Inslee OKs bill curbing debt-based license suspensions
GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press
FacebookTwitterEmail
SEATTLE (AP) Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Monday approved a measure aimed at preventing tens of thousands of people a year from having their driver’s licenses suspended for failure to pay fines.
An estimated 46,000 people have their licenses suspended annually because they fail to pay court-imposed fines for noncriminal moving violations as minor as neglecting to use a turn signal. And, once their license is suspended, they can be subject to criminal prosecution if they re caught driving again.
Activists say that punishes people for being poor, disproportionately affects minority and young drivers, and makes it harder for them to get to work, to take care of sick family members or to get children to school.
Inslee approves bill curbing debt-based license suspensions
Published
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signs 33 new bills into law
By the time Washington lawmakers concluded their 105-day session Sunday night, they had approved nearly a dozen measures on police reform, passed two key climate measures cap-and-trade and a low-carbon fuel standard that had long been priorities of Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, and passed a new capital gains tax on high-profit stocks and bonds that had languished in previous legislative sessions.
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Monday approved a measure aimed at preventing tens of thousands of people a year from having their driver’s licenses suspended for failure to pay fines.
Tim Eyman. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
State Attorney General Bob Ferguson is demanding $2.8 million in legal fees and costs related to his lawsuit against initiative promoter Tim Eyman, and that’s on top of the $2.6 million fine a judge already imposed on Eyman.
Eyman told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show on Monday that it’s all money he doesn’t have.
“He’s basically saying, ‘if Eyman had just not defended himself for the last eight and a half years, it wouldn’t have been so expensive.’ And that’s absolutely true,” Eyman said.
Eyman says his lawyer advised him to offer a vigorous defense, but it completely wiped him out.
Alexis Krell: Lawsuits allege records of Michael Reinoehl s death were improperly withheld
News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. 12/30/2020 Alexis Krell, The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)
Dec. 29 A public records activist s lawsuits allege records about the death of a man fatally shot by a U.S. Marshals task force earlier this year in Lacey were improperly withheld.
Arthur West has sued Lakewood, Thurston County and the state Department of Corrections for records about the death of Michael Reinoehl.
Reinoehl was the suspect in a shooting that killed a right-wing activist at a Portland rally Aug. 29. The task force killed him Sept. 3 outside an apartment complex near Lacey, in the Tanglewilde neighborhood.