Posted inElections

Counties certify November general election; 2015 turnout is the worst in state history

Well, it’s offi­cial: The 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion has now been cer­ti­fied by Wash­ing­ton State’s thir­­ty-nine coun­ties, and as we pro­ject­ed ear­li­er this month, turnout end­ed up between 38% and 39% (to be pre­cise, 38.45% statewide), which means it’s offi­cial­ly the worst in record­ed state his­to­ry. The pre­vi­ous low of 40.18% was set in 1985. Below is […]

Posted inElections, Legislative Advocacy, Litigation, Policy Topics

New legal challenge filed against Tim Eyman’s hostage-taking I‑1366 in Superior Court

With Wash­ing­ton’s 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion on the verge of being cer­ti­fied, the time has come to con­tin­ue the fight against Tim Eyman’s I‑1366 in the courts. Accord­ing­ly, attor­neys with Paci­fi­ca Law Group have filed a new law­suit seek­ing a declara­to­ry judg­ment that I‑1366 exceeds the scope of the ini­tia­tive pow­er and vio­lates mul­ti­ple pro­vi­sions of […]

Posted inElections

Democrat John Bel Edwards elected Governor of Louisiana in a stunning runoff upset

Bay­ou State vot­ers shocked the Louisiana Repub­li­can Par­ty and pun­dits across the coun­try Sat­ur­day night, over­whelm­ing­ly choos­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Bel Edwards as the next gov­er­nor of Louisiana over the once-heavy favorite, U.S. Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor David Vit­ter, a vic­tor of many past statewide elec­tions. Edwards, forty-nine, cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents Louisiana’s 72nd Dis­trict in its House […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Shameful: U.S. House passes bill to effectively stop Syrian refugees from coming to America

The Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives today dis­graced itself by vot­ing over­whelm­ing­ly to approve a Repub­­li­­can-backed bill intend­ed to effec­tive­ly block Amer­i­ca from tak­ing in more Syr­i­an refugees. The vote on the leg­is­la­tion was two hun­dred and eighty-nine to one hun­dred and thir­­ty-sev­en, with forty-sev­en Democ­rats shame­ful­ly join­ing near­ly all the Repub­li­cans in vot­ing aye. H.R. […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

The disgusting extremism of Republican Jay Rodne, Snoqualmie’s own resident bigot

Over the past few days, we’ve seen a vile esca­la­tion of anti-refugee rhetoric from some of the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s most bom­bas­tic fig­ures, includ­ing pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates like Don­ald Trump and Ted Cruz in the wake of the hor­rif­ic attacks in Paris, France. A num­ber of Repub­li­can gov­er­nors have also got­ten into the act, declar­ing that the […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning, Public Service

Sound Transit identifies Peter Rogoff as its top choice to succeed outgoing CEO Joni Earl

It looks like Sound Tran­sit’s search for a new per­ma­nent CEO has come to an end. Today, the agency announced its search com­mit­tee is rec­om­mend­ing a high-cal­iber, dis­tin­guished can­di­date to suc­ceed out­go­ing exec­u­tive Joni Earl. His name is Peter M. Rogoff, and he pre­vi­ous­ly served as Fed­er­al Tran­sit Admin­is­tra­tor pri­or to assum­ing the post of Under […]

Posted inElections

Tim Eyman announces new initiative for 2016

For-prof­it ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman announced that he plans to appear in Olympia tomor­row with his side­kicks Jack and Mike Fagan to announce a new ini­tia­tive for 2016, which Eyman is call­ing his “back-up ini­tia­tive” for I‑1366. (I‑1366 was the hostage-tak­ing mea­sure that appeared on this year’s bal­lot; it would cut the sales tax by […]

Posted inElections, Live Coverage

Liveblogging the second 2016 Democratic Presidential Debate from the great Northwest

Good evening, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the sec­ond Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate of the 2016 cycle. Sev­er­al NPI staff and board mem­bers will be watch­ing the debate from Can­non Beach and shar­ing impres­sions of the debate as it pro­gress­es. The debate is being broad­cast by CBS and its affil­i­ates. Cour­tesy of CBS, here’s […]

Posted inElections, Legislative Advocacy

A progressive Legislature, not Eyman’s 1366, can fix Washington’s regressive tax system

With­in hours of Elec­tion Night 2015, after it had become appar­ent that Tim Eyman’s hostage-tak­ing I‑1366 had too much of a head start in ear­ly bal­lots to be defeat­ed, mul­ti­ple com­men­ta­tors with a thirst for pro­gres­sive tax reform began float­ing the idea of using I‑1366 as a spring­board to get the job start­ed, rea­son­ing that […]

Posted inHolidays

Happy Veterans Day 2015!

Today we pause to thank the many brave men and women who have valiant­ly served our coun­try in the armed forces, defend­ing this great nation so that the rest of us may go about our lives freely and peace­ful­ly. We at NPI are espe­cial­ly grate­ful for the ser­vice of our own Rick Heg­dahl (U.S. Navy […]

Posted inElections

Washington State will likely set a new record low for general election turnout this year

As of this evening, it’s been one week since Elec­tion Night 2015, and the num­ber of bal­lots still await­ing pro­cess­ing by coun­ty elec­tions offi­cials has dwin­dled to less than thir­­ty-three thou­sand statewide. Turnout cur­rent­ly stands at 37.44%, and it looks like it will end up under forty per­cent, well below Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman’s […]

Posted inElections

Lisa Herbold, Shannon Braddock separated by only six votes in Seattle’s District #1

Talk about a razor-thin race: In the con­test for Seat­tle City Coun­cil, Dis­trict #1, Top Two final­ists Lisa Her­bold and Shan­non Brad­dock are now sep­a­rat­ed by a mere six votes — out of over twen­­ty-two thou­sand cast! That’s a mar­gin of one house­hold. Take a look at the num­bers fol­low­ing the lat­est tab­u­la­tion: City of […]

Posted inElections

Opposition to Tim Eyman’s I‑1366 climbs above 48% across Washington State

Near­ly one week after Elec­tion Day 2015, oppo­si­tion to Tim Eyman’s I‑1366 is still ris­ing as late bal­lots con­tin­ue to be count­ed. Today, the NO vote statewide sur­passed 48%, an impor­tant mile­stone, and now stands at 670,085 votes. About 68,473 bal­lots remain to be processed by coun­ty elec­tions offi­cials, accord­ing to the lat­est esti­mate. The […]

Posted inElections

RE: Some campaign tactics to rethink

This morn­ing, The Spokesman-Review’s Olympia cor­re­spon­dent and polit­i­cal colum­nist Jim Cam­den filed a “Sun­day Spin” col­umn com­ment­ing on the unsuc­cess­ful NO on I‑1366 cam­paign that we were a part of, sug­gest­ing that the coali­tion relied on old tac­tics that have not worked in the past. He writes: Oppo­nents of Tim Eyman’s reg­u­lar bal­lot mea­sures for […]