Monthly Archives: March 2016

Posted inLive Coverage, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Windstorm lashes western Pacific Northwest, felling trees and knocking out power

by Andrew Villeneuve

A pow­er­ful wind­storm rolled through the Pacif­ic North­west today, felling trees, knock­ing out pow­er, and forc­ing the clo­sure of roads and bridges. Gusts of more than six­ty miles per hour were report­ed in many places, like Seat­tle’s Dis­cov­ery Park, which record­ed a peak gust of six­­ty-six miles per hour at 4 PM. Winds were also […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Washington State Legislature adjourns 2016 session Sine Die; special session needed

by Andrew Villeneuve

Not long ago, the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture adjourned its 2016 reg­u­lar ses­sion Sine Die, fol­low­ing the adop­tion of HCR 4417 by the House and Sen­ate. Though the reg­u­lar ses­sion is now offi­cial­ly over, law­mak­ers can­not head home just yet, as their work is unfin­ished (sur­prise, sur­prise). Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee plans to call a spe­cial session […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

NPI to honor Representative Jim McDermott at 2016 Spring Fundraising Gala on April 1st

by Andrew Villeneuve

Three weeks from tomor­row evening, on Fri­day, April 1st, 2016, NPI will be hold­ing its eighth Spring Fundrais­ing Gala at the Mer­cer Island Com­mu­ni­ty & Event Cen­ter. As in years past, we’ve been work­ing hard to put togeth­er a strong speak­ing pro­gram for the event. We’ve pre­vi­ous­ly announced that our keynote speak­er for this year […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Senate concurs with House’s amendments to charters bailout, sending it to Governor Inslee

by Andrew Villeneuve

By a vote of twen­­ty-six to twen­­ty-three, the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate has con­curred in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive’s amend­ments to E2SSB 6194, Steve Lit­zow’s bill to bail out char­ter schools, which were declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court in League of Women Vot­ers last autumn. The vote was most­ly along par­ty lines, though […]

Posted inElections, Live Coverage

Liveblogging the eighth 2016 Democratic presidential debate from the great Northwest

by Andrew Villeneuve

Good evening, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the eighth Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate of the 2016 cycle. I will be watch­ing and shar­ing impres­sions of the debate as it pro­gress­es. This debate is being held in Mia­mi, Flori­da, and is being broad­cast by Uni­vi­sion and CNN. You can livestream the debate from Uni­v­sion’s web­site. There […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

NPI to legislators: Support Washington’s kids by funding our public schools — not charters

by Robert Cruickshank

Edi­tor’s Note: This evening, the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives is expect­ed to take up a bill that would restore pub­lic fund­ing for pri­vate char­ter schools, in defi­ance of the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court’s clear rul­ing in League of Women Vot­ers v. State of Wash­ing­ton. NPI is ask­ing mem­bers of the House and Sen­ate to […]

Posted inElections

Ted Cruz leads Donald Trump in Idaho Republican primary; Rubio, Kasich far behind

by Andrew Villeneuve

Today, Ida­ho became the first state in the con­tigu­ous Pacif­ic North­west region to hold a nom­i­nat­ing event in the 2016 pres­i­den­tial con­test. The polls have now closed in the Gem State’s Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry, and here are the ear­ly results: Ida­ho Repub­li­can Pri­ma­ry: March 8th, 2016 With 95 of 955 precincts report­ing. (includes absen­tee precincts where applicable) […]

Posted inElections

Bernie Sanders, Hillary Sanders running neck and neck in Michigan Democratic primary

by Andrew Villeneuve

It’s once again Pri­ma­ry Day some­where in Amer­i­ca. Today, vot­ers in Michi­gan and Mis­sis­sip­pi went to the polls to cast votes in those state’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can pri­maries. It was a good night for Don­ald Trump all around, as he defeat­ed his Repub­li­can rivals in both states. And for Hillary Clin­ton, it was a good […]

Posted inElections

Washington’s longtime Lieutenant Governor Brad Owen announces his retirement

by Andrew Villeneuve

In a noon speech today before the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, long­time Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Brad Owen announced that he has decid­ed to retire from pub­lic life after five terms and won’t seek reelec­tion this autumn. Owen, who has served as Pres­i­dent of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate since Jan­u­ary 1997 — also fill­ing in for Gov­er­nors Gary […]

Posted inElections, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Bernie opposes Ex-Im. Will it “cost him” in Washington State’s Democratic caucuses? No.

by Andrew Villeneuve

Last night’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate between Hillary Clin­ton and Bernie Sanders includ­ed a lengthy exchange over an issue of con­cern to Wash­ing­ton State’s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship: the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank, which mem­bers of Wash­ing­ton’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion fought hard to pro­tect and then to reau­tho­rize after Repub­li­cans shame­ful­ly allowed its char­ter to expire. The can­di­dates dis­agree over […]

Posted inElections

Bernie Sanders wins Maine caucuses; Marco Rubio wins Puerto Rico primary

by Andrew Villeneuve

Anoth­er day, anoth­er set of pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus­es. Today, Maine Democ­rats held their 2016 cau­cus­es, while Puer­to Rico Repub­li­cans went to the polls to cast bal­lots in that ter­ri­to­ry’s pri­ma­ry. (Res­i­dents of ter­ri­to­ries don’t get a say in which per­son gets elect­ed as Pres­i­dent, but they do get to par­tic­i­pate in the selec­tion of the […]

Posted inElections

Liveblogging the seventh 2016 Democratic presidential debate from the great Northwest

by Andrew Villeneuve

Good evening, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the sev­enth Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate of the 2016 cycle. I will be watch­ing and shar­ing impres­sions of the debate as it pro­gress­es. This debate is being held in Flint, Michi­gan, and is being broad­cast by CNN. You can livestream the debate from CNN’s web­site. There are […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

Secretary of State hopeful Tina Podlodowski to emcee NPI’s 2016 Spring Fundraising Gala

by Andrew Villeneuve

Tonight, with NPI’s 2016 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala just four weeks away, we are thrilled to announce that we have a won­der­ful Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies lined up to run this year’s speak­ing pro­gram: Tina Pod­lodows­ki, for­mer Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber and cur­rent can­di­date for Sec­re­tary of State. Tina has a long his­to­ry of pub­lic ser­vice in Seat­tle and […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections

It’s Super Tuesday! Here’s a rundown of who is winning in the fourteen states voting today

by Andrew Villeneuve

We are now out of Feb­ru­ary, and into the sec­ond month of nom­i­nat­ing sea­son. The pres­i­den­tial sweep­stakes con­tin­ue with Super Tues­day, one of the most impor­tant events on the cal­en­dar. Eleven states are hold­ing pri­maries and cau­cus­es today. Most of those states have both Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can con­tests, but a few only have con­tests between […]