Category: Legislative Advocacy

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy

Washington legislators reject Arne Duncan’s demand, refuse to force schools to teach to the test

by Robert Cruickshank

Yes­ter­day the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture adjourned with­out tak­ing action on two bills that would have tight­ly linked teacher eval­u­a­tions to stu­dent test scores, despite plen­ty of evi­dence doing so is a bad idea. Leg­is­la­tors faced an enor­mous amount of pres­sure to pass these bills from U.S. Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Arne Dun­can, who threat­ened to revoke the state’s […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy

How Jay Inslee can stand up for Washington’s kids

by Robert Cruickshank

In the wake of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate’s remark­able, bipar­ti­san revolt against stan­dard­ized test­ing man­dates, the issue has rock­et­ed to the top of the state’s polit­i­cal agen­da. It was a promi­nent issue across the state yes­ter­day at the var­i­ous leg­isla­tive town halls. Edu­ca­tion reform groups are mobi­liz­ing to reverse the Sen­ate’s deci­sion, voic­ing con­cern that as […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy

Washington should follow California’s lead and resist flawed federal education demands

by Robert Cruickshank

Next week Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee will meet with U.S. Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Arne Dun­can to dis­cuss the state’s waiv­er from the require­ments of the failed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. Last year Dun­can’s depart­ment threat­ened to revoke the waiv­er unless the state leg­is­la­ture man­dat­ed that dis­tricts include stu­dent test scores in teacher eval­u­a­tions. Currently […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy

Washington State Senate revolts against teaching to the test in key vote

by Robert Cruickshank

Ever since Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don facil­i­tat­ed the coup that gave Repub­li­cans con­trol of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, true bipar­ti­san­ship in that body has been a rar­i­ty. Tom’s dis­ci­plined right-wing cau­cus have bat­tled Sen­ate Democ­rats over every­thing from repro­duc­tive rights to trans­porta­tion choic­es to the state’s con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion to ful­ly fund our pub­lic schools. […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Education, Elections, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Navy veteran Matt Isenhower announces he’s challenging Republican Andy Hill for Senate

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

The Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s effort to recap­ture the state Sen­ate got a big boost today with the announce­ment that the par­ty has found a chal­lenger to take on fresh­man Repub­li­can Andy Hill in the 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict. Hill is the Chair­man of the Sen­ate’s Ways & Means Com­mit­tee. Matt Isen­how­er, thir­­ty-three, says he’s running […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Education, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Bring the DREAM Act up for a vote, Senator! An open letter to Majority Leader Rodney Tom

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s note: Ear­li­er today, fol­low­ing the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ light­ning fast pas­sage of the DREAM Act, NPI founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor Andrew Vil­leneuve sent this mes­sage to Sen­a­tor Rod­ney Tom, who rep­re­sents the 48th Dis­trict (Belle­vue, Red­mond, Kirk­land, Med­i­na, Clyde Hill) and is — at least in name — the Major­i­ty Leader of the Washington […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Legislative Advocacy

Ending the anti-tax mantra: Boeing and the Association of Washington Business support raising taxes to help themselves

by Patrick Stickney

As the Wash­ing­ton State leg­is­la­ture enters its sev­enth spe­cial ses­sion in three years, dis­rupt­ing fall plans, meet­ings, and speak­ing appear­ances for the mem­bers of both state hous­es, the ses­sion called by Gov­er­nor Inslee deserves notice for where key play­ers in statewide bud­get and rev­enue fights are lin­ing up–mainly that Boe­ing and the Asso­ci­a­tion of Wash­ing­ton Busi­ness have come out in support […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Humor & Satire, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Public Planning

The “Tim Eyman Memorial Bridge” meme: Why it got started, why it’s taken off

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Last week, in the after­math of the col­lapse of a key span of the Inter­state 5 bridge over the Skag­it Riv­er, a friend of NPI’s (Wu Ming) sug­gest­ed in a diary on Dai­ly Kos that we begin refer­ring to the out-of-ser­vice cross­ing as the “Tim Eyman Memo­r­i­al Bridge”. We ran with the meme, cre­at­ing a […]

Posted inBreaking News, Economic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Our Environment, Policy Topics

U.S. House passes bill to take decision on Keystone XL pipeline out of president’s hands

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

By a vote of two hun­dred and forty-one to one hun­dred and sev­en­­ty-five, the U.S. House tonight opt­ed to approve a Repub­­li­­can-backed bill that essen­tial­ly seeks to give Cana­di­an petro­le­um giant Tran­sCana­da final approval to build the Key­stone XL pipeline through the Amer­i­can Mid­west (and across the bor­der into Alber­ta). Nine­teen Democ­rats sided with two […]

Posted inHealthcare, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Senseless South Carolina lawmakers approve bill that seeks to nullify Patient Protection Act

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of the Repub­­li­­can-con­trolled state House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Okla­homa, six­­ty-five mem­bers of South Car­oli­na’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed this week to approve a bill that attempts to nul­li­fy the land­mark Patient Pro­tec­tion Act with­in the bor­ders of the Pal­met­to State. The bill, H. 3101, seeks to: … ren­der null and void cer­tain unconstitutional […]

Posted inBreaking News, Education, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Special session to begin on May 13th; Inslee says budget negotiations will continue

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

A spe­cial ses­sion of the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture will begin two weeks from tomor­row in order to give law­mak­ers more time to ham­mer out a bud­get for the 2013–2015 bien­ni­um, con­sid­er a trans­porta­tion pack­age, and address pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties that Sen­ate Repub­li­cans refused to vote on, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee announced at a press con­fer­ence in the […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Technology

U.S. House endangers digital freedom by passing CISPA for the second year in a row

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Ignor­ing a veto threat from Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed today to pass Repub­li­can Con­gress­man Mike Rogers’ Cyber Intel­li­gence Shar­ing and Pro­tec­tion Act, bet­ter known as CISPA, for the sec­ond year in a row. The vote on final pas­sage, which hap­pened this morn­ing, was two hun­dred and eighty-eight to one hundred […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Public Planning

U.S. Senate’s NRA caucus blocks legislation to require background checks on more gun sales

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

A bipar­ti­san pro­pos­al to require back­ground checks on the sale of firearms at gun shows and over the Inter­net has failed to advance in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate after being suc­cess­ful­ly fil­i­bus­tered by forty-one Repub­li­cans and four Democ­rats. By a vote of fifty-four to forty-six (with Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid vot­ing nay so that […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy

Inslee and Higher Ed: Disappointing

by Patrick Stickney

The past week has not been a good one for high­er edu­ca­tion. As Gov­er­nor Inslee (look­ing back to before Novem­ber, it feels nice to call him ‘Gov­er­nor’), released his bud­get pri­or­i­ties last Thurs­day, it includ­ed a rec­om­men­da­tion for tuition to increase 3–5% (3 per­cent for region­al uni­ver­si­ties like West­ern Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, 5 per­cent for Washington […]