Monthly Archives: December 2015

Posted inHolidays

Banished Words for 2016

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 2016 (and forty-first annu­al) edi­tion, for your read­ing enjoy­ment on this New Year’s Eve: SO — So the word that received the most […]

Posted inElections

Congratulations, WAmend! 325,000+ signatures submitted to qualify I‑735

by Andrew Villeneuve

Prov­ing that there still is such a thing as a cit­i­zen ini­tia­tive, the staff and vol­un­teers of the Wash­ing­ton Coali­tion to Amend the Con­sti­tu­tion (WAmend) today made the hap­py trek to Wash­ing­ton’s cap­i­tal city of Olympia to sub­mit hun­dreds of thou­sands of sig­na­tures for Ini­tia­tive 735, which would for­mal­ly put the Ever­green State on record […]

Posted inElections, Live Coverage

Liveblogging the third 2016 Democratic presidential debate from the great Northwest

by Andrew Villeneuve

Good evening, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the third Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate of the 2016 cycle. NPI Trea­sur­er Essie Hicks and I will be watch­ing the debate and shar­ing impres­sions of the debate as it pro­gress­es. The debate is being broad­cast by ABC and its affil­i­ates. Cour­tesy of ABC, here’s where you can watch: […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Elections, Policy Topics

Two out of five Trump backers think rounding up Japanese Americans was a good thing, favor bombing Aladdin’s fictional homeland

by Andrew Villeneuve

As if The Dai­ly Show’s recent focus group with Don­ald Trump sup­port­ers was­n’t scary enough, Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling (which peri­od­i­cal­ly does pub­lic opin­ion research for NPI) has now pub­lished the results of its lat­est nation­al poll, which finds that Don­ald Trump’s pop­u­lar­i­ty among Repub­li­can vot­ers con­tin­ues to grow, and that many of those vot­ers are […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy

Tim Eyman is wrong: Washingtonians have previously supported levying an income tax

by Andrew Villeneuve

Pro­lif­ic ini­tia­tive spon­sor and ser­i­al liar Tim Eyman sent out an email this morn­ing once again tak­ing aim at the grand tax reform pro­pos­al unveiled by State Trea­sur­er Jim McIn­tire and State Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion Randy Dorn back in the spring. Though the pro­pos­al is over six months old, Eyman was irked that The […]

Posted inMedia & Culture

Crosscut creator David Brewster hops on Seattle media consolidation bandwagon

by John de Graaf

Yes­ter­day, David Brew­ster sim­ply floored me. Over the years, Brew­ster has played an admirable and respect­ed role in Seat­tle, using media to encour­age civic engage­ment and par­tic­i­pa­tion as a founder of The Seat­tle Week­ly, Cross­cut, an online news ser­vice, and the won­der­ful Town Hall venue for impor­tant lec­tures. While I would­n’t call Brew­ster’s pol­i­tics boldly […]

Posted inElections

King County Elections uses Business Reply Mail for signature updates — why not ballots?

by Andrew Villeneuve

On Fri­day, I received a rou­tine let­ter from King Coun­ty Elec­tions request­ing that I com­plete a form to update my sig­na­ture for their records, to min­i­mize the pos­si­bil­i­ty that there will be any issues ver­i­fy­ing my bal­lot in future elec­tions. While my sig­na­ture was not chal­lenged in the Novem­ber 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion, it has been […]

Posted inElections, Party Politics, Public Service

NPI’s Gael Tarleton elected Majority Floor Leader by Washington’s House Democrats

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er this evening, we received word that State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and NPI Vice Pres­i­­dent-Sec­re­­tary Gael Tar­leton has been elect­ed by her Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­leagues to serve as the new Major­i­ty Floor Leader in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, suc­ceed­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kris­tine Lyt­ton, who is tak­ing over the chair­man­ship of the House Finance Com­mit­tee from Reuven Carlyle. […]

Posted inLive Coverage, Party Politics

LIVE from Seattle: 36th’s Democratic PCOs choose nominees to succeed Reuven Carlyle

by Andrew Villeneuve

Tonight, the King Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee (KCDCC) is hold­ing a spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus con­sist­ing of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic PCOs in the 36th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict to draw up a list of names to suc­ceed Reuven Car­lyle as State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, in the event that he is cho­sen by the King Coun­ty Coun­cil to take the place of […]