Monthly Archives: April 2023

Posted inPolicy Topics

Washington’s DNR teams up with American Forests, City of Seattle to advance tree equity

by Andrew Villeneuve

The part­ner­ship, which will be known as the Wash­ing­ton Tree Equi­ty Col­lab­o­ra­tive, “will engage cities, com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions and stake­hold­ers dur­ing the next three years to build rig­or­ous and inclu­sive urban forestry pro­grams,” the Depart­ment says. It will make use of Amer­i­can Forests’ Tree Equi­ty Score, a tool freely avail­able to the pub­lic that mea­sures tree canopy cov­er in an increas­ing num­ber of cities and towns along socioe­co­nom­ic lines.

Posted inEvents

It’s Chicago: 2024 Democratic National Convention to be held in the Windy City

by Andrew Villeneuve

“The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion is return­ing to the Mid­west, a crit­i­cal Demo­c­ra­t­ic strong­hold: Illi­nois along with Wis­con­sin, Michi­gan, and Min­neso­ta – part of the ‘blue wall’ – were cru­cial to the 2020 vic­to­ry of Pres­i­dent Biden and Vice Pres­i­dent Har­ris and to Democ­rats’ suc­cess in the 2022 midterm elec­tions,” the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee said in a statement. 

Posted inLegislative Advocacy

Washington State House of Representatives amends and approves police pursuit bill

by Andrew Villeneuve

A bipar­ti­san major­i­ty of the Wash­ing­ton State House has endorsed updates to the law gov­ern­ing police pur­suits, low­er­ing the stan­dard for police offi­cers to insti­gate a chase from prob­a­ble cause to rea­son­able sus­pi­cion while attach­ing a num­ber of new con­di­tions to police depart­ments’ use of that pur­suit authority.

Posted inPolicy Topics

Firearm fanatics remind us that they believe guns should have more rights than people

by Andrew Villeneuve

For firearm fanat­ics, those “unalien­able Rights” of peo­ple are a sec­ondary con­cern. More impor­tant to them than lives, lib­er­ty, or the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness is the man­u­fac­ture, sale, import, and avail­abil­i­ty of guns. It’s as if the guns are alive. The con­cern these firearm fanat­ics have for guns is real­ly something. 

Posted inLegislative Advocacy

VICTORY! Washington State House passes NPI’s bill to repeal Tim Eyman’s push polls

by Andrew Villeneuve

On April 7th, the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed 54–43 to pass the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish what Eyman calls “advi­so­ry votes,” but which are real­ly push polls… prej­u­di­cial­ly word­ed fake bal­lot mea­sures that inter­rupt the act of vot­ing and hin­der elec­toral participation. 

Posted inPolicy Topics

Senate sends My Health, My Data Act back to WA House with strong private right of action

by Andrew Villeneuve

By a vote of 27–21, the Sen­ate vot­ed to pass an amend­ed ver­sion of House Bill 1155, prime spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Van­dana Slat­ter (D‑48th Dis­trict: Belle­vue, Red­mond, Kirk­land, Med­i­na, the Points com­mu­ni­ties) that has the sup­port of Slat­ter, Sen­ate prime spon­sor Man­ka Dhin­gra (D‑45th Dis­trict: Red­mond, Kirk­land, Sam­mamish, Duvall), Fer­gu­son, and advo­cates like NPI.

Posted inPolicy Topics

More than three-fourths of Washington voters support the proposed My Health, My Data Act

by Andrew Villeneuve

76% of 874 vot­ers inter­viewed from March 7th-8th, 2023 by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling  for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute said they were sup­port­ive of block­ing health track­ing apps and adver­tis­ers from col­lect­ing and sell­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans’ health data with­out their con­sent, bar­ring loca­tion-spe­cif­ic tar­get­ing of peo­ple who vis­it repro­duc­tive and gen­der affirm­ing health­care facil­i­ties, and requir­ing com­pa­nies to main­tain and pub­lish a pri­va­cy pol­i­cy for people’s health data.