Shift’s countdown of the year’s most underreported stories is winding down, sort of like the cash-on-hand for Jay Inslee’s re-election campaign, as we report today. Inslee has already burned through half of what he has raised in the last three years, and is being propped up by nearly a half-million dollars from the State Democrat Party. We also note that groups with lots more money than our “green” governor – extreme environmentalists like California billionaire Tom Steyer and the state’s largest unions – seem to be trying to help Inslee on voter turnout next year by throwing a variety of initiatives at the public wall, and hoping something sticks.
Of course, these big Democrat donors do not want I-732, the so-called “revenue neutral” carbon tax to be one of those initiatives next year, and are still trying to find ways to keep its backers from turning in their signatures tomorrow to qualify it. Will Steyer and the forces of dark money win over the more than 300,000 Washingtonians who signed I-732?
Big (union) money forces certainly prevailed in Seattle this week, as Shift highlights the new union agreement for city employees, which provides raises for the next three years, plus a retroactive bonus of 2% for the year drawing to a close. Must be nice for unions to get to “negotiate” such deals with politicians like Mayor Ed Murray that they give plenty of campaign cash to…