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House votes to ease traffic fine burden for poor

March 13, 2013

In a largely bipartisan vote, lawmakers decided to make it less likely people will lose their drivers licenses over the inability to pay a traffic fine.

State Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland
By Tom James
House lawmakers did the kind of thing Tuesday that politicians like to talk about in their speeches: They reached across the aisle (mostly) to move a bill making life easier on the poor while cutting state workloads.

The bill, HB 1601, proposes requiring Washington courts to offer a payment plan to people who are too poor to pay traffic fines all at once, with the aim of keeping minor offenders out of criminal court. Of the 98 legislators in the House, 73 voted in favor of the measure.

The bill’s sponsor, Kirkland Democratic Rep. Roger Goodman, said of those the bill aims to help: “They’re not habitual traffic offenders, they weren’t driving impaired, they just weren’t able to pay the fines.”

Poor people, Goodman said, risk falling into a legal trap after even one traffic ticket. Now when they aren’t able to pay, Goodman said, their licenses are suspended.

“Then the downward spiral begins,” Goodman said, when those same people have to choose between not driving and keeping their jobs. Those who choose to drive to work despite having suspended licenses are then often caught and arrested at some point.

By creating a payment plan, Goodman said, the bill would keep those minor offenders out of the criminal system and save criminal justice resources.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where it must work its way through committees before any final vote.

https://crosscut.com/2013/03/13/olympia-2013/113421/house-votes-ease-traffic-fine-burden-poor/

Stalking bill passes both chambers

By Bill McKee | March 12, 2013 | copied from The Capitol Record

Victims of stalkers may may soon have a new law to protect them, with the approval of bills in both the Senate and the House that would create a new kind of civil protection order for stalking.

The legislation comes in response to the murder of Jennifer Paulson in 2010. Paulson was an elementary school teacher in Tacoma who was killed by a former co-worker who had stalked her for seven years.

“If we had had further protection for someone like Jennifer through the court system, we could have prevented her death,” said sponsor Rep. Roger Goodman (D – Kirkland) during a floor session in the House on Monday.

Goodman’s bill expands the behaviors that qualify as felony stalking and increases criminal penalties for the crime.

The law currently allows people to get no-contact orders or protection orders for domestic violence or harassment. Both of the new bills would create another type of protection order specifically for cases of stalking.

“It is obvious that we need more protection for those who are stalked,” said Sen. Steve Conway (D – Tacoma) as he introduced a similar bill on the Senate floor on Tuesday.
Conway’s bill doesn’t go quite as far in increasing penalties for stalking as Goodman’s, but it too would create a new anti-stalking protection order.

Both bills received unanimous approval in their respective chambers.

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Roger Meets With Washington Law Enforcement

Roger with Sheriff Rahr ( Director of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission) and the CJTC senior staff at a gathering of sheriffs and police chiefs from across the state.