John Braun: A big step toward restoring public safety: Auto thefts fall to historic low
Friday, July 18, 2025
The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs has kept a record of the auto thefts reported across our state for each month since 2002. In those 23-plus years, the statewide number never fell below 1,500 in a month — until this April.
It was no fluke. May and June also came in under the 1,500-theft mark, and the first quarter of 2025 had already brought monthly counts lower than any time since spring 2019.
This is big news for anyone who cares about restoring public safety in Washington. It’s even more remarkable considering the epidemic of auto thefts our state suffered through for most of the past 48 months.
Credit for the turnaround belongs to those who overturned a weak, misguided law by exercising their right under Washington’s constitution to propose legislation through the initiative process.
It also goes to the officers who are once again able to use their judgment and training to decide when to pursue a suspected car thief, instead of being forced to stand by while someone loses what may have been their only means of transportation.
Keeping in mind how those who can’t remember the past are bound to repeat it, let’s take a moment to recall who and what created this situation.
During our 2021 session, the first since the nationwide civil unrest of the previous year, several changes were made to state law that put anti-police ideology ahead of common sense. One piece of legislation passed by majority Democrats essentially banned officers statewide from giving chase to car thieves unless they had literally witnessed the theft.
Criminals, being criminals, made the most of the Democrats’ policy gift. Nearly 1,700 auto thefts were reported in June 2021, before the new restrictions on pursuits kicked in; in October of that year, the number of thefts exceeded 3,400.
It got worse over the next 24 months, with more than 3,600 cars stolen per month on average. In four of those months, the count soared to over 4,000.
King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, which are represented in Olympia almost exclusively by Democrats, were among the five worst counties for car thefts — yet during those two years, the majority rejected repeated Republican efforts to restore sanity to the pursuit law.
We convinced Democrats in 2023 to provide a stable source of funding for the state’s auto theft prevention authority but couldn’t get more from them. Later that year, Initiative 2113 was filed to end the statewide mandate on pursuits and go back to allowing local control.
The Let’s Go Washington organization gathered more than 434,000 signatures from voters on petitions supporting I-2113. That was more than enough to get the measure introduced as legislation in our 2024 session, with the sponsor listed as the “people of the state of Washington.”
This put Democrats in a bind, because our state constitution requires legislators to either pass such measures while we’re in session or allow them to go on the upcoming ballot. The majority couldn’t reject I-2113 as it had our bills.
Republicans created opportunities to add to the pressure on Democrats, and eventually their resistance was broken. I-2113 was passed with strong bipartisan votes a few days before our 2024 session ended.
The statewide pursuit restrictions were lifted when the law took effect in early June 2024, and by October the downward trend in auto thefts had begun.
There are those in our state who don’t consider auto thefts and other property crimes, like looting and shoplifting, to be especially significant.
Republicans see it differently. When fewer vehicles are being stolen, fewer people are losing what might be their only way to get to work or care for their kids — and being forced to deal with the hassle of replacing a vehicle.
The value of the sharp drop in auto thefts goes beyond a reduction in the number of victims. To understand why, just look what happened to Initiative 2081, the parental-rights initiative.
Let’s Go Washington had collected over 454,000 voter signatures for I-2081, which was more support than the police-pursuit initiative attracted. Also, the parental-rights measure received more votes from Democrats than I-2113 — five more in the House and 13 more in the Senate.
None of that mattered in April of this year, when every Democrat in each chamber voted to gut the parental-rights law.
Anyone who follows the news knows how the anti-law enforcement voices are probably louder now than they’ve been since the summer of 2020. Even so, the police-pursuit law is likely safe from being trampled by the majority in a way that the parental-rights law was not.
The steep decline in stolen-car reports would make it much more difficult for Democrats to take another run at hindering the work of law-enforcement officers. The thing to watch for instead is whether the majority tries to hinder Washingtonians from exercising their constitutional rights.
It costs money to hire people to gather signatures on initiative petitions, but opposing ballot measures can be costly too. Reportedly, special-interest groups may have pumped as much as $40 million into opposing the Let’s Go Washington initiatives that went to the November 2024 ballot. A media blitz like that is hard to overcome, which explains why three of the money-saving measures didn’t pass.
This year Democrats tried to tighten signature-gathering restrictions in a way that seems clearly designed to dry up the supply of people who now do that work. Their Senate Bill 5832, appropriately nicknamed the “initiative killer,” seems like a desperate way to keep initiatives from qualifying. Conveniently, it also would be a money-saver for the opponents of tax-relief ballot measures that reach the ballot, while also getting in the way of citizens’ efforts to address bad policy, like I-2113.
If the majority is desperate enough to push its initiative-killer legislation again, Republicans will be ready. In the meantime, we are grateful to the people who made it possible for us to correct the majority’s mistakes and put a commonsense public-safety law back in place, and to the dedicated men and women who swear an oath to protect and serve. Together they have made our state better.
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Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.