This bill amends multiple Washington statutes and adds new sections to set employment and certification rules for law enforcement, corrections, and prosecuting office personnel. It changes hiring references from "lawful permanent resident" in some places to "person legally authorized to work in the United States under federal law" and explicitly allows agencies to consider only U.S. citizens or persons authorized to work for certain positions, including employees whose primary duties are custody, safety, and security in state correctional facilities or local jails, and deputies and employees in prosecuting attorneys' offices. The bill references and requires interpretation consistent with federal work-authorization rules in 8 C.F.R. § 274a.2 and states agencies are not liable under RCW 49.60.030 for rejecting applicants based on limited work authorization. The bill expands preemployment background investigation and certification procedures (amending RCW 43.101.095) for peace officers, corrections officers, reserve officers, and certain limited authority officers. Conditional-offer applicants must undergo criminal history and national decertification checks, disclosure of prior employer disciplinary records (with a 30-day response requirement), inquiry to local prosecuting authorities about impeachment disclosure lists, review of social media, inquiry into affiliations with extremist organizations, verification of immigration or citizenship status (with different verification categories for peace officers versus corrections officers), psychological evaluation, and polygraph or similar assessment. Employers must certify in writing to the commission that background checks were completed and no disqualifying information was found before making a nonconditional offer. The bill requires officers to authorize release of personnel files and facilitate social media review (without providing login credentials), allows employers and the commission to receive nonconviction criminal-history data solely for employment or certification purposes, and requires fingerprint submission through the Washington State Patrol to the FBI. The bill modifies certification enforcement and disciplinary procedures (amending RCW 43.101.105) by authorizing the commission to deny, suspend, or revoke certification or require remedial training or probation for specified disqualifying convictions and forms of misconduct, including certain criminal convictions, serious use-of-force violations, failures to intervene or report excessive force, knowingly false statements in performance of duties, legal prohibitions on firearm possession, falsifying applications, interfering with investigations, unlawful uses of force, sexual harassment, using position for personal gain, discriminatory conduct, affiliation with extremist organizations, and patterns of misconduct or unsafe practices. The commission must consider prior employer actions when determining penalties. Sections 2, 4, and 6 are applied retroactively to individuals employed on or after the effective date, and the act takes effect immediately. The provided text is incomplete in places: portions of RCW 43.101.095(4) and the full text of the amendment to RCW 43.101.105 and any new section in chapter 43.101 referenced in the bill title are not included here, and formal statutory definitions (for example of "person legally authorized to work in the United States under federal law," "peace officer," "corrections officer," "limited authority Washington peace officer," and "extremist organizations") are not provided in the extracted facts.

If enacted, the law will sharply increase the paperwork, screening, and eligibility checks for hiring and keeping prosecutors’ deputies, corrections officers, and peace officers: agencies must run expanded background checks (criminal history, decertification records, prosecutor inquiries, extremist-affiliation checks, social media review, psychological and polygraph exams), collect fingerprints for FBI checks, obtain written verification of immigration or work-authorization status, and certify to the state commission that checks were completed before making final offers. Applicants may be charged up to $400 for some tests, prior employers must respond to information requests within 30 days, and personnel and social media records must be released to agencies and the commission even if a union contract says otherwise; the commission also has broader power to deny, suspend, or revoke certifications for a wide range of misconduct. Several provisions apply immediately and some retroactively, so current employees could be affected. The groups most affected are county and local law enforcement and corrections agencies, prosecuting attorneys’ offices, and job candidates: agencies will face higher administrative workload, possible new costs (testing, processing, and managing payment plans), and tighter limits on who can be hired; prosecuting offices will no longer be able to appoint certain noncitizen lawful permanent residents in deputy roles and must limit hires to U.S. citizens or people legally authorized to work, which narrows the candidate pool. Officers face greater risk of decertification and reduced ability to block records release. Important implementation details are missing in the text provided — notably exact definitions of “person legally authorized to work” and other key terms — so how narrowly these rules will be applied in practice is unclear.