Advocates stunned as WA lawmaker helps slash funds for groups clearing old drug convictions

Advocates stunned as WA lawmaker helps slash funds for groups clearing old drug convictions

Moe Clark / Investigate West

November 12, 2025 / 1:52 pm

When Camerina Zorrozua learned in April that Washington had slashed its state funding of her Spokane-based legal aid organization, she frantically called state Rep. Tarra Simmons.

“I was so alarmed, and I asked her straight up, ‘What happened?’” said Zorrozua, the legal director and co-founder of The Way to Justice.

Simmons, the first formerly incarcerated lawmaker in Washington, has vowed to fight for other formerly incarcerated people and was the state representative who Zorrozua thought would have fought hardest against the cuts.

In 2021, Simmons, D-Bremerton, helped secure state funding to help hundreds of thousands of people vacat