In the latest example of a Democrat official refusing to provide transparency over their actions, Washington State Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz has declined to provide information on her selection of a company which has partnered with the state to sell carbon credits.  In April, Commissioner Franz announced that Finite Carbon, a subsidiary of oil giant BP, will administer a state program which allows companies to offset their carbon emissions by paying into a fund created to offset the loss of revenue from not harvesting 10,000 acres of logs.  This scheme was developed and approved without the approval of the legislature or informing the state’s Board of Natural Resources, which is supposed to oversee logging in Washington State.

Commissioner Franz has refused to say how much money the company will make from the agreement, what exactly is expected from Finite Carbon, and has also refused to state why she picked a company owned by BP to run this program.  Republican legislators stated that they too have been seeking information on the arrangement, but Commissioner Franz has not been responsive with them either. Senate Republican Leader John Braun said, “We have not gotten an answer, and it’s a source of some frustration. DNR has not been forthcoming.” Braun said he hopes that during the 2023 legislative session Commissioner Franz will be more open about her secret agreement with Finite Carbon. (Capital Press)

Senator Lynda Wilson (R – Vancouver) questions why the Washington State Department of Revenue (DOR) is preparing to collect on the Democrats’ state income tax on capital gains after a Douglas Superior Court ruled that the tax was illegal.  The Senate Republican budget leader stated, “DOR shouldn’t keep spending taxpayer dollars toward collecting a tax that no longer exists. It isn’t justified, and besides, tax collectors should have plenty of other work due to all the other taxes Democrats have imposed in the past several years.”

Senator Wilson then called on Governor Jay Inslee to stop this form of “government waste” and require his administration to adhere to the court’s rulings. “You can’t talk about threats to our democracy then turn around and pretend a court ruling doesn’t exist simply because it goes against your agenda.” The Washington State Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on the Democrats’ appeal of the Superior Court ruling next January 26.

Last week the non-profit Citizen Action Defense Fund filed a petition with the Joint Administrative Rules Review Committee of the Washington Legislature to rule on whether the Inslee Administration can ignore the Douglas County Superior Court’s ruling and continue to waste taxpayer money on DOR workers making rules and preparing for a tax which has been determined to be unconstitutional. (Washington State Senate Republican Caucus media release and Citizen Action Defense Fund media release)

The public will not see many changes next week after Governor Inslee final ends his nearly 1,000 days of abusing his emergency powers, yet the biggest difference will be that the governor can no longer ignore the legislative branch when imposing his will on Washington State residents.  The governor issued his first emergency proclamation on February 29, 2020, and has misused it since to impose unilateral orders that impacted millions of people’s lives, without burdening himself with consulting legislators, local elected officials, or even local health officials.

The governor’s partisan vaccine mandate on state employees will end, yet he has replaced it with a permanent order that all employees of the executive branch must still be vaccinated.  Face mask requirements will stay in place for workers in health care, long-term care, and at most correctional facilities.  The Washington State Department of Health will stop tracking COVID on a daily basis and will now issue weekly updates.

Democrat legislators often stated their disapproval of several of the governor’s unscientific decisions, yet they refused to introduce (let alone pass) any type of meaningful emergency power reform while the governor alone was making decisions.  Consider that Republican legislators introduced legislation (HB 1772) to bring Washington’s emergency powers law into line with nearly all other states by placing time limits on emergency declarations, while the Democrats introduced a fake reform bill which would have allowed Governor Inslee (and future governors) to abuse the powers for as long as they desired.  And even that weak Democrats bill (SB 5909) died in committee.  (KOMO News, Yakima Herald,  Shift, and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

The Seattle Times ran a front-page story of how Seattle’s skyrocketing crime rate has impacted the life of a Korean immigrant who has tirelessly worked operating a West Seattle convenience store/deli and was seriously hurt when she tried to stop a man who had repeatedly stolen from her store.  The 76-year-old Young Kim operates a small store on Delridge Avenue just off the West Seattle Bridge.  Like many small business owners, Kim has stopped calling the police whenever thieves steal from her store because the Seattle Police Department is so understaffed it does not have the resources to investigate the crimes.

A surveillance video shows how Kim attempted to stop a man who has repeatedly stolen from her store. The man knocked her down breaking her hip and wrist.  While shoplifting is normally a misdemeanor crime,  this particular crime is now a felony because Kim was hurt.  Police say they are investigating, but a month after the incident no one has been arrested. (Seattle Times)

The need for improved police services in Seattle’s Chinatown International District is reflected in a small video game store which has been broken into four times in the past six months and recently was the victim of an armed robbery.  The owner of Pink Gorilla Games expressed his frustration with the failed liberal public safety policies which have made crime an everyday concern for Seattle’s small employers: “I work almost every single day of the week and it’s things like this, the break-ins, armed robberies that completely make you think what I am doing, like what the hell is the point.”  The CID neighborhood (like nearly all neighborhoods in Seattle) is demanding that city leaders improve police protection in their community. One CID activist asserts that the city should immediately act on their request for “We have the highest crime rates, homicides, burglaries, thefts, assaults” in Seattle.  (KOMO News)

Coach Joe Kennedy will resume his job at Bremerton High School next spring, following his historic U.S. Supreme Court case which ruled that the school district infringed on his constitutional rights when it fired him for praying at midfield after football games.   Coach Kennedy’s attorney told Shift before he argued before the Supreme Court that a legal victory for the coach meant that public school employees “do not shed their First Amendment rights when they enter the school gates by virtue of their employment with a public school.”  Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, a U.S. District Court judge recently ruled that Kennedy must be reinstated to his assistant football coach position before March 15, 2023, and that the Bremerton School District must pay for Kennedy’s legal fees. (MyNorthwest and Shift’s Newsmaker Interview)

When asked how long it would take to clear the homeless encampment located on Washington State Department of Transportation property near I-90 in Spokane, the encampment’s manager (paid by the state) gave no timeline except to say she believes approximately 200 of the camp’s current 442 remaining residents could be out by the end of the year.  This vague timeline provides more credibility to the recent actions by numerous city and county authorities to form a joint emergency operation center to disband the encampment by November 15^th.

Both Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich and Spokane Chief of Police Craig Medle have said that the crime and violence associated with the camp and the impending cold weather are enough to declare the situation an emergency. The Spokane Police Department said that violent crime is up 114% within a quarter-mile radius of the camp and property crime has risen 80% since the encampment began growing earlier this year.  The Inslee Administration has not removed people from this state property despite repeated reports of rape and violent beatings inside the encampment. One resident called it “Lord of the Flies on drugs.” (KREM TV)

Shift’s Newsmaker Interview was with Republican House candidate Brett Johnson, who is taking on controversial two-term Democrat Representative Melanie Morgan in the 29^th Legislative District (Tacoma and Central Pierce County). Last week the Chief Clerk of the House of Representative released an independent report finding that Representative Morgan had “engaged in abusive and bullying conduct” in her role as Chair of the Social Equity in Cannabis Task Force.

Johnson is an Air Force veteran and a small business owner. In his interview, Johnson provided his thoughts on the just-released investigation on the unprofessional conduct of his incumbent opponent.  As violent crime continues to break records in Tacoma, Johnson stated his top priority will be to repeal Democrat bills “which have hampered law enforcement.” He said he is hearing the financial concerns of his neighbors and that he supports tax relief which will help those who are most vulnerable. Johnson called for repeal of the Democrats’ poorly developed Long-Term Care payroll tax. Finally, he stated that an autobiography written by an NCAA Basketball Hall of Fame coach has been his favorite book for a longtime. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

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