Bill to honor Billy Frank Jr. with statue in D.C. heads to Gov. Inslee's desk

The full Washington state Legislature has now approved a bill to honor the late Billy Frank Jr., a history-making treaty rights advocate and Nisqually tribal member, with a statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C.

The state Senate passed the bill on a broadly bipartisan, 44-5 vote Monday afternoon, nearly a month after the House of Representatives approved the bill in a similarly bipartisan fashion.

“This is really an emotional moment,” Sen. Sam Hunt of Olympia said in floor debate. “Billy Frank was a longtime friend of many of us, and a hero for many of us in the state of Washington and the country.”