Bill to lower Washington’s legal blood alcohol limit stalls in House
Feb 25, 2026, 2:29 PM | Updated: 2:38 pm
A bill to lower Washington’s legal blood alcohol limit from .08 to .05 has stalled in the House.
Democratic State Senator John Lovick told KIRO hosts Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin the bill made it out of the Senate but didn’t have the votes to get out of committee in the House.
“It is, in essence, dead right now,” Lovick said on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not gonna keep trying.”
He said opposition from the hospitality industry has made it difficult to get the votes needed to pass the bill.
“I’m kind of disappointed when I see that the hospitality industry works very hard to end this,” Lovick said.
“Our concern with the legislation as drafted is that it shifts the focus away from the individual who made the dangerous decision to drive impaired,” said Andrea Reay of the Washington Hospitality Association at a Feb. 19 public hearing on the bill. “[It] instead expands liability in ways that do not meaningfully improve road safety.”
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Bill’s prime sponsor investigated ‘thousands’ of DUI collisions in his career
Senate Bill 5067 passed the state Senate on Jan. 28.
Lovick, the bill’s prime sponsor, who has served as the Snohomish County Sheriff and as a Washington State Trooper, said that day that the legislation is about public safety.
“I investigated thousands, and I mean thousands of DUI collisions during my career,” he said on the Senate floor. “Every single DUI collision was preventable.”
Republican Senator Jeff Holy voted no.
Before serving in the Legislature, he served as a Spokane police officer. He told his colleagues in the Senate that he had had similar experiences to Lovick.
“Part of that has been scraping dead kids, dead drivers out of cars, people off pavement, knocking on parents’ doors at 3 o’clock in the morning and notifying them that their 17-year-old was just killed,” he said. “Things that you take to the grave with you, matters of the heart.”
Holy said he wants to keep drunk drivers off the road, but he does not believe this bill is the way to go.
“My argument with this bill is we’re at the point of diminishing returns,” he said. “We are addressing people who are not impaired.”
“Impairment starts with the first beverage,” Lovick told Gee and Ursula. “That’s when you’re impaired.”
Utah is the only state with a blood alcohol content limit of .05.
Frank Lenzi is the News Director for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here.
