Monthly Archives: August 2015

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics, Public Service

Governor Jay Inslee appoints 48th LD’s Ross Hunter as new Director of Early Learning

by Andrew Villeneuve

State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ross Hunter (D‑48th Dis­trict: Red­mond, Kirk­land, Belle­vue, Med­i­na, Clyde Hill, the Points com­mu­ni­ties) will soon be leav­ing the Leg­is­la­ture to join Jay Inslee’s admin­is­tra­tion as Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Ear­ly Learn­ing, the gov­er­nor’s office announced in a late-morn­ing press release. “With land­mark invest­ments this year, Wash­ing­ton state is poised to be a […]

Posted inElections

Tim Eyman confirms his worst nightmare: Progressive tax reform for Washington State

by Andrew Villeneuve

In the late 1990s, before he became a promi­nent sales­man of destruc­tive right wing ini­tia­tives, Tim Eyman was a sell­er of wrist­watch­es to fra­ter­ni­ties. After dis­cov­er­ing just how lucra­tive sell­ing ini­tia­tives to wealthy con­ser­v­a­tive donors could be, Eyman aban­doned his wrist­watch busi­ness and became a full-time, rich­ly com­pen­sat­ed ini­tia­tive pitch­man — an occu­pa­tion he continues […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

Patty Murray announces support for Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran

by Andrew Villeneuve

Wash­ing­ton’s senior U.S. sen­a­tor and the fourth-rank­ing Demo­c­rat in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, Pat­ty Mur­ray, has just released a lengthy state­ment pledg­ing to sup­port Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma by vot­ing against a res­o­lu­tion of dis­ap­proval con­cern­ing the  Joint Com­pre­hen­sive Plan of Action with Iran. The first para­graphs of the state­ment are as fol­lows: There are no more […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

Governor Inslee rebukes Senate Republicans: Let’s do our jobs, not fight the Supreme Court

by Andrew Villeneuve

Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee had strong words for Sen­ate Repub­li­cans this after­noon after a major­i­ty (but not all) of the cau­cus pub­lished an open let­ter urg­ing the Leg­is­la­ture’s oth­er cau­cus­es to join them in insti­gat­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis by retal­i­at­ing against the state Supreme Court for its recent McCleary order. “Today I con­vened a call […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics, Public Planning

State Supreme Court rules that SeaTac’s Good Jobs Proposition applies to airport workers

by Andrew Villeneuve

Work­ers at Seat­­tle-Taco­­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port must be paid a min­i­mum wage of $15/hour in accor­dance with the City of SeaT­ac’s Good Jobs law (Propo­si­tion #1, enact­ed by vot­ers in 2013) the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court ruled today. In a 5–4 deci­sion authored by Jus­tice Susan Owens, the Court held the air­port is not exempt from […]

Posted inParty Politics, Public Service

Reuven Carlyle announces he will seek appointment to State Senate in 36th District

by Andrew Villeneuve

State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and House Finance Com­mit­tee Chair Reuven Car­lyle announced today in a Face­book post­ing that he will be a can­di­date to suc­ceed Jeanne Kohl-Welles as State Sen­a­tor from the 36th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict lat­er this year if Kohl-Welles is suc­cess­ful in win­ning elec­tion to Lar­ry Phillips’ coun­ty coun­cil seat. “As we move clos­er to the general […]

Posted inElections, Litigation

Judge Dean Lum finds Eyman’s I‑1366 is beyond scope, but won’t remove it from ballot

by Andrew Villeneuve

This is a break­ing news post. In a writ­ten deci­sion hand­ed down moments ago, King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Dean Lum has found that Tim Eyman’s I‑1366 is indeed beyond the scope of the peo­ple’s ini­tia­tive pow­er… but has nev­er­the­less declined to grant plain­tiffs’ motion for a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion block­ing it from the bal­lot because, […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

Supreme Court fines state $100,000 a day for failure to comply with McCleary orders

by Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court, in a land­mark order that will turn heads and shoul­ders across the Ever­green State, ordered the state to begin pay­ing a $100,000 fine for each day that it fails to adopt a plan for ful­ly com­ply­ing with Arti­cle IX, Sec­tion 1 of the state Con­sti­tu­tion (“It is the […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Connecticut’s Supreme Court puts an end to all executions in the Nutmeg State

by Andrew Villeneuve

This is a great vic­to­ry for human rights that deserves to be cel­e­brat­ed: After a sweep­ing two-year review, the state Supreme Court out­lawed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Con­necti­cut, say­ing the state’s death penal­ty no longer com­ports with evolved soci­etal val­ues and serves no valid pur­pose as pun­ish­ment. The 4–3 deci­sion would remove 11 con­victs from Con­necti­cut’s […]

Posted inPublic Service

Please accept our heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery, President Carter!

by Andrew Villeneuve

Today, for­mer Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter, who served as Amer­i­ca’s thir­­ty-ninth Com­­man­der-in-Chief shared some tough news: he’s been diag­nosed with can­cer  and will be spend­ing the next few weeks under­go­ing treat­ment. “Recent liv­er surgery revealed that I have can­cer that now is in oth­er parts of my body,” Carter said in a brief state­ment. “I will […]

Posted inElections, Party Politics

Secretary of State Kim Wyman’s plan to move up date of presidential primary not adopted

by Andrew Villeneuve

A pro­pos­al by Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman to move up the date of Wash­ing­ton’s 2016 pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry from its default date of May 24th to March 8th failed to move for­ward today at a mid­day meet­ing of major par­ty and leg­isla­tive cau­cus lead­er­ship due to oppo­si­tion from Democ­rats. Wyman had called a meeting […]

Posted inElections, Party Politics

Massive crowd of 28,000 people shows up to hear Bernie Sanders in Portland

by Andrew Villeneuve

Less than twen­­ty-four hours after set­ting an atten­dance record with a huge ral­ly in Seat­tle, Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Bernie Sanders has done it again. Every­thing came togeth­er quite nice­ly for Bernie’s vis­it to Port­land, Ore­gon, with an esti­mat­ed 28,000 peo­ple turn­ing out to hear his speech inside and out­side of the Moda Cen­ter in the Rose […]

Posted inElections, Party Politics

This is the best line of attack Susan Hutchison could come up with to use against Bernie?

by Andrew Villeneuve

This week­end, pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics are tak­ing cen­ter stage in the Pacif­ic North­west, thanks to Ver­mont Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders’ vis­it to Seat­tle and Port­land. Sanders is get­ting a lot of atten­tion and cov­er­age from our local mass media — more so than oth­er pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates have received on the occa­sions of their vis­its. And there’s a […]