Camden: How Washington failed to make four DUIs a felony

A bipartisan group in the Senate, led by Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, proposed back in the first week of the 2015 session that the felony should kick in on the fourth arrest and conviction. Senate Bill 5105 received unanimous support in the Senate, and was sent to the House.

But the House never got around to voting on it, so like all bills left hanging at the end of a session it went back to its “house of origin.” The Legislature needed a special session, so the Senate passed it again unanimously and sent it back to the House, which didn’t get around to it before that special session ended.

But the Legislature needed a second special session that year, so the Senate gave it another unanimous yes vote and it came back to the House, which once again didn’t get around to voting on it.

Deal made, broken

Thus when lawmakers returned to Olympia this January, the bill was back on the Senate’s plate. It passed unanimously on Feb. 26, was sent to the House where — big surprise — it did not get taken up before the regular session ended. But wait, the Legislature needed a special session this year, too, so the bill went back to the Senate, where on March 28 it got its fifth unanimous approval and was sent to the House.

March 28 was the next-to-last day of the special session, so obviously time was running out. But the last day of a special session is when budgets are passed and deals are done, and the money to cover the court and prison costs of moving up the felony schedule are in the supplemental budget.

The House and Senate were not the best of buds that last day, but in the late afternoon they had at least a tentative deal that went something like this: The Senate would pass the supplemental budget, which the House already had passed; the House would override the 27 vetoes Gov. Inslee had issued as a way to make lawmakers come up with a budget deal, and pass the drunken driving legislation, which by then was known as the Padden DUI bill; the Senate would pass the capital budget and everyone would go home.

Then the Senate vote on the supplemental budget was delayed for hours, in part, because Padden objected to a provision that was setting up community college programs in state prisons on the taxpayers’ dime.

In record time, the House overrode all 27 vetoes, paused briefly to catch its breath … and voted to adjourn without taking up the Padden DUI bill. Senate Republicans began crying foul, some claiming House Democrats’ lack of action was retribution over the delay on the budget. Eventually some Republicans even floated a rumor the House was dishing out payback for the Senate investigation of the Corrections Department’s inmate early release scandal, although that wasn’t mentioned by Democrats on the House budget team.

So if you’re stupid enough to pick up your fourth DUI, you might want to be smart enough to do it this year because eventually that bill is going to get through the House. On the other hand, if you’re stupid enough to already have No. 4, best not get behind the wheel loaded. Lawmakers did double the max penalties for DUI No. 5 to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.