Every state legislature operates with some rules in place, though they can vary wildly from state to state. One of the more common rules is a crossover deadline; if legislation fails to advance out of its house of origin by a specific date (generally the midpoint of the legislative session), it cannot move forward.
That was the case with a gun control bill in Washington State… at least until anti-2A Democrats decided to suspend the rules this week in order to keep a gun control bill alive. As NRA-ILA reports:
On Tuesday night, the Washington legislature suspended the rules to move House Bill 2521 and voted to pass it off the House Floor AFTER the legislative crossover deadline of February 17th. A hearing has been scheduled in the Senate Ways & Means committee for Friday, February 27th.
House Bill 2521 removes the cap on how much Washington State Patrol can charge for firearm background checks and expanding the scope of what the collected fees can be used for. This effectively hands a blank check to government bureaucrats to charge whatever they deem necessary to conduct background checks, and opens the door for the government to make the process to legally obtain a firearm so expensive that no one will be able to afford the right to keep and bear arms.
It’s not like this was a matter of minutes, or even hours. We’re talking about suspending the rules and reviving a bill a full week after the crossover deadline. I’ve been covering statehouses for almost 30 years, and I can’t recall such a brazen disregard for a crossover deadline before; not just for gun control bills, but for any legislation on any issue.
Part of the reason for the unprecedented move is that Washington Democrats are dealing with a budget deficit of about $2 billion, and are also proposing a record high level of spending this session. In order to fill the deficit, Dems are looking at yoinking $880 million from the state’s “rainy day” fund, which would be almost 50% of what the state is keeping in reserve.
That money would still only account for less than half of the budget deficit, though, so Dems are also proposing to slash hundreds of millions of dollars of funding meant for a child care program for low-income families. Even then, Democrats want to carry about a $900 million deficit over to FY 2028, when they predict their budget will be in the black.
With Democrats looking for ways to fill in the gigantic gap in their budget hole, charging gun owners out the wazoo for background checks is a no-brainer. So what if they had to to suspend the rules to advance HB 2521? Rules were made to be broken, right?
Rep. Travis Couture was one of Republicans voting against HB 2521; not because of the parliamentary sleight of hand used to bring it to the House floor, but because he opposes charging citizens any money to exercise a constitutional right.
At the moment, gun owners in the state have to pay $18 for the state police to run a background check. That figure could easily double under HB 2521, and with no cap whatsoever the state police could decide it costs even far more to conduct a check.
Washington gun owners should be livid over the legislative games that are being played with their fundamental right to keep and bear arms. I hope they flood the inboxes and phone lines of every member of the Senate Ways & Means committee ahead of Friday’s hearing and let state senators know exactly what they think of this underhanded maneuver and the underlying issue with charging even a penny to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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