Shift’s Newsmaker Interview is with Republican State Senate candidate Janelle Cass, who is running against controversial career politician Senator Marko Liias in the 21^st Legislative District (Southwest Snohomish County). The Democrat incumbent made news during the 2022 legislative session when he was forced to apologize on the senate floor for insulting Oregon Governor (and fellow partisan Democrat) Kate Brown. This was after he nearly caused a retaliatory tax war with Washington’s neighboring states over his proposed “export tax” on fuel refined in Washington State but sold in other states.

Cass is an Air Force veteran (a graduate of the Air Force Academy), small business owner, and the mother of two college-aged children.  In her interview, Cass describes her opponent as “a firehouse of bad legislation” and disagrees the “trade war” with our neighbors he almost caused by his actions. She draws another contrast with Senator Liias by stating she supports the coalition of Snohomish County local officials who are seeking to repeal the Democrats’ anti-police legislation which he supported. She states her opposition to her opponent’s plan to take zoning out of the hands of local citizens and give it to state bureaucrats in Olympia.  Cass also expresses her frustration in our state’s public schools for passing students to the next grade despite failing subjects. She states her favorite book is a classic science fiction comedy which millions of people have enjoyed.(Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

Why can’t Democrat politicians be honest with voters about the costs of their environmental policies? Representative Alex Ramel (D – Bellingham) provides the latest example of how Democrat officials avoid telling citizens how much the Democrats’ extreme environmental policies will cost taxpayers.  In answering a candidate questionnaire for the media, the longtime environmental activist with a degree in Environmental Studies deliberately mixed up two separate pieces of environmental legislation to avoid admitting that the Democrats’ Cap and Trade legislation will add 40 to 50 cents to the price of each gallon of gas Washington residents purchase starting next year. Either Representative Ramel is completely ignorant of the laws he supported in the legislature, or he is purposefully attempting to deceive taxpayers of the cost of the Cap and Trade law, which even the Washington State Department of Ecology has said will raise gas prices by more than 40 cents a gallon.  (Click to read full Shift Article)

The Washington Citizens Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials has released its latest proposals for salary increases for the state’s political leaders.  If these proposals are adopted, Governor Jay Inslee would continue to be the fifth-highest paid governor in the country after a 7.1% pay increase over the next two years (from the current annual salary of $190,632 to $204,204 in 2024).  This would also mean that his salary has increased 22.3% during his time in office (he started very overpaid at $166,891 in 2013). This does not include all of the additional benefits of the job (such as not having to pay for luxurious holidays to Europe, where he and his wife hobnob with the rich at exclusive receptions, while Washington taxpayers pay for their first class airfare, Mercedes Benz car rentals and exclusive villas).  But of course the governor must deserve the salary, his gold-plated benefits, and the taxpayer-funded expense account for all the work he does raising our taxes, overseeing dysfunctional government bureaucracy at his Employment Security Department, Department of Corrections, Department of Social and Health Services, and Department of Transportation, and making numerous false public statements about his actions. (Jason Mercier Facebook post ,  Washington Citizens Commission of Salaries for Elected Officials annual salary history for elected officials, and The Center Square)

The Cato Institute again ranked Governor Inslee dead last in its rankings of the taxing and spending policies of all 50 governors.  On a 100-point scale, Governor Inslee received just 28 points and was given an “F” grade.  He is just behind his fellow Democrat West Coast governors, Gavin Newsom of California and Kate Brown of Oregon, who each received 29 points.  The report states, “Governor Inslee received an F in Cato fiscal reports in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020, and he receives an F in this report, with the lowest score in the nation.  He has a large appetite for tax and spending increases. Under Inslee, general fund spending expanded at an annual average rate of 6.3 percent between 2013 and 2022.” (Cato Institute Fiscal Policy Report)

The Washington State Liquor Control and Cannabis Board (LCCB) has adopted controversial policies which will provide decisive advantages in obtaining a cannabis retail license to those who have previously been arrested or convicted of a cannabis offense.  Currently the state has 40 licenses available to those interested in opening a marijuana retail store.  According to the new social equity policies adopted by the LCCB, these licenses will be handed out to those who meet two of the three following criteria:

• “The applicant(s) must have lived in a disproportionately impacted area in Washington state for a minimum of five years between 1980 and 2010; or
• The applicant(s) or a family member of the applicant has been arrested or convicted of a cannabis offense; or
• The applicant(s)’ household income in the year prior to submitting the application was less than the median household income within the state of Washington as calculated by the United States Census Bureau.”

The new policies have received strong criticism from many who believe they are reverse racism.  They will go into effect in 2023 when the LCCB begins its license application process. (KONA Radio)

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell proposes spending an additional $14 million to increase the size of the city’s bureaucracy tasked with tackling the city’s homelessness crisis which was created by the city’s failed liberal policies.  After years of liberal housing, criminal, and drug policies increasing the number of homeless in Seattle, which led then-Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine to declare homelessness an “emergency” in 2015, billions more of taxpayer and charitable funds have been spent on the problem only to make things worse.  It appears to many that the only groups which have benefitted from the massive increase in money spent on the homeless emergency are the government employee unions whose bank accounts have grown from the increase in numbers of dues-paying government employees and liberal politicians whose campaigns are financed by the money given to them by union bosses.

Mayor Harrell claims there are currently 403 sites around Seattle where there are encampments and people living in RVs, and he wants to use the additional funding to pay for more outreach employees to all of these locations.  Thus the mayor will continue to do what has previously only increased the number of homeless individuals, by throwing more taxpayer-funded resources at the problem and not changing the policies which continue to make things worse. (Seattle Times and King County media release)

The University of Washington will deploy unarmed security personnel along University Way (“The Ave”) and Brooklyn Avenue to combat the increase in violent crime in the neighborhood.  The patrols will walk the two streets between NE 42^nd and NE 45^th from 10:00 PM and 3:00 AM on Friday and Saturday nights.  This is in response to recent shootings in the neighborhood. The severely understaffed Seattle Police Department has stated that it will also increase patrols in the University District.  Yet these patrols will likely disappear as soon as another Seattle neighborhood has a rash of criminal activity which needs attention, as police administrators continue to play “whack-a-mole” against the city’s skyrocketing crime rate, which is the result of disastrous public safety policies passed by the Seattle City Council. (Seattle Times)

Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said a letter was hand-delivered to the local office of the Washington State Auditor asking for an investigation into state expenditures for the large homeless encampment on Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) property.  The sheriff believes there are several entities which don’t want to see the encampment dismantled as that would cut off an income source. Sheriff Knezovich questioned why state officials were so committed to keeping the encampment in place. The outspoken sheriff said, “No other property owners would get away with what WSDOT is doing – and paying a security team $30,000 per week is not the answer.”  He believes the private unarmed security team “do not have the teeth” to handle the vast array of problems associated in and around the now-fenced off encampment. (The Center Square)

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