Monthly Archives: July 2017

Posted inElections

Turnout abysmal across Washington State with twenty-four hours left to vote

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er this month, bal­lots for the August Top Two elec­tion (which con­cludes tomor­row) were mailed to 3,850,467 vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton State. Regret­tably, only 541,577 have been returned thus far… an abysmal turnout rate of just 14.1%. No coun­ty elec­tions divi­sion has seen a major­i­ty of bal­lots issued come back, although some small coun­ties have had […]

Posted inBreaking News

Rodney Tom is wrong: Split government isn’t serving Washington State well at all

by Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, man­age­ment at The Seat­tle Times tac­it­ly admit­ted they could­n’t bring them­selves to endorse the cam­paign of Repub­li­can Jiny­oung Lee Englund, who is run­ning to take over from appointee Dino Rossi in the 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict. In the appar­ent place of an endorse­ment of Jiny­oung, the Times today pub­lished an op-ed by ex-Sen­a­­tor Rod­ney Tom […]

Posted inLitigation

Judge denies Eyman associate’s motion to dismiss campaign finance enforcement suit

by Andrew Villeneuve

Tim Eyman’s asso­ciates William Agazarm and Cit­i­zen Solu­tions will remain defen­dants in a $2.1 mil­lion cam­paign finance enforce­ment law­suit against Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry, Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge James Dixon ruled today. Agazarm and Cit­i­zen Solu­tions had asked Dixon to dis­miss the law­suit against them and award their lawyer Mark Lamb (who also rep­re­sents Eyman) attor­ney’s fees. […]

Posted inBreaking News, Healthcare, Policy Topics

Trumpcuts defeated again as John McCain casts decisive vote against “skinny repeal”

by Andrew Villeneuve

Mil­lions of Amer­i­cans have once again won a reprieve from los­ing their health­care cov­er­age after the nar­row fail­ure of Mitch McConnel­l’s lat­est scheme to evis­cer­ate the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate. By a vote of fifty-one to forty-nine, the Sen­ate reject­ed McConnel­l’s Amend­ment No. 667, the lat­est iter­a­tion of Trump­cuts. Amend­ment No. […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee protects transit investments in Washington

by Andrew Villeneuve

Bil­lions of dol­lars in sore­ly need­ed fund­ing for mass tran­sit and infra­struc­ture projects in Wash­ing­ton State will be includ­ed in the Fis­cal Year 2018 Trans­porta­tion, Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment Appro­pri­a­tions bill now mov­ing to the full Unit­ed States Sen­ate, Pat­ty Mur­ray’s office announced today. “Today, a bipar­ti­san group of sen­a­tors came togeth­er to reject [Don­ald] […]

Posted inMedia & Culture

Book Review: Lynda V. Mapes’ Witness Tree makes for pleasant summertime reading

by David A Johnson

If human­i­ty does­n’t imme­di­ate­ly reduce our emis­sions of car­bon diox­ide, methane, and oth­er cli­­mate-war­m­ing air pol­lu­tants, glob­al tem­per­a­tures could rise by as much as 11.5 degrees Fahren­heit by the end of the cen­tu­ry, accord­ing to the Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change’s most pes­simistic fore­casts. For some rea­son, this knowl­edge isn’t as fright­en­ing to us as […]

Posted inElections

Jinyoung Englund vs. Jinyoung Englund: Past tweets contradict candidate’s mailer claims

by Andrew Villeneuve

With Wash­ing­ton’s 2017 Top Two elec­tion set to con­clude in less than ten days, the fight for con­trol of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate has been heat­ing up. Vot­ers across the 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict (Kirk­land, Red­mond, Wood­inville, Sam­m­mish) — who will decide which par­ty con­trols the Sen­ate in 2018 — are now receiv­ing mail­ers for and against […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy, Our Environment, Policy Topics

Voters in Washington are enthusiastic about putting a price on pollution, NPI poll finds

by Andrew Villeneuve

Near­ly three in five Wash­ing­ton vot­ers agree it’s time for the state to put a price on pol­lu­tion to fund a social­ly respon­si­ble tran­si­tion to clean ener­gy, accord­ing to a sur­vey con­duct­ed last month by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for NPI. 59% of like­ly 2018 vot­ers sur­veyed agree that Wash­ing­ton State should reduce emis­sions of air pol­lu­tants like […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy

Washingtonians still want a capital gains tax to fund public education, NPI poll confirms

by Andrew Villeneuve

A major­i­ty of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans remain sup­port­ive of levy­ing a cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy to ensure our state meets its para­mount duty of pro­vid­ing an amply fund­ed edu­ca­tion for all chil­dren resid­ing with­in its bor­ders, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s most recent statewide sur­vey has con­firmed. 57% of like­ly 2018 Wash­ing­ton vot­ers sur­veyed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy

Republican incompetence jeopardizing 2017–2019 capital budget for Washington State

by Andrew Villeneuve

State leg­is­la­tors may have been able to avoid a state gov­ern­ment shut­down by pass­ing an oper­at­ing bud­get on June 30th, but they are only hours away from fac­ing the con­se­quences of fail­ing to pass a 2017–2019 cap­i­tal bud­get, which will include lay­offs, project delays, and the con­tin­ued denial of an amply fund­ed pub­lic edu­ca­tion to […]

Posted inHealthcare, Policy Topics

PPA repeal effort fails: Millions of Americans spared (for now) from losing their healthcare

by Andrew Villeneuve

“This is an epic fail. This is his­toric. This is sev­en years of argu­ing going down the drain.” — Repub­li­can pun­dit Charles Krautham­mer Repub­li­can efforts to evis­cer­ate or sim­ply get rid of the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act have run into a series of fatal road­blocks in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, which means mil­lions of […]

Posted inElections

Meet the new progressive government of British Columbia, led by Premier John Horgan

by Andrew Villeneuve

Today, a new pro­gres­sive gov­ern­ment was sworn in to over­see Wash­ing­ton and Ida­ho’s north­ern neigh­bor of British Colum­bia, Canada’s third largest province. Led by John Hor­gan, it con­sists of eleven men and eleven women from the New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP), the more pro­gres­sive of B.C.‘s two major polit­i­cal par­ties. The NDP is return­ing to power […]