Larsen will succeed outgoing committee chairman, Oregon’s Representative Peter DeFazio, who is retiring after serving thirty-six years in Congress. He beat out D.C.‘s Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton for the committee’s top Democratic spot. Larsen has served as chairman of the panel’s Aviation Subcommittee.
Author Archives: Joel Connelly
Joel Connelly is a Northwest Progressive Institute contributor who has reported on multiple presidential campaigns and from many national political conventions. During his career at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, he interviewed Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and George H.W. Bush. He has covered Canada from Trudeau to Trudeau, written about the fiscal meltdown of the nuclear energy obsessed WPPSS consortium (pronounced "Whoops") and public lands battles dating back to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.
Posted inElections
Democrats champion “porcupine” strategy to keep Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Congress
Gluesenkamp Perez faces an overarching task. She needs to secure reelection to continue representing Southwest Washington. Upset winners have targets on their backs when they seek a second term. Being proactive is the key to survival.
Posted inPolicy Topics
House Republicans vow to “unleash American energy” as big oil pipeline spill hits Kansas
The pipeline, owned by TC Energy, carries up to 600,000 barrels a day of heavy oil from the tar stands of northern Alberta to Cumberland, Oklahoma. This isn’t the first time it has ruptured.
Posted inElections
Herschel Walker’s loss in Georgia infuriates Laura Ingraham and fellow Fox personalities
When the Associated Press called the race, Ingraham did not receive the news well, having spent more than a whole season predicting a “red tsunami” would sweep the Senate. “I’m pissed tonight, frankly,” said the host who spent autumn predicting the election would yield a red tsunami.
Posted inPolicy Topics
2022 Republican electoral losses and Trump legal defeats spur ultra MAGA infighting
The hard right has taken a hard drubbing of late. Its election deniers were denied wins from seats in legislatures, to secretary of state races, to contests for the Senate. That’s led to unexpected recriminations.
Posted inElections
Lawsuit contends Washington’s signature-based ballot verification is unconstitutional
A lawsuit filed last week in King County Superior Court is challenging the “signature matching” process used by election officials across the Evergreen State that results in tens of thousands of Washington voters having their ballots rejected and being disenfranchised every election cycle.
Posted inElections
Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Mary Peltola win reelection, in double defeat for Donald Trump
Trump had endorsed and campaigned in Alaska for Murkowski’s Republican challenger Kelly Tshibaka, and for Sarah Palin’s special and general election bids for the state’s at-large House seat. Palin lost to U.S. Representative Mary Peltola for the second time in several weeks.
Posted inElections
How American women caught up with Mitch McConnell and obstructionist Republicans
While the price they paid is steep, American women have delivered a comeuppance to Mitch McConnell. The Senate Republican leader sowed the wind in February of 2016. He is reaping the whirlwind in 2022.
Posted inElections
Lessons from the biggest House upset in the country: The victory of Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Washington’s 3rd District
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has put a different hue on the 3rd District, scoring the most surprising Democratic upset of any U.S. House race in the country.
Posted inElections
The 2022 midterm results are yielding new, battle-tested Democratic leaders
From New England to the Great Lakes States to the Southwest, voters backed Democratic candidates with records of taking on Donald Trump and ultra MAGA forces.
Posted inPolicy Topics
Logging of British Columbia’s old growth forests has declined, but critics say provincial government is still allowing harmful clearcuts
British Columbia’s government proudly announced this week that logging of old-growth forests in the province, once nicknamed “Brazil of the north” for its vast clearcuts, has declined to a record low in the past six years. Not low enough, critics responded.
Posted inElections
U.S. Representative Kim Schrier, Republican challenger Matt Larkin debate in Ellensburg
Read NPI’s recap of the only debate between the 2022 candidates for Congress in Washington State’s 8th Congressional District.
Posted inElections
David Eby set to take over from John Horgan as British Columbia’s next Premier
David Eby, forty-six, will be sworn in as British Columbia’s thirty-seventh premier at Government House in Victoria on November 18th, culminating the trickiest political surgery in a parliamentary system of government – the head transplant.
Posted inElections
Senator Patty Murray faces her Republican opponent Tiffany Smiley on the debate stage
The Republicans have fielded a Senate candidate well drilled in the party’s talking points, in poll-tested themes, but vague on specifics of what she would do with the job. Murray has grown a little less accessible, but carries a clear sense of what she is doing and why. The debate was not a hurdle and she did not stumble.