Tag: Fiscal Responsibility

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, Economic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

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

Andrew Villeneuveby 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 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 […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Policy Topics

Initiative 1185: An attack on democracy

by Robert Cruickshank

Pro­po­nents of I‑1185, includ­ing its pri­ma­ry spon­sor Tim Eyman, would have vot­ers believe the issue this ini­tia­tive would address is tax­es. In fact, the issue is democ­ra­cy — specif­i­cal­ly, an attack on democ­ra­cy and major­i­ty rule, fund­ed by pow­er­ful cor­po­ra­tions and pro­mot­ed by the far right. Since Cal­i­for­nia approved Propo­si­tion 13 in 1978, cre­at­ing a require­ment that […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Litigation, Policy Topics

Frank Blethen’s Seattle Times tells Supreme Court to bring back Tim Eyman’s I‑1053

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Well, that did­n’t take long. Less than sev­en­­ty-two hours after the Supreme Court heard oral argu­ment in League of Edu­ca­tion Vot­ers v. State of Wash­ing­ton (the legal chal­lenge to Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 1053), Frank Blethen’s Seat­tle Times released an edi­to­r­i­al telling the Supreme Court to bring back Tim Eyman’s I‑1053, which was struck down in May […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Policy Topics

Seattle Chamber of Commerce announces opposition to AWB and Tim Eyman’s I‑1185

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Great news: Ear­li­er today, the Seat­tle Metro Cham­ber of Com­merce announced that after care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, it has decid­ed to join the oppo­si­tion to Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 1185, which would reim­pose the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al two-thirds vote require­ment to raise rev­enue on the state Leg­is­la­ture. The deci­sion is sig­nif­i­cant because the pri­ma­ry finan­cial force behind I‑1185 is the […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

Let’s put Washington’s history of public votes on supermajority requirements in full context

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day evening, as I was scan­ning head­lines on Pacif­ic NW Por­tal, an arti­cle by Seat­tle Times reporter Andrew Gar­ber caught my eye. I clicked through to read it, and the fol­low­ing head­line and sum­ma­ry appeared on my screen: Vot­ers may make it tougher for Leg­is­la­ture to raise tax­es — again Tim Eyman has anoth­er ini­tia­tive on […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Democrats speak out following Republican takeover of Washington State Senate

Andrew Villeneuveby 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”

Andrew Villeneuveby 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 inEconomic Security, Education, Litigation, Policy Topics

Frank Blethen, self-proclaimed champion of higher education, doesn’t want Chris Gregoire intervening in lawsuit against I‑1053

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

A few days ago, Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire let it be known that she intends to ask the courts to rule on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Tim Eyman’s I‑1053, which was chal­lenged by a group of par­ents, teach­ers, and law­mak­ers in a law­suit last spring. Gre­goire is a defen­dant in the law­suit (which is being defend­ed by […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Economic Security, Policy Topics

Governor Chris Gregoire announces support for full marriage equality in 2012

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

In a major boost to Wash­ing­ton Unit­ed for Mar­riage’s efforts to make Wash­ing­ton the sev­enth state where mar­riage equal­i­ty is the law of the land, Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire this morn­ing declared her full sup­port for leg­is­la­tion to over­turn the state’s dis­crim­i­na­to­ry Defense of Mar­riage Act (DOMA) and per­mit gay and les­bian cou­ples to legal­ly wed […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

House Republicans formally block payroll tax break “compromise” bill from consideration

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

As expect­ed, in a series of votes ear­li­er today, House Repub­li­cans for­mal­ly blocked leg­is­la­tion over­whelm­ing­ly approved by the U.S. Sen­ate a few days ago that would tem­porar­i­ly extend the one-year pay­roll tax break enact­ed by Con­gress last year (S. Amdt. 1465 to H.R. 3630) for anoth­er two months. The House­’s action threat­ens the com­pro­mise on […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

Fitch threatens to downgrade America’s credit unless deficit accord is reached by 2013

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of Stan­dard & Poor’s, which down­grad­ed U.S. cred­it to AA back in August, anoth­er one of the big three Wall Street rat­ing firms has decid­ed to play the ulti­ma­tum game, after Con­gress’ “super­com­mit­tee” failed to agree on a plan to imple­ment spend­ing cuts last week. Fitch Rat­ings gave the Unit­ed States until […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

A day of action: Progressives across the country use Bank Transfer Day to go bankless

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

As reg­u­lar read­ers know, we at NPI have been long­time cham­pi­ons of mem­ber-owned cred­it unions, par­tic­u­lar­ly since the eco­nom­ic col­lapse of Sep­tem­ber 2008 and the sub­se­quent bank bailout. NPI’s staff and board belong indi­vid­u­al­ly to dif­fer­ent cred­it unions, and NPI itself is a cred­it union mem­ber. NPI became part of Amer­i­ca’s cred­it union move­ment well […]