Groups Helping People Clear Drug Convictions Lose Washington State Funding

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

Camerina Zorrozua, co-founder and legal director of The Way to Justice, a nonprofit legal aid organization led and created by women of color. (Photo by Erick Doxey/InvestigateWest)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 lega…

Groups Helping People Clear Drug Convictions Lose Washington State Funding

SPOKANE, WA – 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 p…