NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monthly Archives: September 2015

U.S. House votes with Senate to keep federal government open… for a few more months

Excerpt: The Unit­ed States fed­er­al gov­ern­ment will not be shut­ting down tomor­row, thanks to Con­gress’ approval of a con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion that keeps the nation’s many crit­i­cal pub­lic ser­vices fund­ed through ear­ly Decem­ber of this year. By a vote of 277 to 151, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed to con­cur with the Sen­ate amend­ment to the House amend­ment […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Legislative Advocacy
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Surprise! Tim Eyman shows up for I‑1366 editorial board meeting with Seattle Times

Excerpt: He’s back… sort of. Noto­ri­ous ini­tia­tive prof­i­teer Tim Eyman emerged briefly from his self-imposed seclu­sion ear­li­er today to attend a meet­ing with the edi­to­r­i­al board of The Seat­tle Times to make his case for I‑1366, his lat­est and most destruc­tive ini­tia­tive yet, with extrem­ist Repub­li­can State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ed Orcutt in tow as his side­kick du jour. I‑1366 […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Open Government, Policy Topics
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Metropolitan King County Council appoints Patty Kuderer to the Washington State House

Excerpt: The Met­ro­pol­i­tan King Coun­ty Coun­cil vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly today to appoint attor­ney Pat­ty Kud­er­er to the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, fill­ing the vacan­cy cre­at­ed by the depar­ture of Ross Hunter ear­li­er this month. “I am pleased to vote yes to appoint Ms. Kud­er­er to fill the vacan­cy in the 48th Dis­trict,” said King Coun­cil Chair Lar­ry […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Public Service
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Another crash closes Aurora Bridge in Seattle: Time to put safety first and improve SR 99

Excerpt: Well, it’s hap­pened again: A mul­ti­ple vehi­cle crash Sun­day morn­ing that closed all lanes on Auro­ra Bridge in Seat­tle was the sec­ond crash on the bridge in a week. Crews were called to the scene around 6:30 AM Sun­day to an acci­dent involv­ing three vehicles. Police say no one was seri­ous­ly injured in the collision. The […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Washington State’s Machinists take position opposing CarbonWA’s I‑732

Excerpt: A cou­ple weeks ago, our Pres­i­dent, Robert Cruick­shank, wrote a lengthy blog post explain­ing why NPI can­not sup­port Car­bon­WA’s I‑732, a statewide ini­tia­tive spon­sored by econ­o­mist Yoram Bau­man that attempts to cre­ate a new tax on car­bon diox­ide emis­sions and use the rev­enue to low­er oth­er taxes. This past week­end, the Wash­ing­ton Coun­cil of Machin­ists, which […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Our Environment, Policy Topics
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Tim Eyman hides from the public as NO on I‑1366 coalition continues to ramp up

Excerpt: The most dan­ger­ous place in Wash­ing­ton State is no longer between Tim Eyman and a tele­vi­sion cam­era, it seems. The noto­ri­ous­ly brash ini­tia­tive prof­i­teer, who has in pre­vi­ous years been so eager to get on TV that he has crashed oppo­nents’ press con­fer­ences, has sud­den­ly become cam­era-shy, and is choos­ing to fire off email mis­sives from […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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John Boehner to resign as Speaker and as U.S. Representative at the end of October

Excerpt: Top Repub­li­can John Boehn­er shocked Capi­tol Hill and Amer­i­ca’s polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment this morn­ing by announc­ing that he plans to resign the speak­er­ship and his posi­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as of Octo­ber 30th, 2015. “The first job of any Speak­er is to pro­tect this insti­tu­tion that we all love,” said Boehn­er in an offi­cial state­ment […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Party Politics, Public Service
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How to meet Washington’s paramount duty and end the K‑12 funding standoff

Excerpt: Today Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee con­venes the first meet­ing of his leg­isla­tive work­group in SeaT­ac to tack­le the issue of how to meet the state Supreme Court’s order to ful­ly fund K‑12 pub­lic schools. It’s good that they’re get­ting down to work, but we should­n’t expect a quick resolution. The Wash­ing­ton Leg­is­la­ture is dead­locked over the […]
Written by:Robert Cruickshank
Categories:Education
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Déjà vu: Unmasking of Tim Eyman’s deceptions leads to media field day

Excerpt: Yes­ter­day, Sep­tem­ber 21st, 2015, felt a lot like Feb­ru­ary 5th, 2002. That was the day that peo­ple all over Wash­ing­ton State woke up to the news that Tim Eyman had con­fessed to tak­ing over a hun­dred and fifty thou­sand dol­lars of cam­paign funds for his own per­son­al use while false­ly claim­ing he was work­ing as […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Open Government, Policy Topics
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Emerald City teachers overwhelmingly ratify new contract with Seattle Public Schools

Excerpt: Teach­ers in Seat­tle have vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly to approve a new con­tract with Seat­tle Pub­lic Schools, which means class­es will be held as sched­uled tomor­row and in the months beyond, the Seat­tle Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion announced tonight. The agree­ment had three com­po­nents. All were rat­i­fied with large margins. “Today was a great day for uni­ty in Seat­tle […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Economic Security, Education, Policy Topics
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President Barack Obama headed here next month to raise money for Patty Murray

Excerpt: Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma will be return­ing to the great Pacif­ic North­west next month to raise mon­ey for U.S. Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray and the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, accord­ing to an invi­ta­tion post­ed by the par­ty. The invi­ta­tion reads: Tick­ets start at $250. Tables can be spon­sored for $2,500 or $5,000. Pro­ceeds from the event will ben­e­fit […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Party Politics
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Washington’s Democratic Lieutenant Governor Brad Owen files to run for reelection

Excerpt: Wash­ing­ton’s incum­bent Demo­c­ra­t­ic Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Brad Owen recent­ly filed paper­work with the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion to start up a reelec­tion cam­paign for 2016, PDC doc­u­ments show, join­ing sev­er­al oth­er statewide Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bents who have active 2016 cam­paigns, includ­ing Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, Lands Com­mis­sion­er Peter Gold­mark, and Trea­sur­er James McIntire. Owen, six­ty-five, has been Wash­ing­ton’s lieu­tenant […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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LIVE from Clyde Hill: Special Democratic nominating caucus underway in 48th District

Excerpt: Good evening from Clyde Hill Ele­men­tary in the heart of the 48th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict (Belle­vue, Kirk­land, Red­mond, Clyde Hill, Med­i­na, Hunts Point, Yarrow Point). Tonight, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers of the 48th have assem­bled to draw up a list of can­di­dates to suc­ceed Ross Hunter in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, who recent­ly […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Party Politics
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Britain’s Labour heads in a more progressive direction with new anti-austerity Leader

Excerpt: This is a big, big deal. Via The Wall Street Jour­nal: Jere­my Cor­byn, a far-left for­mer union orga­niz­er, was elect­ed the leader of the U.K.’s Labour Par­ty on Sat­ur­day, a result that sig­nals a more social­ist direc­tion for the country’s main oppo­si­tion and could her­ald a realign­ment of British politics. The 66-year-old law­mak­er, long on […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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