Amtrak will restore a second daily round-trip train service between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., as of March 7th, and promises to boost daily trips between Seattle and Portland from four to six come fall, according to a letter sent to the transportation departments of Washington and Oregon.
Monthly Archives: January 2023
Posted inLegislative Advocacy
NPI-requested bill to repeal Eyman’s push polls moves out of Senate State Government
After getting a hearing on the second day of session earlier this week, the bill was reported out of the Senate State Government & Elections Committee with a “do pass” majority recommendation.
Posted inLegislative Advocacy
McCarthy’s uneasy majority tries to give rich tax cheats a gift as its first legislative act
“Only this extreme Republican majority would use its first bill of the 118th Congress to embolden tax cheats and cut services for working Americans: For decades, Republicans have been cutting necessary resources from the IRS,” Representative Suzan DelBene, D‑Washington, a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement.
Posted inLegislative Advocacy
Governor Inslee delivers first in-person State of the State Address since pandemic’s onset
Read NPI’s recap of the annual address delivered by Washington Governor Jay Inslee to a joint session of the Legislature on the second day of the 2023 legislative session.
Posted inElections
NPI to Legislature: Let’s make voting in WA easier by abolishing Eyman’s “advisory votes”
Read the written version of the testimony prepared by NPI’s founder and executive director in support of NPI’s 2023 bill to repeal Tim Eyman’s “advisory votes.”
Posted inLegislative Advocacy
Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (January 3rd-7th)
The week’s only consequential vote was the fifteenth attempt to elect a Speaker of the House, which ended in a Pyrrhic victory for Republican Kevin McCarthy.
Posted inPublic Service
View the official portraits of the Pacific Northwest’s three new members of Congress
The Pacific Northwest has three new members of Congress who have not served in the institution before: Marie Gluesesenkamp Perez of Washington, Andrea Salinas of Oregon, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer, also of Oregon. Check out their official portraits and biographies.
Posted inPublic Service
A Pyrrhic victory for Kevin McCarthy: He has finally won… the worst job in U.S. politics
McCarthy will be the weakest Speaker of the House in memory. He’ll wield little real power and will likely lurch from crisis to crisis as he struggles to hold together a narrow majority full of people who don’t like each other and don’t trust each other.
Posted inParty Politics
Tina Podlodowski to retire this month as Chair of the Washington State Democratic Party
Podlodowski has been chair for six years. She took over from Jaxon Ravens at the end of January 2017, at a time when Democrats across the country were still reeling from the disastrous 2016 presidential election.
Posted inElections
Right wing group “Let’s Go Washington” fails to qualify any of its 11 statewide initiatives
A right wing group formed and primarily funded by Republican donor Brian K. Heywood of Redmond has admitted defeat in its efforts to qualify a batch of eleven right wing initiatives to the 2023 Washington State Legislature.
Posted inPublic Service
Top Republican Kevin McCarthy’s bid for Speaker fails on first day of 118th Congress
McCarthy came up short three times, a sign that Republican have brought chaos rather than control to the House. The defection of twenty far-right Republicans not only blocked McCarthy from the Speaker’s chair but prevented the House from organizing.
Posted inPublic Service
Senator Patty Murray sworn in as the first woman U.S. Senate President Pro Tempore
Washington’s senior U.S. Senator has begun her sixth term. She’s also assuming two new important responsibilities: U.S. Senate President Pro Tempore and Appropriations Chair.
Posted inMedia & Culture
Dori Monson: 1961–2022
Longtime right wing talk radio host Dori Monson died suddenly this weekend of an unspecified condition after being hospitalized, his employer Bonneville Seattle announced on its website today. Monson was sixty-one.
Posted inHumor & Satire
Banished Words for 2023
Read Lake Superior State University’s forty-eighth List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness — plus NPI’s additions!