S-0711.1

SENATE BILL 5752


State of Washington	64th Legislature	2015 Regular Session

By Senators Hasegawa, Darneille, Kohl-Welles, Jayapal, Chase, and McAuliffe

Read first time 02/02/15. Referred to Committee on Government Operations & Security.

AN ACT Relating to information concerning racial disproportionality; amending RCW 43.88C.050; adding a new section to chapter 43.88C RCW; and creating a new section.

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.

(1) The caseload forecast council shall appoint a research staff of sufficient size and with sufficient resources to accomplish its duties. The caseload forecast council may request from the administrative office of the courts and the department of social and health services such data, information, and data processing assistance as it may need to accomplish its duties, and such services shall be provided without cost to the caseload forecast council.

(2) The caseload forecast council may request from the administrative office of the courts, the department of social and health services, the department of corrections, the office of the superintendent of public instruction, and other agencies, such data, information, and data processing assistance as it may need to accomplish its duties, and these services shall be provided without charge to the caseload forecast council.

(1) The caseload forecast council, in cooperation with 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, and the sentencing guidelines commission shall establish a procedure for the provision of racial impact statements on the effect that legislative bills and resolutions will have on racial and ethnic minority groups, including but not limited to the racial and ethnic composition of the criminal and juvenile justice systems.

(2) The caseload forecast council shall provide a racial and ethnic impact statement on any legislative proposal at the request of any legislator.

(3) This section shall not prevent either the house of representatives or the senate from acting on any bill before it as otherwise provided by the state Constitution, by law, or by the rules and joint rules of the senate and house of representatives, nor shall the lack of any racial impact statement provided in this section or any error in the accuracy thereof affect the validity of any measure otherwise duly passed by the legislature.

(4) For the purpose of this section, the juvenile justice system includes, but is not limited to, all matters based in juvenile court as defined in RCW 13.04.030 and all juvenile court matters related to compulsory school attendance as described in chapter 28A.225 RCW.