Monthly Archives: August 2014

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Policy Topics

Tim Eyman wants $2.2 million for statewide initiative to repeal $15/hour minimum wage

by Andrew Villeneuve

Remem­ber back in June when Tim Eyman filed a statewide ini­tia­tive to pre­vent cities like Seat­tle from rais­ing the min­i­mum wage above the lev­el set by state law? Sev­er­al media out­lets, includ­ing the Puget Sound Busi­ness Jour­nal, erro­neous­ly assumed — and then wrong­ful­ly report­ed — that Eyman was already col­lect­ing sig­na­tures for the mea­sure, when in […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

State’s editorial boards continue to call on lawmakers to make “difficult choices” — without saying what those choices should be

by Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, while doing some week­end read­ing with the help of Pacif­ic NW Por­tal, I came across an edi­to­r­i­al by the Spokesman-Review which remind­ed me of at least a dozen dif­fer­ent plat­i­­tude-laden Seat­tle Times edi­to­ri­als I’ve read over the years that attempt­ed to pass for insight­ful com­men­tary on the state’s fis­cal sit­u­a­tion. This edi­to­r­i­al, “State’s fiscal […]

Posted inUnscheduled Programming

School districts across Washington State lead a revolt against failed federal policies

by Robert Cruickshank

At least 28 school dis­tricts in Wash­ing­ton State have cho­sen to fight back against U.S. Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Arne Dun­can’s demand that they label suc­cess­ful schools as “fail­ures” due to a law backed by George W. Bush. When the state leg­is­la­ture refused to tie teacher eval­u­a­tions to test scores, Dun­can revoked the state’s waiv­er from Bush’s […]

Posted inBreaking News, Education, Policy Topics

Washington State Supreme Court agrees to hear constitutional challenge to I‑1240

by Andrew Villeneuve

It looks like with­in a year or two, we should final­ly have an answer to the ques­tion, Does the Con­sti­tu­tion of Wash­ing­ton State allow for char­ter schools? That’s because the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court says it has agreed to take up a legal chal­lenge to Ini­tia­tive 1240, the char­ter schools mea­sure nar­row­ly approved by Washington […]

Posted inMedia & Culture

Lauren Bacall: 1924–2014

by Andrew Villeneuve

This week cer­tain­ly is off to a pret­ty bad start. First, we lost the great Robin Williams, who trag­i­cal­ly took his own life after suc­cumb­ing to depres­sion. Now we’ve lost Lau­ren Bacall, one of the finest tal­ents of the last cen­tu­ry and a stal­wart pro­gres­sive. “With deep sor­row for the mag­ni­tude of our loss, yet […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections

Matt Isenhower, other Senate Democratic candidates enjoy boost in Thursday count

by Andrew Villeneuve

Fresh­ly tab­u­lat­ed bal­lots in Wash­ing­ton’s most pop­u­lous coun­ties have put Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lengers with­in slight­ly clos­er strik­ing dis­tance of their Repub­li­can oppo­nents, new num­bers pro­vid­ed by elec­tions offi­cials show. In the 45th Dis­trict, Demo­c­rat Matt Isen­how­er improved to 46.27%, rebound­ing after los­ing a lit­tle ground to Andy Hill yes­ter­day. On Elec­tion Night he had 46.07% of the […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections

Pedro Celis overtakes Robert Sutherland for second place in 1st Congressional District

by Andrew Villeneuve

Most of Wash­ing­ton’s thir­­ty-nine coun­ties have just fin­ished tab­u­lat­ing a fresh batch of bal­lots, and there is sig­nif­i­cant news to report in the 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict: Repub­li­can Pedro Celis, who nation­al and state Repub­li­can offi­cials recruit­ed to chal­lenge incum­bent Suzan Del­Bene, has now moved into sec­ond place after hav­ing trailed anoth­er Repub­li­can, Robert Suther­land, for […]

Posted inEducation

Vermont’s heroic response shows the way on No Child Left Behind letters

by Robert Cruickshank

Ear­li­er this year, Wash­ing­ton leg­is­la­tors reject­ed a demand from U.S. Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Arne Dun­can to require teacher eval­u­a­tions to be based, in part, on stu­dent test scores.  One of the pri­ma­ry threats Dun­can used in demand­ing Wash­ing­ton State force schools to teach to the test was that if this change was not made, the state […]

Posted inElections

Democrats appear well-poised to once again win a majority in Washington’s state Senate

by Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, when I clicked over to Cross­cut from NPI’s Pacif­ic NW Por­tal (where I usu­al­ly begin my dai­ly rounds), I noticed, with some amuse­ment, that for­mer Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty chair­man Chris Vance had post­ed yet anoth­er one of his Repub­li­cans are doing great and well-posi­­tioned for the next elec­tion columns, which he has […]

Posted inElections

Ready, set, match! Fall congressional contests taking shape thanks to today’s election

by Andrew Villeneuve

Back in May, more than fifty indi­vid­u­als filed paper­work (either in per­son, by mail, or elec­tron­i­cal­ly) to for­mal­ly declare their can­di­da­cies for Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in one of Wash­ing­ton’s ten con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts. By the time the August win­now­ing elec­tion is cer­ti­fied lat­er this month, only twen­ty will be left, with near­ly half of […]

Posted inElections

Suzan DelBene cruising in early returns; redrawn 1st District looks safely Democratic

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ever since Wash­ing­ton’s 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict was redrawn back in 2011, it has been wide­ly char­ac­ter­ized as the state’s most even­ly divid­ed polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sion… a true “tossup” dis­trict if there ever was one. But look­ing at tonight’s win­now­ing elec­tion results, a new­com­er to Wash­ing­ton pol­i­tics might be for­giv­en for think­ing that the 1st is a district […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections

Senate challengers Matt Isenhower, Irene Bowling looking strong in 45th and 35th LDs

by Andrew Villeneuve

Democ­rats’ hopes of retak­ing the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate this autumn may rest on the fate of the cam­paigns of first time can­di­dates Matt Isen­how­er and Irene Bowl­ing, if tonight’s elec­tion results are any indi­ca­tion. Isen­how­er, thir­­ty-four, is trail­ing incum­bent Repub­li­can Andy Hill in the 45th by just a few per­cent­age points. He’s out­per­form­ing every other […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

NPI’s Eleventh Anniversary Picnic is in three weeks: Don’t forget to RSVP!

by Andrew Villeneuve

Three weeks from today, we’re going to be cel­e­brat­ing NPI’s eleventh anniver­sary (along with the defeat of Tim Eyman’s I‑1325!) in style at Red­mond’s Per­ri­go Park with a fes­tive sum­mer pic­nic, con­tin­u­ing a tra­di­tion we began last year. We will have sev­er­al spe­cial guests with us, includ­ing state Sen­ate can­di­date Matt Isen­how­er (run­ning in the 45th […]