AP Wire of Law Fixes
The Seattle P-I picked up the AP wire story listing the small, but interesting, law changes that came into effect this past weekend:
- Pregnancy no longer grounds for denial of divorce Last year, The Stranger made local and regional news by reporting on the reinstatement of a Spokane woman’s marriage. (Also worth a read is the follow-up story.) She had divorced her husband on what sounded like good cause and was carrying a child conceived with another man, but the judge revoked an earlier granted divorce on the basis of the pregnancy. The judge based his decision on rules governing parentage, namely the ease of assigning parentage to children born in wedlock. This law marks another in the proud history of laws passed to overturn judicial decisions.
- Vancouver to try “Instant Runoff” As part of the electoral reform that looks like it will take another several years to sort our, Vancouver will be allowed to try instant runoff elections for non-partisan offices. The instant runoff system, also called ranked choice, allows voters to rank the candidates in order of preference and therefore ends talk of “spoiler” candidates. I look forward to reading about the results of the experiment.
- A Strengthening of Public Disclosure More on this later.
- Liquor Now Available On Sunday Liquor stores are no longer closed by law on Sundays. Before you start planning your drinking around 7 day sales, though, please check with your local store. Very few of the state stores are planning on adding hours and the number of licensed stores doing so is unknown.
- Slander of a Woman Succintly, the AP reports, “The Legislature has removed a provision from law that makes it a crime to slander a woman.”
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