Monthly Archives: February 2013

Posted inEconomic Security, Litigation, Policy Topics, Public Planning

It’s time to update Tim Eyman’s Failure Chart

by Andrew Villeneuve

Now that the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court has ruled, at long last, that the main pro­vi­sion of Tim Eyman’s I‑601 clones is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and void, it’s time for us to update Tim Eyman’s Fail­ure Chart. The Fail­ure Chart is a handy resource that we main­tain over at Per­ma­nent Defense which shows that most of the […]

Posted inBreaking News, Litigation

Governor Jay Inslee, advocates thrilled with today’s landmark Supreme Court decision

by Andrew Villeneuve

The Supreme Court’s land­mark rul­ing in LEV v. State has now been up on the World Wide Web for a cou­ple of hours, and we’ve been on the receiv­ing end of a num­ber of state­ments and press releas­es com­ment­ing on the deci­sion. We’d like to share some of what we’re hear­ing with you. First, Gov­er­nor Jay […]

Posted inBreaking News, Economic Security, Open Government, Policy Topics

UNCONSTITUTIONAL! State Supreme Court strikes down Tim Eyman’s two-thirds scheme!

by Andrew Villeneuve

OH, HAPPY DAY! In a 6–3 deci­sion released only min­utes ago, the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court final­ly ren­dered a momen­tous ver­dict in League of Edu­ca­tion Vot­ers et al. v. State of Wash­ing­ton, et. al, find­ing the two-thirds require­ment at the heart of Tim Eyman’s I‑601 clones — also present in I‑601 itself — to be unconstitutional. […]

Posted inBreaking News, Litigation

Ruling coming tomorrow on constitutionality of Tim Eyman’s I‑960/I‑1053/I‑1185

by Andrew Villeneuve

The Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court sig­naled today that it plans to issue a rul­ing tomor­row morn­ing in League of Edu­ca­tion Vot­ers, et al. v. State of Wash­ing­ton, et al, the all-impor­­tant legal chal­lenge to Tim Eyman’s I‑1053 filed in June 2011 by a group of Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers, par­ents, and teach­ers. In a notice on its […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Don’t feed the trolls: Why we asked Andrew Garber and his colleagues to ignore Tim Eyman’s repugnant attack on Jay Inslee

by Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, at a press con­fer­ence on the Capi­tol Cam­pus in Olympia,  State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Judy Clib­born (D‑41st Dis­trict) and House Democ­rats unveiled a “Con­nect­ing Wash­ing­ton” trans­porta­tion pack­age that pro­pos­es to invest $10 bil­lion in Wash­ing­ton’s high­ways, streets, fer­ries, and local tran­sit agen­cies. Some of the mon­ey would go to road main­te­nance, some would be ded­i­cat­ed to […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology, World Commmunity

Elite American security firm: Chinese military is behind attacks on U.S. corporate networks

by Andrew Villeneuve

For many months now, inde­pen­dent secu­ri­ty researchers and jour­nal­ists have been open­ly spec­u­lat­ing that the Chi­nese mil­i­tary is behind a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of the increas­ing num­ber of cyber­at­tacks on U.S. cor­po­rate and gov­ern­ment net­works. Now, elite Amer­i­can secu­ri­ty firm Man­di­ant — which Bloomberg Busi­ness­week pro­filed in one of its recent issues — has pub­licly released […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl to speak at NPI’s 2013 Spring Fundraising Gala on April 5th

by Andrew Villeneuve

Today is Per­ma­nent Defense’s eleventh anniver­sary, and giv­en that Per­ma­nent Defense was ini­tial­ly cre­at­ed to oppose I‑776 (Tim Eyman’s scheme to block Cen­tral Link light rail from being built), it seems like the per­fect time for us to announce that Joni Earl, the CEO of Sound Tran­sit, will be one of the speak­ers at NPI’s […]

Posted inEvents, Humor & Satire

Marco Rubio’s water grab becomes the talk of Twitter and social media

by Andrew Villeneuve

Since the mid-1960s, when Lyn­don John­son was pres­i­dent, the par­ty not in con­trol of the White House has pro­vid­ed a for­mal response to the State of the Union Address for tele­vi­sion and radio net­works to air a few min­utes fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of the main event. Repub­li­cans car­ried on that tra­di­tion tonight, tap­ping Sen­a­tor Marco […]

Posted inBreaking News, Public Service

King County Council appoints Rod Dembowski to succeed Bob Ferguson in 1st District

by Andrew Villeneuve

This just in from the King Coun­ty Cour­t­house: Min­utes ago, in a unan­i­mous 8–0 vote, the King Coun­ty Coun­cil chose attor­ney Rod Dem­bows­ki to suc­ceed Bob Fer­gu­son as the next Coun­cilmem­ber from the 1st Dis­trict (North Seat­tle, Shore­line, Lake For­est Park, Wood­inville, Both­ell, Ken­more, Kirk­land). Dem­bows­ki was one of three indi­vid­u­als named by King County […]

Posted inBreaking News

Pope Benedict XVI surprises Catholics everywhere by announcing his retirement

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er today, at the Con­cis­to­ry Hall in Vat­i­can City, Pope Bene­dict XVI shocked the world com­mu­ni­ty by announc­ing that he has decid­ed to step down as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church at the end of this month and allow the Col­lege of Car­di­nals to choose his suc­ces­sor while he is still alive. In resigning, […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Postal workers denounce Patrick Donahoe’s scheme to end Saturday mail delivery

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er today, Post­mas­ter Gen­er­al Patrick Don­a­hoe (who seems to thinks his job at the Unit­ed States Postal Ser­vice is Dis­­­man­tler-in-Chief, as opposed to chief exec­u­tive) announced that he and his sub­or­di­nates have uni­lat­er­al­ly decid­ed to end Sat­ur­day mail deliv­ery to U.S. homes and busi­ness­es as of August 5th, 2013… with­out con­gres­sion­al approval. Fed­er­al law has […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics, Public Service

President Obama picks REI CEO Sally Jewell to serve as the next Secretary of the Interior

by Andrew Villeneuve

Great news from our nation’s cap­i­tal this morn­ing: At an event in the White House­’s State Din­ing Room, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma announced that he has cho­sen Wash­ing­ton’s Sal­ly Jew­ell to serve as the Sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or. Jew­ell, fifty-sev­en, is cur­rent­ly the chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of Recre­ation­al Equip­ment Incor­po­rat­ed, bet­ter known as […]