March 06, 2023

Fortunato calls Senate’s Blake solution ‘50% carrot & 50% stick’

This past Friday, state Sen. Phil Fortunato voted in favor of the Senate’s proposal to mostly fix the so-called Blake Decision drug possession fiasco. In 2021, the state Supreme Court issued its ruling on a 2016 case over the arrest of Shannon Blake for possession of drugs. Blake contended she did...
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March 03, 2023

Restricting Your Rights

It has been a challenging week on the Senate floor. While the majority of our work is bipartisan, there are certain areas of sincere disagreement that I have to speak up about, especially concerning what I view are fundamental rights. Parents Rights Late Wednesday night the legislative majority rushed through...
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February 09, 2023

More Restrictions on Law-abiding Citizens

My office is being inundated with constituents concerned about what is going on in Olympia with respect to our Second Amendment rights. I want to thank everyone for sharing their concerns and any efforts being made to slow or stop these unnecessary infringements on law-abiding citizens. I thought I’d share...
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February 09, 2023

Fortunato bill would restrict sex offender placement after Enumclaw debacle

Residents in the city of Enumclaw are outraged after learning that the state is placing unsupervised sex offenders in their community. As part of legislation that was approved in 2021, local jurisdictions have to provide what is called “less restrictive alternative” or LRA housing to accommodate offenders where they were...
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December 14, 2022

Democrats switch course, adopt Republican-led homeless approach

Gov. Jay Inslee recently held a news conference in Spokane, touting the work of a new approach to dealing with the state’s daunting homelessness crisis. The only problem? The policies being touted as effective were originally part of a package that homeless advocates and Democratic lawmakers sought to kill. The...
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May 05, 2022

Abortions in Washington might be legal, but Inslee made them less safe, says Fortunato

In a recent statement, Gov. Jay Inslee touted his work to keep Washington a pro-abortion state, vowing to “fight to ensure safe, affordable access to every person who needs it,” on the heels of a leak of a draft decision overturning the controversial Roe v. Wade abortion case at the U.S. Supreme...
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May 04, 2022

Sen. Fortunato calls on governor to relax vaccine requirements for volunteers

OLYMPIA…While most of the nation has moved beyond vaccine mandates, Washington state remains an outlier, and a policy hidden in one of Gov. Inslee’s executive orders is putting a damper on cleaning up the state’s highways. Sen. Phil Fortunato sent a letter to the governor asking him to relax the...
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March 24, 2022

New gun restrictions signed into law

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a package of bills Wednesday tightening the state’s gun laws, including a measure that bans the manufacture, distribution and sale of firearm magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. Washington joins nine other states, including California and New Jersey, that...
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March 22, 2022

Attend my upcoming town halls!

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March 17, 2022

Governor reneges on offer to talk with Republicans

If you missed this story as it developed, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee publicly offered to sit down with Republicans and talk about his decision to keep the two-year old state of emergency in place. Four Senate Republicans, including Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, took him up on the offer. Now the...
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