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With little money or prosecutorial teeth, the bill was left substantially weakened from the original version proposed by Rep. Christopher Hurst, D-Enumclaw. Supporters, nonetheless, claimed victory and vowed to push ahead so the amended version gets signed into law.

"I thought it was this close to death," said Rep. Charles Ross, R-Naches and co-sponsor of the bill. "Talk about an emotional roller coaster."

House Bill 2712 would still provide a statewide definition of a gang, a gang member and gang crime, as well as create a statewide gang database. Gang members who recruit juveniles would receive increased sentencing. The bill would also aid local jurisdictions with graffiti removal and seeks funding to help law enforcement fight criminal gang activity. The Senate stripped the section that would give authorities the power to question young people based on clothing or body language.

The Senate approved the bill on a 46-3 vote, just minutes before a 5 p.m. deadline for bills. For sup-porters, more than a year's work on gang legislation was on the brink of what looked like a painful death.

Lobbyists paced nervously outside the Senate chambers all
day, passing notes and watching the television screen to see wheth-er the gang bill was moving. House Minority Leader Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis, made a personal appeal to Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane.

Brown's Olympia office, meanwhile, was flooded with nearly three dozen phone calls from residents in Yakima -- responding to an on-air appeal by KIT radio hosts -- asking her to sup-port the bill.

With law enforcement lobbyists tenaciously working the issue, supporters were certain the legislation was greenlighted for passage. Sen. Adam Kline, a key Democratic lawmaker from Seattle who effectively blocked last year's gang bill, had given his blessing this year and even paved the way for the House version to move through the Legislature rather than his own Senate version.

But earlier this week, Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, indicated she had a problem with a section of the bill that would have allowed local jurisdictions to go to court to seek civil injunctions against suspected gang members.

Prentice said it wasn't until prosecutors began pressing aggressively and more clearly explained what the bill would do that she pushed back. She added a last-minute amendment that stripped the bill of the civil injunction provision .

Prentice told floor members that civil injunction laws in California have led to racial and ethnic harassment rather than decreased gang activity.

This "gave the opportunity for rounding up of people with brown skin like mine," Prentice, who is Hispanic, said after the vote. "This is just a reaction to our own failure (as a society). I'm not soft on crime. I think civil injunction opens the worst elements in our society."

But Kline, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he had spoken with a California city attorney last year who told him the civil injunctions were effective and didn't lead to racial profiling.

Ross agreed.

"Civil injunctions are scary on the surface, but if you look beneath that you'll see that they have a very rational basis. We are trying to give communities hope to combat fear," he said.

Sens. Rosa Franklin, D-Taco-ma, and Claudia Kauffman, D-Kent, joined Prentice in voting against the bill. The amended bill will go back to the House next week for concurrence. If approved, the governor will have five days to sign it into law.

The proposal, placed at the
top of Yakima's "wish list" in
Olympia, stems from recom-mendations from a bipartisan task force put together after the Legislature failed to pass an anti-gang measure last year.

Several Yakima Valley cities, including Sunnyside, Yakima, Union Gap and Grandview, passed anti-gang ordinances but held off on enforcing them because of concerns over potential legal challenges.

This year's House bill, which supporters had hoped would resolve any legal uncertainty, had been endorsed by the Attorney General's Office. Also, the ACLU of Washington said its concerns had been addressed.

Throughout the 2008 session, the bill was promoted as a combination of punishment and prevention, but whether it would receive any money became an early concern and even now, with passage within reach, the fate of community pilot programs remains uncertain.

The Senate Ways and Means Commitee cut language calling for creation of pilot programs, and Prentice, who chairs the committee, said Friday the Sen-ate has not decided how much, if any, money will be allotted for the anti-gang bill. The House has earmarked $2.4 million.

"We're concerned about it," Ross said, but he said he hoped the bill could still have a three-pronged approach with "local jurisdictions helping with deterrence."

He and Hurst originally requested $13 million for the proposal, but by the time the bill reached the House floor -- where it received overwhelming approval -- it had been stripped of money language and stamped with a "null and void" clause, meaning if the House and Senate don't agree next week on funding, the legislation will die.