The cause of felon voting rights has suffered an unexpected setback in one of the nation's more progressive states.
Legislation that would allow convicted criminals in Washington to register and vote as soon as they get out of prison was killed Wednesday night in the solidly Democratic state Senate — the victim of a lack of compromise.
The measure, which was spiked on the last day it could advance under the Legislature's rules, had been perhaps the most prominent state legislative effort this year to expand the franchise for freed felons in time for the presidential election.
Doing so is a top cause of civil rights groups, who say getting back the vote amounts to a stamp of readmission into society for a group already marginalized because it's disproportionately poor and non-white. On the other side are those who argue that felons' debt to society must not be made so easy to repay. And on top of that debate is partisan politics, because those who have been incarcerated lean decidedly Democratic.
At issue in Olympia was just how speedily voting rights should be restored, and for which felons. Washington is already among the 21 states that do so for all felons after they complete their parole or probation. The legislation would have made Washington the 17th state to make the restoration automatic upon release from prison. About 10,000 people would have benefited.
Democrats abruptly halted debate, however, when it became clear the bill lacked the 25 votes necessary for passage.
That happened soon after minority Republicans succeeded, with some cross-aisle votes, in amending the bill to deny the new benefit to sex offenders on probation. After senators narrowly rejected a subsequent GOP proposal to also exempt murderers and others convicted of violent crimes, Democrats concluded the bill's passage would pose campaign season trouble.
"If you're going to go home and say 'rape a child, you can't vote, shoot a child, you get to vote,' how do you explain that to your constituents, how do you explain that to the people?" Republican Doug Ericksen had warned his colleagues.
Several states have different timetables for giving the vote back to the most serious offenders, or deny them the vote altogether. The most famous recent expansion of felon voting rights, the referendum approved by Florida voters in 2018, does not cover murderess or sex offenders, for example.
"We are extremely disappointed that the voting rights restoration bill did not pass," the ACLU of Washington said in a statement. "The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy and the time to tear down these barriers is long past due."
The prime sponsor, Democrat Patty Kuderer, who has been working to win Senate passage for three years, vowed to try again in 2021. She noted her bill was pushed by a broad coalition of 50 organizations including the association of local prosecutors, the Department of Corrections, and Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.