Washington will establish a nonpolice hotline to assist people who have been targeted by hate crimes and bias incidents, state lawmakers decided this week, passing a new version of a bill that failed to advance last year.
Senate Bill 5427, sponsored by Sen. Javier Valdez, D-Seattle, among others, directs the state Attorney General’s Office to create a hotline serving at least three Washington counties by 2025 and all counties by 2027.
The bill says the hotline should be staffed during business hours. It says call takers should provide victims with information, refer them to culturally competent, trauma-informed local service providers for additional help and document the calls for annual reports. Identifying information will be kept out of the reports and will be exempt from public disclosure requests.
SB 5427 passed the Senate on Feb. 7 and cleared the House on Wednesday, drawing unanimous support from Democrats and near-unanimous opposition from Republicans. It’s now headed to Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk to be signed into law.
Under Washington law, hate crimes are actions in which a perpetrator maliciously and intentionally causes physical injury or damage because of a victim’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, or disability. Established as a category in Washington in 2019, hate crimes also include hate-related threats that cause a victim to reasonably fear harm. They’re felony offenses punishable by up to five years in prison.
SB 5427 defines bias incidents as “hostile expressions of animus” that relate to a victim’s actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, or disability. Bias incidents don’t include free-speech expressions for or against the policies of foreign or domestic governments, the bill says.
Proponents say a hotline is needed because many hate crimes currently go unreported to — or undocumented by — police and because police generally don’t record data on bias incidents, which are noncriminal in nature. Especially in marginalized communities, people might be afraid to contact police. Even when police are contacted, they might lack evidence to document a hate crime.
Washington police reported 590 hate crimes to the FBI for 2022, 651 for 2021 and 462 for 2020. In the most recent year, 63% of the state’s hate crimes were related to race, ethnicity or ancestry, while 18% were related to sexual orientation and 10% were related to religion.
SB 5427 received support from the Anti-Defamation League Pacific Northwest, Faith Action Network, Latino Civic Alliance, Seattle Education Association, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Seattle, Washington State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs, Washington State LGBTQ Commission, United Indians of All Tribes Foundation and Khalsa Gurmat Center, among others, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
“We’re seeing communities across the state being impacted,” Rep. Jamila Taylor, D-Federal Way, said during a House debate Wednesday, mentioning the Khalsa Gurmat Center, a Sikh cultural center in her district that was burglarized and vandalized in 2021. “Having a hotline allows for communities who are unsure and feeling the pressure … to report these bias incidents.”
Although an ornate, handmade canopy for sacred scriptures was destroyed at the Khalsa Gurmat Center, the police and FBI declined to label the break-in a hate crime, citing a lack of “overt evidence,” such as prejudiced graffiti.
“You’ve heard about the antisemitism. You’ve heard about the anti-Muslim hate. You’ve heard about the LGBTQ hate,” and about anti-Asian hate, Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos said Wednesday, pointing to a case last year in which a man was charged with a hate crime after he allegedly smashed the windows of the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle’s Chinatown International District. Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle, called SB 5427 “an important step” to understand how pervasive hate crimes and bias incidents are.
SB 5427 critics say hate crimes should be handled only by police and say a reporting system for noncriminal bias incidents could chill free speech. The bill encountered opposition from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and from the Washington Policy Center, a conservative think tank.
Although hate “is something we should try to discourage,” SB 5427’s hotline “may not be the best way,” Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, said Wednesday. “If someone has been assaulted, if property has been damaged, then the proper recourse is to contact law enforcement and … pursue justice that way.”
Walsh said he worries the hotline “could be weaponized in a way that would not serve justice,” while Rep. Cyndy Jacobsen, R-Puyallup, said the state should steer clear of collecting reports about noncriminal bias incidents.
“We generally have social pressure which we can bring to bear on those types of incidents,” which can involve gauging a perpetrator’s intent, she said.
When supporters introduced SB 5427 last year, they modeled it on programs launched by Oregon in 2020, including a hate and bias hotline and a compensation fund for victims. The bill passed the Senate’s law and justice committee in 2023 but got stuck in the budget committee, as Democrats prioritized spending on existing programs rather than new ones.
This year, Senate amendments cut the victim compensation fund from SB 5427 and extended the hotline’s implementation timeline. Those changes lowered the bill’s estimated 2025 cost from more than $2 million to less than $1 million. The money will pay staffers and contracted call takers.
The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs agreed to support the bill after lawmakers made adjustments to clarify the hotline’s interactions with police. The hotline will ask callers whether they’ve contacted police but will share information with police only when the callers consent. Police contacted by hate and bias victims will share information about the hotline.
King County officials have been working for more than a year to establish their own hate and bias hotline to serve Washington’s most populous county.
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