Monthly Archives: November 2013

Posted inBreaking News, Economic Security, Policy Topics

Machinists reject Boeing’s unreasonable offer on 777X work by a two-to-one margin

by Andrew Villeneuve

The thir­ty thou­sand plus mem­bers of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Machin­ists and Aero­space Work­ers Dis­trict 751 have over­whelm­ing­ly vot­ed to reject an offer from the Boe­ing Com­pa­ny that would have replaced their exist­ing labor agree­ment with a new long-term con­tract, the union’s lead­er­ship announced ear­li­er tonight. At a press con­fer­ence in Seat­tle, IAMAW 751 President […]

Posted inBreaking News, World Commmunity

Terrible devastation in Philippines prompts renewed call for aid from the United Nations

by Andrew Villeneuve

As pic­tures and eye­wit­ness accounts con­tin­ue to come in from the Philip­pines, depict­ing the ter­ri­ble dev­as­ta­tion wrought by Typhoon Haiyan, the Unit­ed Nations is launch­ing a $300+ mil­lion appeal for aid from the world com­mu­ni­ty to help the more than eleven mil­lion peo­ple affect­ed by the storm. (Many of them are with­out shel­ter after the […]

Posted inUnscheduled Programming

Initiative 522 gets another boost as Snohomish and Clallam join the Yes column

by Andrew Villeneuve

If you’re a sup­port­er of Ini­tia­tive 522 like we are, you’ll be glad to know that Yes on I‑522’s share of the vote is still head­ed upwards on the eve of the fifth day of bal­lot count­ing, and now stands at 47.85%. That’s an improve­ment of more than two full per­cent­age points since Elec­tion Night, […]

Posted inUnscheduled Programming

Analysis: Sawant on the Verge, Bleeding Stops (or Pauses) for SeaTac Minimum Wage, and Outside Chance Remains for Seattle Public Financing

by Richard Champion

Social­ist Alter­na­tive par­ty can­di­date, Kshama Sawant, appears on the verge of tak­ing the lead and not look­ing back in her race vs. incum­bent Demo­c­ra­t­ic Seat­tle City Coun­cilper­son Richard Con­lin. Dur­ing the vote count of Fri­day evening, Sawant won 58.4% of the vote, accord­ing to The Stranger’s David “Goldy” Gold­stein, result­ing in her now sit­ting only […]

Posted inElections

Steve Kasner is closing in on Kevin Wallace in Bellevue: Is victory possible?

by Andrew Villeneuve

While there has been plen­ty of media cov­er­age sur­round­ing SeaT­ac Propo­si­tion #1 (the Good Jobs ini­tia­tive) and the con­test between Kshama Sawant and Richard Con­lin for Seat­tle City Coun­cil, there’s anoth­er very close race of sig­nif­i­cance that has­n’t received as much atten­tion: Belle­vue City Coun­cil Posi­tion 4. The con­test pits Demo­c­rat Steve Kas­ner, an activist, against […]

Posted inElections

It’s official: Percentage-wise, Initiative 517 is Tim Eyman’s biggest-ever defeat

by Andrew Villeneuve

While we won’t have final num­bers until the 2013 gen­er­al elec­tion is cer­ti­fied in a few weeks, we can say that as of today, Ini­tia­tive 517 ranks as Tim Eyman’s biggest-ever defeat, per­­cen­t­age-wise. The vote against 517 statewide con­tin­ues to climb, pro­pelled by an incred­i­bly strong no vote in King, Pierce, and Sno­homish coun­ties, which […]

Posted inElections

Nathan Schlicher concedes to Jan Angel in the 26th LD following latest ballot tally

by Andrew Villeneuve

After updat­ed returns from Pierce and Kit­sap coun­ties showed Repub­li­can Jan Angel con­tin­u­ing to gain ground for the sec­ond straight day in the fierce­­ly-con­test­ed con­test for State Sen­ate in the 26th LD, Nathan Schlicher’s cam­paign announced that Schlich­er had called Angel ear­li­er this evening to con­cede. “I’m proud of our team, but I think it’s […]

Posted inElections

Thurston County joins the Yes on I‑522 camp as margin of defeat narrows again

by Andrew Villeneuve

Those of us who enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly sup­port­ed Ini­tia­tive 522 (to label genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied foods) have some good news to cheer tonight: Thurston Coun­ty has switched sides and joined the Yes camp as of the lat­est tal­ly, bring­ing the total num­ber of coun­ties in favor of I‑522 to five. Mean­while, the Yes vote statewide climbed to 47.05%, pushing […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Economic Security, Policy Topics

U.S. Senate passes ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, in historic vote

by Andrew Villeneuve

It took longer than it should have, but today, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate made his­to­ry by pass­ing the Employ­ment Non-Dis­­crim­i­­na­­tion Act (ENDA) which out­laws dis­crim­i­na­tion in the work­place based on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. The vote was six­­ty-four to thir­­ty-two, with four sen­a­tors not vot­ing. As is increas­ing­ly the case, Repub­li­cans sup­plied every sin­gle one of the […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Legislative Advocacy

Ending the anti-tax mantra: Boeing and the Association of Washington Business support raising taxes to help themselves

by Patrick Stickney

As the Wash­ing­ton State leg­is­la­ture enters its sev­enth spe­cial ses­sion in three years, dis­rupt­ing fall plans, meet­ings, and speak­ing appear­ances for the mem­bers of both state hous­es, the ses­sion called by Gov­er­nor Inslee deserves notice for where key play­ers in statewide bud­get and rev­enue fights are lin­ing up–mainly that Boe­ing and the Asso­ci­a­tion of Wash­ing­ton Busi­ness have come out in support […]

Posted inElections

The failure of I‑517 could be Tim Eyman’s biggest electoral defeat, percentage-wise

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er today, I sug­gest­ed that King Coun­ty’s vote against Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 517 might soon cross the sev­en­ty per­cent thresh­old. And sure enough, this after­noon, it did… more quick­ly than I had expect­ed it to. The trend statewide is not much dif­fer­ent. As of late last night, I‑517 was being reject­ed, 60.03% to 39.97%. As of […]

Posted inElections

Initiative 522, McGinn vs. Murray, Conlin vs. Sawant: Are these too close to call? Hardly!

by Andrew Villeneuve

Any­one who has ever run for office and lost or spent a few sea­sons work­ing dai­ly on an unsuc­cess­ful cam­paign knows that con­ced­ing defeat is dif­fi­cult and unpleas­ant. It’s under­stand­ably hard to go from ener­get­i­cal­ly cam­paign­ing one hour to accept­ing an appar­ent defeat the next, par­tic­u­lar­ly when you’re at a par­ty. That’s why it has become […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections

King County’s record vote against Eyman’s I‑517 could climb above seventy percent

by Andrew Villeneuve

Though most of Wash­ing­ton’s thir­­ty-nine coun­ties are break­ing strong­ly against I‑517, nowhere is the out­come more lop­sided than in King Coun­ty, which has vot­ed down most of Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tives over the years. Vot­ers in King are defeat­ing I‑517 by an enor­mous mar­gin. In fact, the gap between the yes vote and the no vote is […]

Posted inElections

Seattle voters: No on public financing, yes on Districts Now charter amendment

by Gael Tarleton

Seat­tle pol­i­tics has some­times been char­ac­ter­ized as a divide between “Seat­tle nice” and “less­er ver­sus more Seat­tle.” It’s just not that sim­ple any­more. Seat­tle has 410,000+ reg­is­tered vot­ers, and we seem to have elect­ed a new may­or tonight with less than 33% vot­er turnout thus far. Maybe we’ll hit 40% by Thurs­day, but by any […]