Monthly Archives: March 2017

Posted inBreaking News, Elections, Litigation, Open Government, Policy Topics

State of Washington sues Tim Eyman over illegal kickbacks, misuse of campaign funds

by Andrew Villeneuve

Bring­ing to an end a mul­ti­year inves­ti­ga­tion into Tim Eyman’s ille­gal cam­paign finance prac­tices, Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son announced today that the State of Wash­ing­ton has filed a law­suit in Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court seek­ing $2.1 mil­lion in penal­ties against him, his asso­ciate William Agazarm of Cit­i­zen Solu­tions, and Cit­i­zen Solu­tions itself, as well as […]

Posted inPublic Service

Maria Cantwell will join filibuster of Trump Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch

by Andrew Villeneuve

Wash­ing­ton’s junior Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell announced today that she will be join­ing her seat­mate Pat­ty Mur­ray and many oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors in fil­i­bus­ter­ing Don­ald Trump’s Supreme Court nom­i­nee Neil Gor­such as well as vot­ing no on his nom­i­na­tion should the fil­i­buster be bro­ken. “We need a U.S. Supreme Court jus­tice who will stand […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics

Left Coast leaders fiercely denounce Trump regime’s climate-sabotaging executive order

by Andrew Villeneuve

Aban­don­ing Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma’s noble efforts to bol­ster our com­mit­ment to car­ing for the Earth, our com­mon home, Don­ald Trump today signed an exec­u­tive order today that scraps the nation’s Clean Pow­er Plan, try­ing to undo one of the most impor­tant steps tak­en in recent years to com­bat the cli­mate cri­sis. The move was met […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

House Democrats unveil “Families First” budget proposal, embrace capital gains tax

by Andrew Villeneuve

Law­mak­ers rep­re­sent­ing Wash­ing­ton State’s House Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty took the wraps off of their bud­get this after­noon, offer­ing a stark­ly dif­fer­ent plan for the next bien­ni­um than the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans did last week. “Our approach to the bud­get is ‘what’s best for kids?’ This bud­get and our [edu­ca­tion fund­ing] plan is what’s best for kids,” the caucus […]

Posted inHealthcare, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Trumpcuts implodes as feuding Republicans face the reality that they don’t have the votes

by Andrew Villeneuve

Con­ced­ing that they sim­ply don’t have the votes to pass the mas­sive wealth trans­fer that they false­ly call a replace­ment for the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, Paul Ryan and top House Repub­li­cans today threw in the tow­el on H.R. 1628, can­cel­ing a planned vote that Don­ald Trump had insist­ed be held only hours earlier. 

Posted inHealthcare, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

NPI to NW Republicans: For the good of our region and country, vote NO on Trumpcuts

by Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing was trans­mit­ted by fac­sim­i­le this evening to the offices of Dave Reichert, Greg Walden, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers. All of the afore­men­tioned indi­vid­u­als rep­re­sent por­tions of Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon in the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as Repub­li­cans. We are repub­lish­ing this com­mu­ni­ca­tion here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate as […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy

Tim Eyman vigorously endorses Senate Republican budget that raises property taxes

by Andrew Villeneuve

Sound­ing very much like a spokesman for top Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Mark Schoesler of Ritzville, Tim Eyman this morn­ing sent out an email offer­ing a ring­ing, fer­vent endorse­ment of the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ pro­posed bud­get for 2017–2019, which would increase prop­er­ty tax­es on many Wash­ing­to­ni­ans. “Here’s how my day went yes­ter­day: drove to and from Olympia through […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Trump regime declares war on rail: Budget would eviscerate Amtrak, light rail funding

by Andrew Villeneuve

Pas­sen­ger rail ser­vice in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca is now offi­cial­ly under an unprece­dent­ed assault fol­low­ing the release of neo­fas­cist Don­ald Trump’s regime’s “bud­get blue­print”, which pro­pos­es gut­ting most of what’s left of Amtrak’s nation­al net­work of inter­ci­ty rail routes and yank­ing away fund­ing promised to regions like ours for the expan­sion of badly […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

Want to save on tickets to NPI’s 2017 spring gala? Act now to get the early-bird rate

by Andrew Villeneuve

Read­ers, we are just forty-eight days away from our 2017 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala on Mer­cer Island (Sat­ur­day, April 29th at 6 PM), and we’re look­ing for­ward to shar­ing details of our speak­ing pro­gram with you. Before we announce who our speak­ers are, though, I want you to know that you still have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to buy a tick­et to the gala at […]

Posted inEducation, Policy Topics

Washington State House of Representatives sends revised “levy cliff” rescue bill to Inslee

by Andrew Villeneuve

Leg­is­la­tion that would res­cue school dis­tricts in Wash­ing­ton State from the so-called “levy cliff” is on its way to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee fol­low­ing an over­whelm­ing vote of approval in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. By a vote of eighty-sev­en to ten, the House vot­ed to give its assent to Engrossed Sen­ate Bill 5023, originally […]

Posted inPublic Service

Congratulations, Tanika Padhye, and welcome to the Redmond City Council

by Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day evening, at its March 7th busi­ness meet­ing, the Red­mond City Coun­cil select­ed Tani­ka Pad­hye to fill the vacan­cy cre­at­ed by the Jan­u­ary res­ig­na­tion of NPI Advi­so­ry Coun­cil mem­ber Kim Allen, who stepped down due to hav­ing an increas­ing­ly trav­el-cen­tric work sched­ule. Pad­hye, forty-three, was pre­vi­ous­ly a mem­ber of the city’s Plan­ning Com­mis­sion and has […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

House Transportation Chair not interested in messing with Sound Transit’s governance

by Andrew Villeneuve

A bill recent­ly passed by the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate that would oust Sound Tran­sit’s cur­rent board of direc­tors and set the stage for a hos­tile takeover of the agency by right wing, anti-rail forces is des­tined to die in com­mit­tee, House Trans­porta­tion Chair Judy Clib­born indi­cat­ed in an inter­view pub­lished this morn­ing. Speak­ing to the […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1550 would enrich the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us

by Andrew Villeneuve

As Wash­ing­ton home­own­ers received their most recent prop­er­ty tax bills, dis­graced ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman couldn’t resist try­ing to exploit their con­cerns by announc­ing his intent to qual­i­fy an ini­tia­tive to the Novem­ber 2017 bal­lot that would cut prop­er­ty tax­es by twen­­ty-five per­cent. Like Eyman’s I‑1366, which was struck down as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al last year, its […]