S-2262.1
SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 5752
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State of Washington | 64th Legislature | 2015 Regular Session |
By Senate Ways & Means (originally sponsored by Senators Hasegawa, Darneille, Kohl-Welles, Jayapal, Chase, and McAuliffe)
READ FIRST TIME 02/27/15.
AN ACT Relating to information concerning racial disproportionality; adding a new section to chapter
43.88C RCW; and creating a new section.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that the health, safety, and productivity of all communities is of the utmost importance to the state of Washington, including historically marginalized racial and ethnic communities. All citizens are harmed by unintended racial and ethnic disparities created by legislation. Therefore, the legislature intends to create a proactive tool intended to provide legislators with aggregated and disaggregated demographical data and other information to help legislators understand possible disparate racial and ethnic impacts, and thus better informed and intentional decisions on legislative proposals.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. A new section is added to chapter 43.88C RCW to read as follows:
(1) The caseload forecast council, in cooperation with the appropriate legislative committees and legislative staff, the office of financial management, the department of corrections, the department of social and health services, the administrative office of the courts, the minority and justice commission, the Washington state institute for public policy, the department of early learning, the student achievement council, the state board of education, the sentencing guidelines commission, and a person from communities at large deemed appropriate must develop recommendations for procedures and tools which will enable them to provide cost-effective racial and ethnic impact statements to legislative bills affecting criminal justice, human services, and education caseloads forecasted by the caseload forecast council. The recommendations for the racial and ethnic impact statements must be able to identify the positive and negative impacts on communities as a result of proposed or adopted legislation. The caseload forecast council must submit a report to the governor and appropriate committees of the legislature on or before December 31, 2015, outlining recommendations for procedures and tools necessary to provide racial and ethnic impact statements to criminal justice, human services, and education caseloads.
(2) As used in this section, "community" means a group of people who share some or all of the following characteristics: Geographic boundaries, sense of membership, culture, language, or common norms and interests. Community includes, but is not limited to, populations distinguished by their special education status, sexual orientation, ethnicity, primary language, or race.
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