The initiative seeks to roll back restrictions imposed on law enforcement officers’ ability to vehicularly pursue suspects since 2021

TJ Martinell
The Center Square Washington

The Washington Secretary of State’s Office has formally certified Initiative 2113 regarding police vehicular pursuits to be placed on the November ballot in the event that the Legislature doesn’t enact it.

The initiative seeks to roll back restrictions imposed on law enforcement officers’ ability to vehicularly pursue suspects since 2021. The Legislature has since made some modifications to state law, but initiative supporters are seeking to restore pre-2021 state law in which officers can pursue if there is reasonable suspicion a suspect has violated the law and poses a threat to the safety of others.

The certification was based on a random sampling of 13,038 signatures, which found 10,579 to be valid and 2,447 to be invalid. The SOS calculated that the maximum number of possible invalid signatures was 84,039, which would still leave enough valid signatures for the initiative to qualify for the ballot.

Let’s Go Washington submitted 434,594 signatures for the initiative last month.

The voter advocacy group has turned in signatures for five other initiatives as well to 1) repeal Washington’s cap-and-trade program; 2) provide parents and guardians with a right to review educational materials, receive certain notifications, and withdraw from certain sexual health education programs; 3) allow certain people to opt out of the state’s mandatory long-term care tax; 4) repeal the capital gains tax; and 5) prohibit income taxes at the city and county level.

This report was first published by The Center Square Washington.