Gun legislation is DOA despite Senate changes, WA lawmaker says

President Donald Trump’s executive actions have spurred protests and lawsuits around the country, but his picks for the White House have potentially opened the door for Democrats in the Washington State Senate. Still, one state Republican says gun legislation will not slip through the cracks.

Trump has twice tapped Republican state senators for federal jobs, with Brian Dansel resigning from his post last week to become a special assistant to the U.S. secretary of agriculture in Washington, D.C. Earlier in the week, Sen. Doug Ericksen took a temporary job at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Trump’s transition team, though The Seattle Times reported that he will continue his legislative duties. Dansel’s resignation makes the Democrat/Republican Senate split 24-24, until Dansel’s replacement is appointed. The Times reported that there is also speculation that Republican senator Michael Baumgartner might also leave for a federal job.

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The current tie in Washington State comes at a time when Rep. Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, has sponsored a bill that would extend background checks to many private sales of firearms and approve “extreme risk protection orders,” according to the Spokesman-Review. Jinkins said the bill was an attempt to follow the recent successful I-1491 ballot measure that would allow a court to remove guns from persons who are judged a danger to themselves or others based on reports of family members or law enforcement.

“This is not a ban,” she told the Spokesman-Review. “Washington voters have said, ‘We expect the state to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people.’ ”

Republican Senator Phil Fortunato, who was appointed to fill the vacancy left by Pam Roach, told KTTH’s Todd Herman that he is not concerned about the bill making it through the legislature, saying he didn’t even think it could pass the House – where Democrats have a 50-48 majority — because there are a “couple good pro-gun Democrats in the house” and that all gun legislation is “dead on arrival.” Fortunato agreed with Herman’s assessment that Jinkins was simply playing games and posturing in a way to divide people, and that the bill is simply a way to bring up the conversation and nothing more.

“This is so ridiculous to me because you have a fundamental right to protect yourself, your family, your property,” he said. “When you go back to the Federalist Papers, you go back to the argument for the Bill of Rights and all that stuff, when they passed the Constitution they had something like three states worried about the right of free speech but five states were worried about guns and Washington has one of the strongest pro-gun constitutions in the country.”

As for the current tie in the Senate, Fortunato called the situation “ironic” but not concerning.

“It’s almost kind of ironic that we’re having some really good Conservative guys appointed to the Trump Administration and it’s causing havoc in our caucus over it,” he said. “But, you have to remember, in the Senate, you need 25 votes to pass anything so you can’t pass anything with 24 votes.”

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