KCLL Klues: Washington State Legal Research

For those of you who are eager to read through the final version of the massive and hotly-contested Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law by President Obama on July 21st, here’s a set of useful links.

As of this writing, the text of Public Law 111-203 wasn’t available but the Library of Congress’ THOMAS web site has a wealth of information about the legislation, including the final text of the bill presented to President Obama and a Congressional Research Service summary.

The White House has also posted the President’s remarks about the new law and a brief Executive summary of its intent.

On June 18, 2010, Ronnie Lee Gardner is scheduled for execution in Utah by firing squad. Regardless of one’s stance on the death penalty, the idea of execution by firing squad (or hanging) seems rather archaic. However, it is interesting to get a sense of how the death penalty is applied across the US.

For as long as there have been organized societies, capital punishment has been used to punish crimes, real or imagined, and to suppress political opposition. In 1972, the US Supreme Court determined in the collective cases known as Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), that Georgia’s capital punishment statutes were arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment” clause because juries were given no guidance to determine whether a defendant deserved execution. In the aftermath of Furman, the Court voided forty state’s death penalty statutes.

Many states immediately began rewriting their death penalty statutes to remove the “arbitrariness” by giving judges and juries guidelines for determining whether a case warranted the death penalty, and also introduced aggravating and mitigating factors. These new statutes were approved by the Supreme Court in 1976 in the Gregg decision, 428 U.S. 153 (1976). The Court thus determined that the death penalty, as drafted under Gregg, did not violate the Eighth Amendment and reinstated the death penalty.

Since the Gregg decision, there have been 1,215 executions throughout the US. Fifteen states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico do not have, or have rescinded their death penalty statutes. And two states, Kansas and New Hampshire, while not abolishing the death penalty, have not had any executions since 1972. This means that executions in the US are carried out in thirty-three states.

The means of execution are as follows, listed in order by frequency of use: lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and firing squad. Oklahoma and Utah provide for execution by firing squad as one means of execution while Delaware, New Hampshire, and Washington execution statutes provide for hanging as one means of execution. Washington’s second method of execution is lethal injection.

Although executions occurred here years before Washington became a state, the death penalty was enacted in 1904, abolished in 1913 and reinstated in 1919. It was abolished again under Furman in 1972.

In 1975, an initiative favoring the death penalty was passed by Washington voters. However, the state legislature enacted its capital punishment statutes in compliance with the constitutional guidelines approved by the Gregg decision in 1977. The current version of the death penalty statute was enacted in 1981, but has not been revised since 1998. Washington has executed a total of 109 in all, but only 4 people since reinstating its death penalty statute. And, in the time since the death penalty has been reinstated, one person has been exonerated.

Click the following links to obtain more information for or against the death penalty.

To read more about Mr. Gardner’s upcoming execution, click here or here or here.

To read more about the death penalty in Washington, click here or here or here.

To learn more about exoneration in Washington, click here.

Stay tuned for our upcoming podcast–an interview with former defense counsel Dan Riviera for convicted murderer Joseph Self.

This past March, the Washington State House and Senate passed into law SB6239, which makes technical changes to gender-based terms contained in the Revised Code of Washington (RCW)—that is, changing “he” to “he or she” and “his” to “his or hers”. This bill was signed by Governor Gregoire on March 10, 2010.

The affected statutes can be found here. These changes will go into effect on June 10, 2010.

On May 13, 2010, President Obama submitted the New START Treaty Package to the Senate. The treaty will need a two-thirds vote in the Senate before it can be ratified and take the effect of law in the US.

To read the White House Press Release on this treaty, click here.

To read more about the treaty ratification process in the US, click here.

To read the previous blog post on New START, click here.

Today in the Czech Republic, Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia signed the Nuclear Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (called New Start). This treaty is aimed at reducing the number of nuclear arms held by both countries. Together the US and Russia own 90% of the nuclear arms in existence.

The objective of this treaty is that each country will decrease nuclear warheads by 30% while decreasing by half the instrumentalities used to carry them. The additional goals are to improve relations between the US and Russia and put increased pressure on Iran as it attempts to develop its own nuclear weapons.

The US Senate and Russian Duma still will need to ratify this treaty before it can take effect.

To read news coverage on this treaty, click here or here.

To read the text of the treaty, click here.

To read a comparison between this treaty and previous nuclear reduction treaties between the US and Russia, click here.

Today, President Obama signed the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010, which adjusts or removes some of the less popular provisions of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that Obama signed into law last week.  The new law also excludes commercial banks from issuing federal student loans.  In order to ensure he had support for these laws from the more conservative constituents of the Democratic Party, President Obama issued an Executive Order restricting federal funding for abortion. For more information, please follow the links below:

It’s Official: President Obama Signs Health Care Reform Bill (NY Daily News)

Obama Signs Bill on Student Loans and Health Care (New York Times)

Obama Signs Higher Education Measure into Law (Washington Post)

Executive Order: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s Consistency with Longstanding Restrictions on the Use of Federal Funds for Abortion

White House Announces Executive Order on Abortion (Washington Post)

President Obama has signed into law the landmark health reform legislation recently approved by Congress but the debate is far from over.  Here are a few related links that will help you make sense of this critical issue:

HR 3590 — Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  Legislative information from Thomas sponsored by the Library of Congress that includes the text of the act signed by the President and links to related material.

HR 4872 —  Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010. Legislative information from Thomas sponsored by the Library of Congress that includes the text of the act the Senate is still reviewing and links to related material.

The “Popular Documents” portion of the US Senate’s web site that includes valuable links to legislation summaries from both parties and the White House.

The official Blog from the Whitehouse that includes links to the President’s recent press conference about health care reform.

A “What does the health care bill mean to me?” link at the Washington Post’s web site that forecasts the impact this new law will have on you personally based on basic data you enter.

A clever chart, also from the Washington Post, which compares voting records on the health reform legislation to a Congressman’s financial support from the health industry and the percentage of people in his or her district without health insurance.

The Washington State Legislature is in session once again.  Understanding the laws our local senators and representatives are proposing can be a daunting task but finding information about those laws isn’t, thanks to the many links provided on the Legislature’s web site.   It provides a variety of ways to research legislative activity, including a link called Agendas, Schedules and Calendars.  As the name implies, this link points to a series of pages where you can: 1) see a complete roster of standing, joint, and select committees; 2) view the past, present and upcoming agendas of those committees; 3) see related bill and bill analysis information; 4) find contact information for the senators and representatives serving on these committees.  The site is complex and navigation between the links can sometimes be a bit confusing but it’s worth it to visit this portion of the State Legislature home page if you haven’t been there before.

An initiative is basically a proposal for a new law. Initiatives are put on the ballot by petition. A valid petition to force an initiative to a vote needs to have valid signatures of legal voters equal to at least 8% of the number of voters registered and voting for the governor in the last regular gubernatorial election. RCW 29A.72.150

There are two types of initiatives: Initiatives to the People and Initiatives to the Legislature. Initiatives to the People are submitted for a vote in the next general election, if certified to have sufficient signatures. As stated in the code, these measures must be submitted to the Secretary of State at least 10 months before the election to which they are being submitted; the signatures must be submitted to the Secretary of State at least 4 month prior.

Initiatives to the Legislature are submitted to the legislature in the next regular session, if certified. The legislators can either adopt the initiative as proposed; reject or refuse the initiative (which means it must be places on ballot at the next state general election); or propose an alternate initiative (which means the old and the new initiative must be submitted to the people in the next state general election). According to the code of Washington, these measures must be submitted to the Secretary of State at least 10 months before the next regular session of the legislature to which they are being submitted; the signatures must be submitted to the Secretary of State not less than 10 days prior.

Once the petition is certified, the initiative requires a majority vote to become law. The Initiative goes into effect after thirty days.

For more information on the Initiative and Referendum process, please see Handbook for Filing Initiatives and Referenda in WA State,  Chapter 29A.72 of the RCW, and the Secretary of State website.

A referendum is, essentially, a revision to an already passed law. Referenda are put on the ballot by petition. A valid petition to force a referendum on any portion of any act of the legislature needs to have valid signatures of legal voters equal to at least 4% of the number of voters registered and voting for the governor in the last regular gubernatorial election. RCW 29A.72.150

There are two types of referenda: Referendum Measures and Referendum Bills. Referendum Measures are laws recently passed by the Legislature that the people have petitioned to be placed on the ballot for a vote. Referendum Bills are proposed laws that the Legislature wants the people to vote on. As stated in the code, a referendum must be filed within 90 days of the adjournment of legislative session at which it was passed. “It may be submitted at the next general statewide election or at a special election ordered by the legislature.”

 Once the petition is certified, it takes a majority vote for a referendum to become law. As stated in the Washington constitution, a referendum goes into effect thirty days later.

For more information on the Initiative and Referendum process, please see Handbook for Filing Initiatives and Referenda in WA State,  Chapter 29A.72 of the RCW, and the Secretary of State website.