By Scarlet Hansen, The Seattle Medium
After a criminal sentencing task force meeting a few years ago, state Sen. Manka Dhingra was approached by a community member with a question.
“I spent 45 minutes talking to her after the meeting, and then she looks at me and goes, ‘You know, you’re the only one I could have asked this to,’” Dhingra, D-Redmond, said. “People feel comfortable coming to us, telling their stories and being vulnerable.”
Dhingra, the first Sikh person elected to a state legislature in the U.S., reflects on this moment frequently. And it’s a sentiment rooted in much of the work done by the Members of Color Caucus, which operates in both the state House and Senate; when communities feel that their legislators reflect, understand, and meaningfully engage with their communities, trust can grow.
“A lot of communities of color might not be comfortable with somebody that doesn’t speak like them and live like them,” said House caucus member Rep. Julio Cortes, D-Everett. “Making sure there are representatives in positions of power that can speak for different communities is important.”
The House Members of Color caucus was established in 2003, with the Senate following around 2013, according to longtime member and former Senate caucus chair, Sen. Bob Hasegawa, D-Seattle. In the years since their inception, both caucuses have seen massive growth in their numbers, with the legislature welcoming one of its most diverse classes in 2019.
The caucuses represent a diverse array of legislators, all Democrats, including those who identify as Black, Asian, Middle Eastern, South Asian, Native American, and Latinx. While the caucuses, and individual legislators, have unique policy goals, both work to pass legislation promoting racial equity, opportunity, and access for people of color in Washington state. This year, members saw achievements in priority areas, with several bills signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee.
In an era of U.S. history characterized by rising hate crimes, attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in schools and workplaces, and plummeting trust in government, the stakes feel high for many legislators.
To Members of Color caucus Senate chair, Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, D- Tacoma, operating with intentionality and with communities at the table is necessary to confront a system that has historically excluded people of color.
“We are at a very dramatic point in time in determining whether we’re still going to have the trust and faith in our democracy that we’ve had in the past,” Trudeau said. “If we say that we want to do things differently, I’d like us to actually do things differently.”
During the 2024 legislative session that officially came to a close on March 7, legislators from the caucuses shepherded legislation promoting criminal justice reform, ensuring equitable representation for communities of color in issues that directly impact them, bolstering community safety for victims of hate crimes, and addressing Washington’s housing crisis.
Criminal justice reform
Hog-tying, in which bound wrists and ankles are fastened, will soon be illegal in Washington state following the governor’s signature on Senate Bill 6009. The bill, introduced by Trudeau, is one of a cascade of solutions aimed at curbing excessive force by police, which disproportionately impacts people of color.
Despite recommendations from the U.S. Department of Justice that the practice be eliminated, some Washington police departments have continued to use it. In 2020, Manuel Ellis, a 33-year-old Tacoma musician, was killed in police custody after being hog-tied, bringing the practice into public focus across the state.
After Ellis’ death, Trudeau said the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department doubled down in defense of hog-tying. At the same time, Trudeau started to learn more about the practice and began to understand its danger more clearly.
Trudeau said although she recognized the practice should be eliminated, she wanted to be mindful of the Ellis family and only introduced the bill after receiving support from Ellis’s sister, Monét Carter-Mixon, working with her throughout the session.
“Being involved in communities of color, I know how patronizing it is when people are just like, ‘Well, I’m gonna do the thing that I think is good for you’,” Trudeau said. “And so I didn’t want to do that.”
The law will take effect on June 6 of this year.
In another win for criminal justice reform, Cortes introduced House Bill 2217, to ensure that juveniles who commit crimes before turning 18 aren’t sentenced as adults.
Youths of color are disproportionately represented in juvenile arrests, a discrepancy researchers have linked to racial bias in policing. In 2021, Black youth were almost five times more likely than their white peers to be committed to juvenile detention facilities in the U.S.
Cortes says that if a juvenile commits a crime at 17, but the case isn’t submitted to the court until after the juvenile turns 18 due to court backlogs, they’ll be sentenced in adult court. The bill would change the cutoff age to 21, with exceptions for cases where an adult court has exclusive jurisdiction over a juvenile.
The bill also allows for those over the age of 14 who commit murder in the first or second degree, and those over 15 who commit rape in the first degree, to be placed in juvenile rehabilitation facilities until they turn 23, recognizing that offenders of serious crimes need extra time for rehabilitation in the juvenile justice system.
Cortes, who worked as a case manager for at-risk and homeless youth before serving in the Legislature, says the change will allow young people to avoid consequences such as harsher sentences, permanent records, and increased risk of homelessness.
“The adult judicial system is simply not made to support the development, in a positive manner, of a youth,” Cortes said.
Equitable Representation
DACA recipients will soon be permitted to serve in civil service positions, such as police, firefighter, and sheriff positions after the passage of Senate Bill 6157, which was signed into law on March 28.
The law also awards bonus points on examination scores for applicants who speak a second language or have other valuable qualifications, such as work and educational experience.
The prime sponsor of the bill, Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, says the over 16,000 DACA recipients living in Washington should be eligible to serve in the communities they’ve spent years living in, and he hopes the bill will help change the culture of law enforcement through increased diversity.
In another move to advance equitable representation, Rep. Darya Farviar, D-Seattle, introduced House Bill 1541, which was signed into law by Inslee on March 26.
The bill creates the “Nothing About Us Without Us” Act, which requires that all statutory entities that report to the Legislature–such as work groups, task forces, and advisory committees–include at least three people from underrepresented groups with lived experience in the issue being considered. Farviar says the act will help shift the culture of the Legislature, ensuring that those most affected by an issue are seated at the table.
A longtime disability rights advocate, Farviar helped draft the bill prior to her election to the legislature while working as a legislative liaison, and later as the public policy director for Disability Rights Washington. Though the bill was originally aimed at advancing representation for those with developmental disabilities, it was later expanded to include multiple marginalized groups.
To Farviar, the bill exemplifies many of the values of the Members of Color Caucus.
“This idea of ‘nothing about us without us’ is why we have Members of Color Caucus,” Farviar said. “We have to try and change the culture if we want to get different results”
Under a bill signed into law on March 26, the state attorney general’s office will be required to oversee a hate crime and bias incident hotline designed to provide culturally competent and trauma-informed resources. The hotline will be active statewide by January 2027.
The bill’s prime sponsor, Sen. Javier Valdez, D-Seattle, says rising numbers of reported hate crimes in the state motivated him to introduce the bill. In Washington, the number of reported hate crimes increased by nearly 28% between 2020 and 2022, with the majority being race-, ethnicity- and ancestry-based.
A hate crime advisory work group established in 2019 found that some areas of law enforcement don’t always take the incidents seriously. Valdez said community stakeholders have said they don’t always feel comfortable approaching law enforcement, and they fear their reports won’t be addressed.
Valdez says the hotline will ensure that Washingtonians have a safe place to go and where reports will be taken seriously.
Housing
Amid a statewide housing crisis marked by homelessness and soaring housing costs, both House and Senate caucuses prioritized solutions, acknowledging the unique vulnerability of communities of color, who are more likely to be cost-burdened, rent their homes, and have limited access to generational wealth.
To promote co-living housing, in which units are rented and communal facilities are shared, House Caucus chair Rep. Mia Gregerson, D-SeaTac, sponsored a bill to remove legal barriers such as restrictive zoning laws and size requirements.
Gregerson says building the supply of affordable co-living homes–which includes single-room occupancy, congregate housing, or micro-housing–is one way to tackle the housing crisis.
To Gregerson, who co-lives with her mother, promoting affordable housing is a matter of public safety. “Unfortunately people see visual poverty now and they feel unsafe,” Gregerson said. “What we really know is if you can’t lock your bedroom at night … that’s when you’re not safe.”
In another move to advance affordable housing in the state, the Legislature passed a bill to expand eligibility for a tax fund established in 2019. The fund allows counties and cities to impose a local state-shared sales and use tax to support the construction and maintenance of affordable housing, as well as rental assistance for tenants.
The new law increases eligibility for housing and services supported by the fund to those who make at or below 80% of a county’s median income, up from the previous 60%. Prime sponsor Sen. T’Wina Nobles, D-Fircrest says this change is necessary to address the widening gap between median incomes and housing costs.
While caucus legislators say they’re proud of the work they achieved this session, they agree Washington still has progress to make in building a more equitable state for communities of color. They say they will continue the work in many of the same areas during next year’s session.
“The legislature has been trying to move policy forward to ensure everybody in Washington is represented and supported, but it’s an ongoing challenge,” Cortes said. “There’s still conversations that need to happen.”