Adam Daniel Kline (born October 27, 1944) is an American politician who was the

State Senator A state senator is a member of a state's senate in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a member of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature. Description A state senator is a member of an upper house in the bicameral legislatures of 49 U ...

for

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

's 37th district, comprising part of South

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, six precincts in Renton and two in Tukwila. He served the 37th District for more than 17 years. He chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and was a member of the Government Operations and Elections Committee and the Rules Committee. Before entering law school, Kline worked as a merchant seaman and as a newspaper reporter. He is a veteran of the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

. He worked for

SNCC The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...

Greenwood, Mississippi Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the riverp ...

, during the 1964

Freedom Summer Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. ...

and, after law school, returned to Greenwood in 1972 to work for North Mississippi Rural Legal Services. In January 2010, Kline sponsored SB 6396 which attempted to ban assault rifles and pistols. In February 2013, Kline sponsored SB 5737 which would allow police to conduct warrantless searches in the homes of gun owners once per year, with a punishment of up to one year in jail for citizens who did not comply. Kline later stated he had not closely read the bill and had made a mistake. Media reports noted the inspection provision was present in Kline's bills SB 6396 (2010) and SB 5475 (2005) as written by the

Brady Campaign Brady: United Against Gun Violence (formerly “Handgun Control, Inc”., the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control and against ...

and the San Francisco-based

Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, previously known as the Legal Community Against Violence and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, is a national public interest law center and nonprofit organization that promotes gun safety legis ...

. Kline practiced law for 32 years before retiring in 2004 to work for the Laborers Union. He was a cooperating attorney with the

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

and is active with

NARAL Pro-Choice America NARAL Pro-Choice America, commonly known as simply NARAL ( ), is a non-profit 501(c)(4) organization in the United States that engages in lobbying, political action, and advocacy efforts to oppose restrictions on abortion, to expand access to ...

and Washington Conservation Voters. In 1972, Kline married Desire Plumb, with whom he had one child, Genevieve Amanda Kline. He and Desire parted in 1979, and, in 1989, he married Laura Gene Middaugh, who serves as a judge on the

King County Superior Court The Superior Court of Washington for King County (more commonly, the King County Superior Court) is the largest trial court in Washington state. It is based at the King County Courthouse, 516 Third Avenue, in downtown Seattle, Washington. It als ...

Notes

External links

State lawmakers to seek ban on sales of semi-automatic weapons37dems.org
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kline, Adam Democratic Party Washington (state) state senators Living people 1944 births People from Red Bank, New Jersey Activists from New Jersey 20th-century American politicians 21st-century American politicians