Mike Padden

During this year’s legislative session we pushed repeatedly for a measure to make a fourth DUI a felony under Washington law and also introduced bills aimed at improving drug and alcohol monitoring. Last week elected officials and members of law enforcement from across the country attended the National 24/7 Summit...

Sen. Padden is awarded the Cultural Hero Award by (from left to right) Father Robert Spitzer, Camille Pauley, and Steve Lovejoy. Father Spitzer is the former president of Gonzaga University and co-founder of Healing the Culture with Camille Pauley. Steve Lovejoy is a board member of Healing the Culture. Washington...

The only debate between then-challenger Ronald Reagan and incumbent President Jimmy Carter prior to the 1980 presidential election produced one of the lines for which President Reagan is still remembered. “There you go again,” he said to Carter (before explaining that Carter’s promotion of national health insurance misrepresented Reagan’s position...

The word “showdown” conjures up images of the Old West, when one person would challenge another person to step out into the street to settle a disagreement. Recently the state Supreme Court set the stage for a constitutional showdown by doing something we’ve never seen: imposing a $100,000-per-day fine on...

As the scandal involving sales of fetal body parts continues to make headlines across the nation, Sen. Mike Padden is reminding Washington’s abortion providers that state law protects fetuses that have a heartbeat, are moving, or otherwise are showing signs of life outside the womb. Since 1981 the section of...

Late last week I received the sad news that a longtime friend and colleague, former Senator Bob Morton (pictured above, in the Senate chamber), had passed away at age 81.  Bob served the people of the 7th Legislative District from 1990 to 2012, first in the House of Representatives and then...

Thanks to the efforts of Senate Republicans, college students and their families will see tuition reduced by 5 percent across the board this fall, and by even more in 2016, for a total 15 percent reduction at UW and WSU and a total 20 percent at Eastern, Western, Central and...

On Friday, after a regular session and three special sessions that spanned six months, the Legislature finally adjourned for the year. It was frustrating that it took so long to reach a final agreement on a new state budget. In the end, the Legislature passed the 2015-17 operating budget by...

Bill restores pretrial-monitoring tool for protecting the public On June 11 the state Supreme Court ruled that the costs for pre-trial drug and alcohol monitoring fit under the statutory meaning of “pretrial supervision,” limiting the ability of courts to order these protective measures in cash-strapped counties. By July 6 –...