Category: Legislative Advocacy

Posted inAnnouncements, Elections, Legislative Advocacy, Open Government, Policy Topics

PDC to investigate Tim Eyman, associates for violating our public disclosure laws (again!)

by Andrew Villeneuve

Wash­ing­ton State’s Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion will inves­ti­gate alle­ga­tions that Tim Eyman and his asso­ciates failed to time­ly reg­is­ter a com­mit­tee for Ini­tia­tive 517 and failed to time­ly report con­tri­bu­tions and expen­di­tures for the I‑517 cam­paign, its Direc­tor of Com­pli­ance said this week. I‑517 is an ini­tia­tive to the Leg­is­la­ture that would: dou­ble the length of time that […]

Posted inEducation, Legislative Advocacy

Returning to 2/3rds rule an attack on our colleges

by Patrick Stickney

Last week when Tim Eyman’s I‑1053 was declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al there was much cheer­ing and rejoic­ing across the state of Wash­ing­ton, not least through the halls of Face­book and Twit­ter. Many of these voic­es were stu­dents at our uni­ver­si­ties, who have seen more than 1.4 bil­lion cut from our state high­er edu­ca­tion sys­tem since 2009, increased […]

Posted inBreaking News, Economic Security, Legislative Advocacy

Analysis: New Republican-backed bills would cut injured workers’ benefits

by Linda Seltzer

Last week all pre­tense of bipar­ti­san­ship in State Sen­a­tor Rod­ney Tom’s new coali­tion was aban­doned with its intro­duc­tion of five anti-labor bills pur­pose­ly intend­ed to weak­en work­er’s com­pen­sa­tion. The new cau­cus formed by Sen­a­tors Tom and Shel­don and the Repub­li­cans is try­ing to rush these bills through to pas­sage. A floor vote is expect­ed in […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Education, Legislative Advocacy

Students won’t stay silent on high tuition

by Patrick Stickney

I lob­bied on Mon­day. That may not seem like much, see­ing as hun­dreds of peo­ple did the same thing on the exact same day. But see­ing as I’m a stu­dent at a uni­ver­si­ty, for some, it might be a big thing indeed. I was there with 59 oth­er West­ern Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents who met with more than 60% percent […]

Posted inElections, Legislative Advocacy

Tired of destructive, self-serving Eyman initiatives? Help us stop Tim’s profit machine

by Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, at the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Annex in Olympia, Tim Eyman and his pals Eddie Agazarm and Paul Jacob showed up to deliv­er what they said were 345,000 sig­na­tures for Ini­tia­tive 517, Eyman’s lat­est scheme, which is intend­ed to make it eas­i­er and cheap­er for Tim Eyman to qual­i­fy ini­tia­tives for the ballot […]

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

U.S. House passes H.R. 8, reinstating tax cuts and extending aid for the unemployed

by Andrew Villeneuve

By a vote of two hun­dred and fifty sev­en to one hun­dred and six­­ty-sev­en, the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has passed H.R. 8, mak­ing per­ma­nent the Bush tax cuts for those mak­ing less than $400,000 a year, extend­ing aid to the une­ployed, and delay­ing the auto­mat­ic reduc­tions to fed­er­al expen­di­tures that were set to […]

Posted inHolidays, Legislative Advocacy

New laws for 2013, Washington State edition

by Andrew Villeneuve

New Year’s Day is more than just a fes­tive hol­i­day and a turn­ing point on the Gre­go­ri­an cal­en­dar. It’s also the occa­sion when many laws and admin­is­tra­tive rules go into effect, as pre­scribed by our Leg­is­la­ture. Here’s a sum­ma­ry of some of the new laws and rules tak­ing effect in Wash­ing­ton today: The min­i­mum wage in […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Holidays, Legislative Advocacy

Happy New Year: Welcome 2013!

by Andrew Villeneuve

2013 has begun! On behalf of the team at NPI, I’d like to wish all of our read­ers, donors, and vol­un­teers a hap­py, healthy, and pros­per­ous new year. 2013 holds spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for us, because it is NPI’s tenth year. We’ll be cel­e­brat­ing this remark­able mile­stone that you’ve helped make pos­si­ble all year long — online, at […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Open Government, Party Politics, Policy Topics

Rodney Tom to constituents: “I believe my credentials as a Democrat are rock solid”

by Andrew Villeneuve

Since announc­ing on Mon­day that he has decid­ed to join with Tim Shel­don in engi­neer­ing a new Repub­li­can major­i­ty in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, Med­i­na’s Rod­ney Tom has been field­ing phone calls and emails from unhap­py Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­stituents in the 48th Dis­trict who have told him in no uncer­tain terms that they regard his actions […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy, Party Politics

Rodney Tom, majority leader of Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon, claims Lisa Brown’s office

by Andrew Villeneuve

Rod­ney Tom, the for­mer Repub­li­can turned Demo­c­rat turned de fac­to Repub­li­can, admit­ted today while talk­ing to the Capi­tol press corps that he’s “expect­ing” to take over cur­rent Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Lisa Brown’s cor­ner office in the Leg­isla­tive Build­ing, even though he will be the cham­ber’s “major­i­ty leader” in name only. Tom is evi­dent­ly eager to get his […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy, Party Politics

Republicans seize control of state Senate with the help of Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon

by Andrew Villeneuve

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans announced today they have for­mal­ly reached a deal with Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don (of the 48th and 35th Dis­tricts, respec­tive­ly) to run Wash­ing­ton’s Sen­ate for the next two years, which means that Democ­rats will be in the minor­i­ty for the first time since the 2006 ses­sion. At a press con­fer­ence in Olympia, […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Democrats speak out following Republican takeover of Washington State Senate

by Andrew Villeneuve

As we report­ed ear­li­er this evening, the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, act­ing in con­cert with three Democ­rats in Name Only (Jim Kas­ta­ma, Rod­ney Tom, and Tim Shel­don) have seized con­trol of the floor of the Leg­is­la­ture’s upper cham­ber, effec­tive­ly turn­ing the remain­der of the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus into the minor­i­ty par­ty with a week left […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

House Speaker Frank Chopp blasts Senate Republicans for “abuse of power”

by Andrew Villeneuve

Wash­ing­ton State House Speak­er Frank Chopp, who rep­re­sents Seat­tl’s 43rd Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict along with Jamie Ped­er­sen, has just issued a state­ment blast­ing Sen­ate Repub­li­cans and their three col­lab­o­ra­tors (who call them­selves Democ­rats) for hijack­ing the Leg­is­la­ture’s upper cham­ber and advanc­ing their own back­room bud­get to the floor for imme­di­ate adop­tion. Here is what he has […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Marriage equality gains twenty-fifth vote in state Senate; Haugen to vote yes

by Andrew Villeneuve

Great news this after­noon: We final­ly have the votes to pass mar­riage equal­i­ty in the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture! Min­utes ago, Sen­a­tor Mary Mar­garet Hau­gen — who had pre­vi­ous­ly said she was only will­ing to sup­port putting the issue on the bal­lot for a pub­lic vote — reversed her posi­tion and decid­ed to join the forces […]