The Democrats in the Washington State Legislature have obviously failed to learn the lesson from their past mistakes, as they continue to push another anti-police bill which will make communities, especially those which are lower income, less safe.  One would think that after the complete failure of their 2021 anti-police package, the Democrats would have learned that when they make the state more comfortable for criminals, that more innocent, hard-working people, especially those in ethnically diverse neighborhoods, will needlessly become crime victims.

Yet the Democrats in the 2023 legislature want to impose even more restrictions on police in the name of “equity.” Some 23 Democrat Representatives are co-sponsoring a bill (HB 1513) to prohibit officers from pulling over cars with expired tabs or broken equipment, and the legislation will also forbid law enforcement from stopping vehicle owners with suspended licenses or misdemeanor warrants.  This will allow criminals to go free to commit more crimes, and it will make our streets less safe for law-abiding people to drive on. (Click to read full Shift Article)

Along nearly party lines, the Democrat-controlled Washington State Senate passed legislation to prohibit most employers from denying an applicate a job due to a failed cannabis drug test.  By a vote of 29-to-21 the senate passed SB 5123 applying only to pre-employment screenings and not to the on-the-job policies of a company. Senator Curtis King (R – Yakima) was successful in adding an amendment that allowed employers to be exempt from the legislation for “safety-sensitive positions.” The bill now goes to the House for consideration. (The Olympian and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

A federal judge struck down a lawsuit filed by the Kirkland-based Maverick Gaming Company which sought to expand the very lucrative sports betting monopoly which the Democrat-controlled legislature and Governor Jay Inslee gave to tribal casinos in 2020.  Chief Judge David Estudillo of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington threw out the lawsuit, stating it posed “a substantial risk” to the “sovereign interests” of Indian tribes, who have since entered into agreements to operate sports gambling with the state.  Maverick Gaming said it will appeal the judge’s decision and that they “expect that this will be resolved by the Supreme Court of the United States.”

We will remind readers that later in 2020, when tribal casinos ignored Governor Inslee’s COVID emergency orders which closed most restaurants and entertaining establishments in the state and chose to reopen to the public, the governor did not threaten to remove the tribes’ sports gambling monopoly.  Instead the governor said (likely due to the large campaign contributions the tribes make to Democrats’ campaigns), “I hope that they are very, very successful.” (MyNorthwest and Seattle Times)

First-term Seattle City Councilmember Dan Strauss announced that he will be running for re-election this year, bucking a trend that has seen four of the other seven district-based councilmembers refusing to defend their failed liberal policies before the voters this fall.  Councilmember Strauss, whose 6^th City Council District includes the Ballard, Green Lake, and now the Magnolia neighborhoods under the new redistricted boundaries, has been routinely criticized for not responding to residents’ concerns about large homeless encampments and related crime problems in the Green Lake and Ballard communities.

Councilmember Strauss was among the city councilmembers to be included in a group selfie as they showed support for the violent riots that liberal activists held in 2020 on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.  Later he voted to defund the police department. This action has helped cause more than 525 police officers to leave the police force while violent crime and property theft rates skyrocketed.  Councilmember Strauss joins only Councilmembers Andrew Lewis and Tammy Morales who are willing to run for re-election for the job that makes more than $153,000 a year, one of the highest amounts wasted on city councilmembers in the country. (KIRO 7 News and Reddit)

Methamphetamine contamination at two former hotels in Everett and Edmonds has delayed the opening of emergency homeless shelters at those location.  Last summer, Snohomish County purchased the former Everett Days Inn and the Edmonds American Best Value Inn to be used to shelter homeless individuals.  Yet apparently transients have since used the empty buildings to cook meth. (Apparently the same thing recently happened at the former Federal Way Red Lion Inn, which King County had bought to house homeless individuals.) The current contamination levels are too high to allow necessary contractor work to take place.  The county is currently developing procedures to reduce the contamination levels. (Everett Herald)

It is interesting to see the latest hot national eatery has decided to not open its first Puget sound store in Seattle, but has decided to premier its brand in Bellevue.  The Milk Bar, a New York-based desert establishment, will open a location in Bellevue Square in late March.  The company has recently opened a few locations outside of New York, but they have all been in the urban area of the market entered (such as Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Toronto).  Yet the company obviously has seen how liberal policies have made downtown Seattle an unwelcoming and unsafe place for customers to visit, and have found that establishing the brand in Bellevue is a better strategy for financial success. (Seattle Times)

Somewhat shockingly, a Seattle based publication (Crosscut) posted a relatively balanced report on the issues surrounding overtime pay facing Washington’s agriculture community.  In 2021, Seattle-area Democrat legislators imposed expensive overtime rules which have hurt both farmers and farm workers. The legislation implemented a three-year phase-in for when farm workers would begin to receive overtime wages, starting in January 2022 with a 55-hour minimum and reaching a 40-hour threshold for overtime in 2024. This has thus far resulted in many farmers hiring more workers during harvest and causing farm workers (who normally make most of their money during the long hours of harvest) to receive smaller paychecks due to working fewer hours. This will only become worse when the overtime threshold reaches 48 hours this year, before going to 40 in 2024.

The Crosscut story states that the compromise bill (to allow farmers to select 12 weeks of the year when the overtime threshold would be 50 hours) proposed by farmers (SB 5476), and supported by farm workers, is likely dead for this session. Yet the Crosscut article states “the debate over the impact of such a significant shift in labor policy for agricultural workers will likely linger into the months — even years — to come.”

Interesting to read the comments from those representing the opposing views on the issue and who is truly looking out for the financial well-being of the farm workers. The president of the Washington State Fruit Growers Association, Jon Devaney, stated he is concerned that this year the data will show farm workers receiving even smaller harvest paychecks as “We think there will be more unfortunate examples of employers being unable to offer [as many] hours.”  Meanwhile Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns for United Farm Workers, stated she is unconcerned about the data that will come from this year’s harvest and “at no point were we going to accept and support anything” that alters the 2021 rules. While Devaney showed concern for the farm worker wages, Strater appears more concerned about promoting the union’s political power. (Crosscut and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

Shift’s Newsmaker Interview was with Representative Tom Dent (R – Moses Lake), who is in his fifth term representing Central Washington’s 13^th Legislative District (all of Kittitas County, most of Grant County, and the northern portion of Yakima County).  He owns his own small aviation company which provides pilot instruction and aviation services for local farmers.  He is also a cattle rancher.

Representative Dent shared his thoughts on the important agricultural issues being discussed in Olympia, including the bi-partisan riparian (buffer zones along streams) bill he helped negotiate. He expressed his concern that urban Democrats will not support much needed reform to the state’s current agriculture overtime wage laws, which threaten the existence of many small farms and has already caused smaller paychecks for farm workers. He stated his frustration over the Inslee Administration’s failure to follow the law by not providing a process for farmers to be exempt from the higher fuel prices caused by the governor’s cap-and-trade law, after the Democrats promised farmers they were exempt from this new tax.  The representative highlighted his bill to help reduce childcare costs by lifting some of the unnecessary restrictions which state government has placed on workers. Representative Dent closed with his support for law enforcement and outlined legislation important to the state’s aviation community. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

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