NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monthly Archives: July 2017

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

Excerpt: 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 […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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Rodney Tom is wrong: Split government isn’t serving Washington State well at all

Excerpt: 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 […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News
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Judge denies Eyman associate’s motion to dismiss campaign finance enforcement suit

Excerpt: 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. […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Litigation
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Trumpcuts defeated again as John McCain casts decisive vote against “skinny repeal”

Excerpt: 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. […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Healthcare, Policy Topics
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U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee protects transit investments in Washington

Excerpt: 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] […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Policy Topics, Public Planning
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U.S. Senate votes to advance Trumpcuts, with Mike Pence casting the tiebreaking vote

Excerpt: The United States Senate has voted by the narrowest of margins to begin considering legislation with unknown provisions that would eviscerate the Patient Protection Act signed into law by President Obama seven years ago.
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Healthcare, Policy Topics
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Book Review: Lynda V. Mapes’ Witness Tree makes for pleasant summertime reading

Excerpt: 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 […]
Written by:David A Johnson
Categories:Media & Culture
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Jinyoung Englund vs. Jinyoung Englund: Past tweets contradict candidate’s mailer claims

Excerpt: 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 […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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Voters in Washington are enthusiastic about putting a price on pollution, NPI poll finds

Excerpt: 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 […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Legislative Advocacy, Our Environment, Policy Topics
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Washingtonians still want a capital gains tax to fund public education, NPI poll confirms

Excerpt: 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 […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Legislative Advocacy
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Republican incompetence jeopardizing 2017–2019 capital budget for Washington State

Excerpt: 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 […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Legislative Advocacy
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U.S. Representative Suzan DelBene to speak at NPI’s Fourteenth Anniversary Picnic

Excerpt: We are delighted to announce that U.S. Representative Suzan DelBene will be one of our featured Summer Anniversary Picnic speakers this year. Suzan has ably represented Washington's 1st Congressional District in our nation's capital since January of 2013.
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Announcements, Events
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PPA repeal effort fails: Millions of Americans spared (for now) from losing their healthcare

Excerpt: “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 […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Healthcare, Policy Topics
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Meet the new progressive government of British Columbia, led by Premier John Horgan

Excerpt: 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 […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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