Monthly Archives: January 2015

Posted inLegislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Our region needs Sound Transit 3: NPI founder’s testimony in support of HB 1180

by Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s Note: On Wednes­day, I trav­eled down in Olympia to tes­ti­fy before the House Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee on HB 1180, which would give Sound Tran­sit the author­i­ty it needs to pro­pose an ST3 pack­age to vot­ers in urban King, Sno­homish, and Pierce coun­ties in 2016. The fol­low­ing is the text of my pre­pared tes­ti­mo­ny. Good afternoon, […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy

Proposed constitutional amendment to thwart unfunded mandates should be discarded

by Andrew Villeneuve

On Wednes­day of this week, Repub­li­can State Sen­a­tor Joe Fain intro­duced a new con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment intend­ed to pre­vent the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton from propos­ing and pass­ing any more ini­tia­tives that the attor­ney gen­er­al’s office deems to be an unfund­ed man­date. The amend­ment, which is offi­cial­ly known as Sen­ate Joint Res­o­lu­tion (SJR) 8201, has an impressive […]

Posted inElections, Party Politics

Roger Freeman’s former legislative aide joins Republican Party to run for Legislature

by Andrew Villeneuve

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of his idol Mark Milos­cia, Fed­er­al Way City Coun­cilmem­ber and for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive assis­tant Mar­tin Moore announced today that he is join­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty and will run against Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Car­ol Gre­go­ry for the seat held by Free­man pri­or to his death last Octo­ber. Moore, thir­ty, belonged to the […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Holidays, Policy Topics

Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Justice too long delayed is justice denied”

by Andrew Villeneuve

Today is Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Day, and we do every year in hon­or of Dr. King’s mem­o­ry, I’m post­ing an excerpt from his Let­ter From Birm­ing­ham Jail. In these pas­sages, he is explain­ing why he has reject­ed calls to wait on advanc­ing civ­il rights. King makes the point that peo­ple who wish to expand […]

Posted inParty Politics

Actions speak louder than words, and Tim Sheldon’s actions make him a Republican

by Andrew Villeneuve

Aside from Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ adop­tion of a set of rules con­tain­ing an unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic, uncon­sti­tu­tion­al pro­ce­dur­al two-thirds vote require­ment for bills propos­ing new rev­enue sources, the main news being report­ed out of the state­house by Wash­ing­ton news­pa­pers on Mon­day was the sur­prise elec­tion of Pam Roach to the office of Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore. As we had […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections, Legislative Advocacy

Democrats settle score with Tim Sheldon by electing Pam Roach as President Pro Tem

by Andrew Villeneuve

Wash­ing­ton State’s Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus made the most of an oppor­tu­ni­ty to hold Tim Shel­don account­able for his treach­ery at the end of 2012 by join­ing forces this after­noon with mil­i­tant Repub­li­cans Don Ben­ton and Pam Roach to elect the rene­gade Roach as Pres­i­dent Pro Tem of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate. Shel­don had expect­ed the […]

Posted inBreaking News, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Islamic terrorists attack offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, France, leaving twelve dead

by Andrew Villeneuve

This is just awful: At least two masked gun­men stormed the Paris offices of satir­i­cal [French lan­guage] week­ly Char­lie Heb­do on Wednes­day, killing twelve peo­ple and injur­ing eleven more before escap­ing in a car. It was France’s dead­liest ter­ror­ist attack in decades. Some of France’s most promi­nent car­toon­ists were among the dead, includ­ing the magazine’s […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy, Our Environment, Policy Topics

California’s experience proves Governor Inslee is right to pursue cap and trade

by Robert Cruickshank

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s bold yet sen­si­ble step to bring Wash­ing­ton State into the grow­ing North Amer­i­can cap and trade sys­tem is pre­dictably gen­er­at­ing oppo­si­tion from Repub­li­cans. State Sen­a­tor Cur­tis King, the Repub­li­can chair of the Sen­ate Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee, took to the pages of the Seat­tle Times to denounce Gov­er­nor Inslee’s plan. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for King, his attack on […]

Posted inElections, Party Politics

Pacific Northwest unlikely to gain U.S. House seats in 2020 reapportionment, data indicates

by Richard Champion

Short­ly before Christ­mas, the Unit­ed States Cen­sus Bureau released its 2014 State and Nation­al Pop­u­la­tion Esti­mates. Strik­ing­ly, the data released by the Cen­sus Bureau shows that the Unit­ed States’ pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing at slow­est rate since 1937. There is a par­al­lel: Then, as now, we were wit­ness­ing a com­bi­na­tion of recov­ery from a weak economy […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Curtis King’s response to Governor Inslee’s transportation plan is devoid of substance

by Andrew Villeneuve

With the upcom­ing long ses­sion of the six­­ty-fourth Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture set to begin in a week, The Seat­tle Times has opt­ed to devote a por­tion of its edi­to­r­i­al page to com­men­tary on state issues, instead of the usu­al syn­di­cat­ed fare. Read­ers of this morn­ing’s paper may have noticed that the Times invit­ed the chairs of […]

Posted inHolidays

Banished Words for 2015

by Andrew Villeneuve

Every year since 1976, Michigan’s Lake Supe­ri­or State Uni­ver­si­ty has released a thought­ful and humor­ous “List of Words Ban­ished from the Queen’s Eng­lish for Mis­use, Overuse and Gen­er­al Use­less­ness”. Here is the 2015 (and for­ti­eth annu­al) edi­tion, for your read­ing enjoy­ment on this New Year’s Day: BAE — One of the top nom­i­nees. “Mean­ing ‘before […]