Category: Party Politics

Posted inElections, Party Politics

Senate backs Kim Wyman’s irresponsible plan to alter Washington’s presidential primary

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

A bill that would auto­mat­i­cal­ly replace Wash­ing­ton’s 2016 pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry with a mean­ing­less, fan­tas­ti­cal­ly expen­sive pres­i­den­tial straw poll if the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty refus­es to begin using the pri­ma­ry to allo­cate its nation­al con­ven­tion del­e­gates passed the Sen­ate with ease yes­ter­day evening fol­low­ing a bewil­der­ing floor debate. By a vote of thir­­ty-six to twelve, the Senate […]

Posted inElections, Party Politics

Roger Freeman’s former legislative aide joins Republican Party to run for Legislature

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of his idol Mark Milos­cia, Fed­er­al Way City Coun­cilmem­ber and for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive assis­tant Mar­tin Moore announced today that he is join­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty and will run against Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Car­ol Gre­go­ry for the seat held by Free­man pri­or to his death last Octo­ber. Moore, thir­ty, belonged to the […]

Posted inParty Politics

Actions speak louder than words, and Tim Sheldon’s actions make him a Republican

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Aside from Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ adop­tion of a set of rules con­tain­ing an unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic, uncon­sti­tu­tion­al pro­ce­dur­al two-thirds vote require­ment for bills propos­ing new rev­enue sources, the main news being report­ed out of the state­house by Wash­ing­ton news­pa­pers on Mon­day was the sur­prise elec­tion of Pam Roach to the office of Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore. As we had […]

Posted inElections, Party Politics

Pacific Northwest unlikely to gain U.S. House seats in 2020 reapportionment, data indicates

by Richard Champion

Short­ly before Christ­mas, the Unit­ed States Cen­sus Bureau released its 2014 State and Nation­al Pop­u­la­tion Esti­mates. Strik­ing­ly, the data released by the Cen­sus Bureau shows that the Unit­ed States’ pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing at slow­est rate since 1937. There is a par­al­lel: Then, as now, we were wit­ness­ing a com­bi­na­tion of recov­ery from a weak economy […]

Posted inBreaking News, Party Politics, Public Service

King County Council unanimously backs Carol Gregory for 30th District House vacancy

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

After speak­ing with all three of the can­di­dates nom­i­nat­ed last week by the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to suc­ceed the late Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Roger Free­man, the King Coun­ty Coun­cil this after­noon unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to back Car­ol Gre­go­ry (the par­ty’s first choice) to fill the vacan­cy in the 30th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict. Because the 30th is a joint […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections, Party Politics, Public Service

Eric Cantor to resign as House Majority Leader within weeks as David Brat celebrates

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Fol­low­ing his defeat in last night’s Vir­ginia pri­ma­ry, House Major­i­ty Leader Eric Can­tor has decid­ed to step down as Major­i­ty Leader in advance of the end of his term in office, set­ting off a scram­ble for his posi­tion between mul­ti­ple Repub­li­cans. In the cau­cus that holds the House major­i­ty, the posi­tion of Major­i­ty Leader is […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections, Party Politics

Oregon Republicans choose Monica Wehby as Jeff Merkley’s November opponent; Dennis Richardson to face Governor John Kitzhaber

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

As in sev­er­al states on the East Coast, tonight is pri­ma­ry night in two of the three states in the Pacif­ic North­west: Ore­gon and Ida­ho. Vot­ers belong­ing to or iden­ti­fy­ing with the coun­try’s major polit­i­cal par­ties are choos­ing the nom­i­nees who will go on to the autumn gen­er­al elec­tion as the par­ties’ stan­dard bear­ers. In […]

Posted inBreaking News, Party Politics, Public Service

Are Senate Republicans — including Rodney Tom — telling top nonpartisan staff to get lost?

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

This is dis­turb­ing news. From Andrew Gar­ber at The Seat­tle Times: Sen­ate Democ­rats raised con­cerns Fri­day that the GOP [Republican]-led major­i­ty in [the] Sen­ate is get­ting rid of top non-par­ti­san com­mit­tee staff man­agers. Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Sharon Nel­son, D‑Maury Island, said it was her under­stand­ing there was pres­sure from the GOP [Republican]-led major­i­ty cau­cus to […]

Posted inParty Politics, Public Service

U.S. Senate’s Pacific Northwest delegation votes along party lines to reform the filibuster

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

As men­tioned, Democ­rats set up a his­toric vote today on curb­ing the fil­i­buster, which Repub­li­cans have been using to pre­vent the Unit­ed States Sen­ate from con­sid­er­ing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s exec­u­tive and judi­cial nom­i­nees. The vote was a suc­cess, with fifty Democ­rats and two inde­pen­dents back­ing the rules change. Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid orches­trat­ed the vote […]

Posted inBreaking News, Party Politics, Public Service

It’s done! Senate Democrats have — at long last — voted to implement filibuster reform

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

After years of talk, fil­i­buster reform has final­ly become a real­i­ty. Today, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate took a huge and momen­tous step towards becom­ing a more demo­c­ra­t­ic body. By a vote of fifty-two to forty-eight, sen­a­tors vot­ed to change Sen­ate rules to abol­ish fil­i­busters of exec­u­tive and judi­cial nom­i­na­tions, except Supreme Court nom­i­na­tions. The move […]

Posted inBreaking News, Party Politics, Public Service

Sharon Nelson chosen to succeed Ed Murray as new Senate Democratic Leader

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Sen­a­tor Sharon Nel­son (D‑34th Dis­trict, Mau­ry Island) has been select­ed by her col­leagues to serve as the new leader of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate Democ­rats, the cau­cus announced today. She suc­ceeds Ed Mur­ray, who, as of next Tues­day, will offi­cial­ly be the May­or-elect of the City of Seat­tle. Nel­son, six­­ty-two, rep­re­sents West Seat­tle, Burien, Vashon […]

Posted inParty Politics, Public Service

Filibuster reform might really, actually, finally be on the verge of happening in U.S. Senate

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Great news from Greg Sar­gent: With Sen­ate Repub­li­cans block­ing a third Oba­ma nom­i­na­tion to the pow­er­ful D.C. Cir­cuit Court of Appeals, a senior Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­er­ship aide tells me Reid is now all but cer­tain to move to change the Sen­ate rules by sim­ple major­i­ty — doing away with the fil­i­buster on exec­u­tive and judi­cial nominations, […]

Posted inParty Politics, Public Service

Obama excoriates hypocritical Senate Republicans following today’s filibuster

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er today, for the third time in three weeks, Repub­li­can Mitch McConnell and his cau­cus refused to allow the Unit­ed States Sen­ate to pro­ceed with con­sid­er­ing anoth­er of Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s nom­i­nees to fill one of the vacan­cies on the Unit­ed States Court of Appeals for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia Cir­cuit. The unsuc­cess­ful vote on the […]

Posted inParty Politics, Public Service

House Speaker Tom Foley: 1929–2013

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, we lost a leg­end in Wash­ing­ton and U.S. pol­i­tics. Tom Foley, who served the Ever­green State with dis­tinc­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives for sev­er­al decades, died of com­pli­ca­tions from mul­ti­ple strokes in the ear­ly hours of the day today, his fam­i­ly has announced. He was eighty-four. Foley, the last Demo­c­rat to represent […]