Category: Open Government

Posted inElections, Open Government, Policy Topics

Déjà vu: Unmasking of Tim Eyman’s deceptions leads to media field day

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, Sep­tem­ber 21st, 2015, felt a lot like Feb­ru­ary 5th, 2002. That was the day that peo­ple all over Wash­ing­ton State woke up to the news that Tim Eyman had con­fessed to tak­ing over a hun­dred and fifty thou­sand dol­lars of cam­paign funds for his own per­son­al use while false­ly claim­ing he was work­ing as […]

Posted inElections, Litigation, Live Coverage, Open Government, Policy Topics

Worth noting: Washington State’s elected justices can’t personally solicit campaign cash

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

On Tues­day, The Seat­tle Times ran a col­umn from Dan­ny West­neat titled “The trou­ble with union dona­tions, school cas­es”, which expressed dis­com­fort over the fact that the Wash­ing­ton Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion has pre­vi­ous­ly donat­ed mon­ey to the cam­paigns of sev­er­al of the jus­tices who now sit on our state Supreme Court. Almost from the moment that […]

Posted inElections, Open Government, Policy Topics

Tim Eyman’s paid signature drive for I‑1366 is done — so why is he still fundraising for it?

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

For the past four days, ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman has been send­ing out dai­ly emails ask­ing his fol­low­ers to give gen­er­ous­ly so he can make a final pay­ment to his asso­ciates to fin­ish the sig­na­ture dri­ve for Ini­tia­tive 1366, his lat­est attempt to sab­o­tage Wash­ing­ton’s cher­ished tra­di­tion of major­i­ty rule. I‑1366, as reg­u­lar read­ers will recall, […]

Posted inOpen Government, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Maria Cantwell, Ron Wyden vote to fast-track Trans-Pacific Partnership in Senate Finance

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Deeply dis­ap­point­ing news to share tonight: So-called “fast-track” leg­is­la­tion that would pre­vent Con­gress from con­sid­er­ing amend­ments to pri­or to a future vote on rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship is mov­ing for­ward after the U.S. Sen­ate’s Finance Com­mit­tee vot­ed twen­ty to six to advance it. Among the twen­ty sen­a­tors who vot­ed in favor were Wash­ing­ton’s Maria […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Elections, Open Government, Policy Topics

Federal grand jury returns ten count indictment of State Auditor Troy Kelley

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

State Audi­tor Troy Kel­ley has been indict­ed by a fed­er­al grand jury for fil­ing false tax returns, mak­ing false dec­la­ra­tions, obstruct­ing jus­tice, and pos­sess­ing stolen prop­er­ty, the Unit­ed States Attor­ney for West­ern Wash­ing­ton announced today. The ten count indict­ment was returned by a jury in the U.S. Dis­trict Court in Seat­tle. Kel­ley is due to […]

Posted inElections, Open Government, Policy Topics

Hearing on SB 5375 turns into The Pam Roach Show — with special guest Tim Eyman

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, as some read­ers may have heard on Twit­ter, I made a spe­cial trip down to Olympia with the inten­tion of tes­ti­fy­ing in favor of Sen­ate Bill 5375, one of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s pri­or­i­ty bills for this ses­sion. I was hop­ing to be able to explain to the Sen­ate Gov­ern­ment Oper­a­tions and Security […]

Posted inElections, Open Government, Policy Topics

SB 5375 would bring needed accountability to Washington’s signature gathering industry

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing are the remarks I pre­pared as the basis for my spo­ken tes­ti­mo­ny in favor of SB 5375. This bill was sup­posed to be heard by the Sen­ate Gov­ern­ment Oper­a­tions and Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee today. I nev­er got a chance to tes­ti­fy in favor of SB 5375 because com­mit­tee chair Pam Roach refused […]

Posted inBreaking News, Litigation, Open Government, Policy Topics

House Republicans authorize John Boehner to file baseless lawsuit against President Obama

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

John Boehn­er and his cau­cus con­tin­ued their polit­i­cal the­atrics on a grand scale today by forc­ing the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to vote on a res­o­lu­tion autho­riz­ing John Boehn­er to ini­ti­ate lit­i­ga­tion against Barack Oba­ma for fail­ing to prop­er­ly dis­charge his duties as Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. All but five Republicans […]

Posted inElections, Open Government, Policy Topics

Republican Party trying to drive down support for Matt Isenhower with attack mailers targeting 45th’s Democratic voters

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

In an appar­ent attempt to make the high-pro­­file con­test between incum­bent Repub­li­can Andy Hill and his Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Matt Isen­how­er look less com­pet­i­tive, the Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus (of which Andy Hill is a mem­ber) has begun send­ing out attack mail­ers to Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers in the 45th Dis­trict, try­ing to dis­cred­it Matt Isen­how­er by claim­ing he […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Economic Security, Education, Healthcare, Live Coverage, Open Government, Our Environment, Policy Topics, Public Planning, Technology, World Commmunity

LIVE from San Jose: Ask the Leader!

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Good after­noon from San Jose! Our morn­ing ses­sions are now over, and it’s on to our lunchtime keynote: Ask the Leader with House Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Nan­cy Pelosi. This is for­mer (and hope­ful­ly future) Speak­er Pelosi’s third appear­ance at Net­roots Nation. She pre­vi­ous­ly took ques­tions at NN ’08 in Austin and NN ’10 in Las Vegas. I’m […]

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

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

Andrew Villeneuveby 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 inBreaking News, Economic Security, Open Government, Policy Topics

UNCONSTITUTIONAL! State Supreme Court strikes down Tim Eyman’s two-thirds scheme!

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

OH, HAPPY DAY! In a 6–3 deci­sion released only min­utes ago, the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court final­ly ren­dered a momen­tous ver­dict in League of Edu­ca­tion Vot­ers et al. v. State of Wash­ing­ton, et. al, find­ing the two-thirds require­ment at the heart of Tim Eyman’s I‑601 clones — also present in I‑601 itself — to be unconstitutional. […]

Posted inBreaking News, Open Government, Public Service

Alexandria police arrest Idaho Senator Mike Crapo for driving under the influence

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

But not to wor­ry, we hear you can be for­giv­en for dri­ving drunk (or, in Lar­ry Craig’s case, solic­it­ing sex in an air­port bath­room) if you’re a Repub­li­can: Police in Alexan­dria, Vir­gina  said the three-term sen­a­tor from Bon­neville Coun­ty failed field sobri­ety tests after an offi­cer saw Crapo’s vehi­cle run a red light and pulled […]

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”

Andrew Villeneuveby 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 […]