Monthly Archives: April 2017

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

NPI presents Joni Earl and Paul Lawrence with the very first Lynn Allen Awards

by Andrew Villeneuve

This evening, at our ninth Spring Fundrais­ing Gala on Mer­cer Island, we debuted a new event tra­di­tion: the Lynn Allen Awards. Named for our late sis­ter Lynn Allen, a found­ing board­mem­ber of NPI, these awards rec­og­nize peo­ple who have made indis­pens­able con­tri­bu­tions to pro­gres­sive caus­es for a decade or more. We lost Lynn to ovar­i­an cancer […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Sound Transit rolls forward with ST3 projects while Legislature dithers on state budget

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­ly this after­noon, Sound Tran­sit’s elect­ed lead­er­ship held a press con­fer­ence to announce a series of strate­gic ini­tia­tives aimed at stream­lin­ing and accel­er­at­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of our vot­er-approved ST3 sys­tem expan­sion plan. Fol­low­ing that press con­fer­ence, the agen­cy’s board of direc­tors held a busi­ness meet­ing in Union Sta­tion’s Ruth Fish­er Board­room and approved motions autho­riz­ing the […]

Posted inBreaking News, Media & Culture

Fox Noise fires Bill O’Reilly; bigmouth’s downfall was activist-led advertiser exodus

by Andrew Villeneuve

Bill O’Reil­ly, host of the high­est rat­ed pro­gram at the Fox Noise Chan­nel, has been forced out of the net­work after exec­u­tives at its par­ent com­pa­ny 21st Cen­tu­ry Fox con­clud­ed that his show could no longer be effec­tive­ly mon­e­tized due to a mass exo­dus of adver­tis­ers cat­alyzed by deter­mined activists. Mul­ti­ple women who for­mer­ly worked […]

Posted inAnnouncements

King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci to open NPI’s 2017 Spring Fundraising Gala

by Andrew Villeneuve

Today, we are very hap­py to announce that King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci will be the open­ing speak­er at our 2017 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala, which will take place April 29th at the Mer­cer Island Com­mu­ni­ty & Event Cen­ter. A for­mer Belle­vue City Coun­cilmem­ber, Clau­dia joined the King Coun­ty Coun­cil last year fol­low­ing her over­whelm­ing 2015 […]

Posted inHolidays

Happy Easter 2017!

by Andrew Villeneuve

If you are observ­ing the East­er hol­i­day today, please accept best wish­es from all of us at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute. East­er is the most sig­nif­i­cant holy day for Christianity’s many denom­i­na­tions, although not all of them are cel­e­brat­ing it today. Pas­sages like the fol­low­ing excerpt from the Gospel of Matthew (28:1–10) are com­mon­ly read […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

Joni Earl, Paul Lawrence to be honored with Lynn Allen Awards at NPI’s 2017 Spring Gala

by Andrew Villeneuve

As pro­gres­sives, we believe in cham­pi­oning polit­i­cal progress for all peo­ple — it’s why we call our­selves pro­gres­sives. We believe that our soci­ety’s laws should be based on nur­tu­rant val­ues like empa­thy and mutu­al respon­si­bil­i­ty. As com­mit­ted pro­gres­sive activists, we work every day to advo­cate for poli­cies based on these val­ues. It’s not easy being […]

Posted inElections

Senate Republicans unveil their candidate in WA’s 45th District: Jinyoung Lee Englund

by Andrew Villeneuve

With about a month to go until Fil­ing Week 2017, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have final­ly unveiled their recruit for the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate in the bat­tle­ground 45th Dis­trict: Jiny­oung Lee Englund, a for­mer vice pres­i­dent of strat­e­gy for the Dig­i­tal Cur­ren­cy Coun­cil who has been active in nation­al Repub­li­can pol­i­tics. Englund is the sec­ond Repub­li­can candidate […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics

Detainees at NWDC immigration prison revive hunger strike in response to abuse

by Kaylinne Shaffer

Today at noon, over one hun­dred peo­ple being detained in the West Coast’s largest immi­gra­tion prison in Taco­ma — the North­west Deten­tion Cen­ter  — launched a hunger strike in response to inhu­mane liv­ing con­di­tions at the prison. Detainees refus­ing their lunch­es cir­cu­lat­ed a let­ter of demand regard­ing vio­la­tions of what most Wash­ing­ton res­i­dents would consider […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics

Attorney General Bob Ferguson issues immigration guidance to local governments

by Kaylinne Shaffer

This week, the Wash­ing­ton State Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office announced the release of new­­ly-pub­­lished guid­ance con­cern­ing immi­gra­tion enforce­ment, assem­bled to help local gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions rec­og­nize the lim­i­ta­tions of fed­er­al agen­cies’ pow­er to com­pel assis­tance with immi­gra­tion enforce­ment. This guid­ance comes in response to Don­ald Trump’s recent puni­tive exec­u­tive orders. The Trump regime plans to increase deportations […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy, Party Politics

Kudos to Senate Democrats for forcing Mitch McConnell to gut his precious filibuster

by Andrew Villeneuve

We need to restore the norms and tra­di­tions of the Sen­ate and get past this unprece­dent­ed par­ti­san fil­i­buster. – Mitch “Fil­i­buster” McConnell, speak­ing ear­li­er today The man who staged an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of par­ti­san fil­i­busters of exec­u­tive and judi­cial nom­i­nees dur­ing Barack Oba­ma’s pres­i­den­cy today pulled the trig­ger on the so-called “nuclear option”, mar­shal­ing Sen­ate Republicans […]

Posted inElections

45th District Democrats unanimously endorse Manka Dhingra for Washington State Senate

by Andrew Villeneuve

Eager to reclaim the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate fol­low­ing the treach­ery of Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic grass­roots in Wash­ing­ton’s 45th Dis­trict vot­ed enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly yes­ter­day evening to endorse Man­ka Dhin­gra, an expe­ri­enced senior deputy pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney who has been mov­ing swift­ly to build a cam­paign focused on amply fund­ing edu­ca­tion and men­tal health. The 45th, which is […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Irresponsible Republicans escalate their legislative attacks on Sound Transit and ST3

by Andrew Villeneuve

As Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry sits idle due to his con­stant lies and decep­tions hav­ing final­ly caught up with him, Repub­li­cans in the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture have decid­ed to take up one of Eyman’s favorite caus­es them­selves: destroy­ing Sound Tran­sit, the region­al agency tasked with build­ing the rail spine our region needs to lib­er­ate more […]

Posted inLitigation, Media & Culture, Open Government, Policy Topics

These were the headlines following the Friday filing of new litigation against Tim Eyman

by Andrew Villeneuve

On Fri­day, Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son announced that the State of Wash­ing­ton is suing Tim Eyman, William Agazarm, and Cit­i­zen Solu­tions for $2.1 mil­lion and also pur­su­ing injunc­tive relief bar­ring Eyman from con­tin­u­ing to manip­u­late mon­ey raised from gullible right wing donors. Eyman is accused of seri­ous vio­la­tions of Wash­ing­ton State’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure law dating […]