from incarceration, they face obstacles from statute and stigma that make it tough to regain key parts of a stable life, such as employment and housing.
“The punishment never seems to end, and I can tell you that first-hand,” Simmons said.
If the bill had been in place when she was released, Simmons said she would’ve felt more included in her community, rather than hiding in shame.
“Those feelings often lead people to hiding in isolation and relapsing or committing more crimes when we are stacking on all of these other punishments outside of the incarceration time,” Simmons said.
Some obstacles might be justified by public-safety risk — but that’s not the case with the right to vote, she and others testified last week.
Republican sponsor Rep. Young talked about the virtue of second chances.
“I think that this is a great way to say that, ‘You know what, we are going to welcome you back into the community and try to give you a chance to get it right, to start right,’” Rep. Young said.
But Republicans who serve on the House State Government & Tribal Relations Committee argued the bill goes too far. Reps. Jim Walsh of Aberdeen and Jenny Graham of Spokane each raised concerns about legal financial obligations not being paid.
Graham questioned if it would be fair for a person who has killed another person, “knowingly, permanently” taking away their right to vote, to have their right restored. That issue is personal for Graham, whose sister was murdered by Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer.
Rep. Dolan addressed that concern in a separate question about the spectrum of crimes and punishments related to killing other people. If the concern is about people not serving enough punishment for their crime, Dolan said, it seems that would require looking at a bill related to sentencing.
Voices of those affected
Representatives from the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Washington Statewide Reentry Council within the state Department of Commerce, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the executive director of Rebuilding Hope! Sexual Assault Center for Pierce County all testified in support of the bill.
Many of the other supportive voices belonged to people with a personal connection. Among the many who testified about their experiences of re-entry after incarceration was Victor Sauceda. He said he hasn’t had a chance to vote in his 31 years.
He’s now a software engineer at the nonprofit Code for America, he said, and will be off probation in April, finally able to vote. He questioned what repeatedly being rejected by society does to a person’s mental health.
“When society creates a disconnect between me and the policies that are currently affecting me, how will I ever have a voice in that matter?” Sauceda said. “A vote signifies that you have a standing in the community — that you, your experiences and opinions matter. What you say will be heard, to some extent. I have to ask: Do I not matter?”
Kim Bogucki is a veteran of the Seattle Police Department who co-founded The IF Project, which works to connect law enforcement with people who are or were incarcerated in an effort to deter recidivism.
“I know that public safety gets brought up around this issue, and as a 32-year veteran of the Seattle Police Department, I am here to tell you that restoring people’s rights to vote is not a public safety issue,” Bogucki said.
She and others, including Sahar Fathi with the state Attorney General’s Office, spoke of inequality within the justice system as a key part of the issue. In 2020, African Americans represented nearly 18 percent of Washington’s inmate population and only 4 percent of the state’s overall population, Fathi said.
“Disenfranchising individuals with felony records disproportionately impacts communities of color (and) has historically served to curb the voice and vote of many from the African American community,” she said.
Elections officials also testified in favor, saying it will streamline a complex system.
“Our current system is not only unfair, but it also makes election administrators’ jobs harder,” Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall said.
Narrow approval
On Thursday, amendments to the bill introduced by Republicans failed.
“While we appreciate the intent of this bill, I feel — and some of us feel — that it goes about achieving its policy ends too broadly,” Rep. Walsh said while describing an amendment he sponsored.
Ahead of the final vote, Rep. Graham called the bill a “slap in the face.” Rep. Mike Volz of Spokane reiterated concerns about treating all crimes in the same manner and legal financial obligations.
The committee passed the bill in a 4-3 vote along party lines.
“We are a society that honors stories of people who have turned their lives around, we are a society of second chances,” Rep. Dolan said. “It is up to us to welcome those who have completed their punishment sentences back into full citizenship as quickly as possible.”
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