What’s this? The eighth Caption Action 3 update of 2025! In this update, we share the latest good news about the Washington State and West Virginia bills. 

First, Washington state.

Washington state’s substitute bill SB 5486 got engrossed in the Senate, meaning that it passed the Senate with a vote. On March 11, there was a third reading of the bill. It passed with 45 yes votes and only 3 no votes.

Changes were made to the Washington state bill that made it easier for the Senators to pass the bill. 

• Before: Civil fines and notices of violation
• Now: Any violations will just be reported to the Human Rights Commission
• Before: A pamphlet would have to be developed and published
• Now: Instead of a pamphlet, information explaining the requirements will be posted on a website
  
  
• Before: The bill applied to theaters based on the number of screens
• Now: Theater chains with five or more locations in the state will have to offer regular open caption screenings weekly. Theater chains with less than five locations in the state will have to offer open captions on request. 
  
  
• Before: If someone makes a request for open captions, theaters would have to respond within five days
• Now: If someone makes a request for open captions, theaters have up to eight days to respond

Next step?

Now the Washington state bill has moved to the House. As we write this, the bill has had a first reading, and got referred to the Civil Rights and Judiciary committee. This is a Standing committee of 13 members. 

Who are these 13 people? If you live in Washington state or know someone in Washington state, these are the people whose offices to contact to ask them to support the bill:

1. Chair, Jamila Taylor, (360) 786-7898, Jamila.Taylor@leg.wa.gov
2. Vice chair, Darya Farivar, (360) 786-7818, Darya.Farivar@leg.wa.gov
3. Ranking Minority Member, Jim Walsh, (360) 786-7806, jim.walsh@leg.wa.gov
4. Assistant Ranking Minority Member, Hunter Abell, (360) 786-7988, Hunter.Abell@leg.wa.gov
5. Brian Burnett, (360) 786-7954, Brian.Burnett@leg.wa.gov
6. Debra Entenman, (360) 786-7918, Debra.Entenman@leg.wa.gov
7. Roger Goodman, (360) 786-7878, roger.goodman@leg.wa.gov
8. Jenny Graham, (360) 786-7962, jenny.graham@leg.wa.gov
9. Cyndy Jacobsen, (360) 786-7968, Cyndy.Jacobsen@leg.wa.gov
10. Strom Peterson, (360) 786-7950, strom.peterson@leg.wa.gov
11. Osman Salahuddin, (360) 786-7936, Osman.Salahuddin@leg.wa.gov
12. My-Linh Thai, (360) 786-7926, my-linh.thai@leg.wa.gov
13. Amy Walen, (360) 786-7848, amy.walen@leg.wa.gov

What About West Virginia?

There is some confusion over what is happening with West Virginia’s bill HB 3013. It is apparently still in the House Government Organization subcommittee on Government Administration. It has to pass out of that subcommittee to go to the full Government Organization Commitee. Then the full Government Organization Committee has to vote to “report it out” to the full House for a vote.

On March 12, there was a substitute bill “reported out” of the subcommittee. Since it was a substitute, that means changes were made. What changes were made?

Not changed: the bill still applies only to chains with more than one location in the state, and theaters with at least six screens. It retains the audio description requirement for blind and visually impaired. It actually expands the audio description requirement to add a requirement for theaters to have at least two audio description devices. 

It adds exemptions for theaters that lack digital projection systems capable of exhibiting open captions. Drive-in theaters continue to be exempt. However, it adds two new important exemptions, both of which would apply late in a movie’s run:

• Movies shown less than 8 times in a week.
• After 20 days since opening, movies do not have to have open caption screenings.

As always – the URL for sharing this petition – https://change.org/ocmoviesnow