Update: House nixes Bad Washington Privacy Act (SB 5062)! Thanks everybody who got involved!

Today was the deadline for the House to pass the Bad Washington Privacy Act (SB 5062) … and they didn’t!

The House adjourned at 6:45 p.m after passing SB 5044, on equity training for educators. It was a great way to wrap up the session, with House Democrats passionately opposing a racist Republican amendment and then emphatically passing the bill.

But SB 5062 never came to the floor! So it looks like it’s probably dead for this session. There are still ways it could come back to life, for example classifying it as “necessary to implement budget” extends the deadline. So we’ll keep our eyes open. But at this point, it looks like it’s dead.

This is a great outcome!

Killing a bad bill that had passed the Senate 48–1 and had the tech and advertising industries’ lobbying clout behind it is still a big big victory — the third year in a row Tech Equity Coalition and allies have stopped a bad bill.

We asked the House to fix to nix it. They gave a good try at fixing it — Rep. Kloba’s amendment had support from civil rights, immigrant rights, and civil liberties groups. Instead, they wound up listening to us nixing it. Good for them — and yay us!

As a result, we’re in much better shape to take another run at passing an improved version of the People’s Privacy Act next session.

And keeping the tech industry from getting a bad bill through in Washington can also dent their momentum in other states and nationally. With federal privacy bill from Representative Suzan DelBene and Senator Maria Cantwell, activism in Washington state can have a real influence on what happens.

So thanks to everybody who helped make this happen! Meetings with legislators, testimony at hearings, official comments, calls and emails and to legislators … it all made a difference!