Representative J.T. Wilcox joined us this week to discuss his recent announcement to step down as the Leader of the House Republican Caucus, a position he has held since 2018.  Wilcox also shared his insights on the major issues that were debated during the 2023 legislative session, including the Democrats’ failure to pass a much-needed drug possession law and not supporting meaningful police pursuit reform. Read more.

While everybody was paying attention to what Democrats were doing to us in Olympia this session, it almost slipped by that the King County government is in a budgetary death spiral after 13+ years of “leadership” from County Executive Dow Constantine.  According to KING5, “King County leadership is warning of a $100 million revenue shortfall by 2025,” and that chunk will be almost 10% of general fund spending.  Even worse for taxpayers is that Executive Constantine immediately put the blame for these troubles on the fact he can’t raise taxes enough to pay for everything he wants.

That’s right. He considers the direction provided when “voters statewide approved a cap on property tax increases to 1% per year, plus the growth of new construction in 2001” a major inconvenience, even though he has known about it all that time as a member of the county’s payroll since that law was put in place.  Now Dow complains that “(N)o enterprise, public or private, can be expected to provide the same services year after year with revenues arbitrarily capped below the increasing cost of doing business.” Of course, maybe the Executive answered his own question in the quote – maybe his “enterprise” should start doing things differently. You can read about how you can share your thoughts with Dow here. (King 5)

Attorney General Bob Ferguson generally loves to rush out press releases and get in front of the cameras whenever he’s involved in a legal case. But when the case involves a particularly stinky political game that the AG has been playing for years, well, the Seattle Times found him quite shy, writing that in “a text message Thursday, Ferguson said he had no comment “ regarding a Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) decision to consider changing the rules surrounding leftover campaign money. However, Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz, another Governor-wannabe, was more than willing to have her legal team urge “the PDC to withdraw its ‘erroneous guidelines’ regarding the surplus funds,” showing some early animosity in the potential ’24 campaign (should Jay Inslee not run again).

The details of the PDC’s guidance to campaigns about surplus funds described by the Times are pretty straightforward – they can move it in bulk amounts from campaign to campaign without divulging the donor names. And because those donors are not identified, they can contribute beyond the legal maximum to campaigns like Ferguson’s, which have exploited this loophole (to the tune of a staggering $2.8 million in “surplus”). Tallman Trask, the attorney who asked the PDC for action, argued that the “ability to hide contributor information and side-step contribution limits through surplus fund transfers undermines the goals of Washington’s campaign finance structure.” The PDC will have a special meeting to decide whether AG Ferguson and others seeking new positions will be able to keep their donor names secret on May 11. (Seattle Times)

Among the many piles of wasted money that Democrats pushed out the door this legislative session was a couple of million dollars for more studies to rationalize ripping out Snake River dams to satisfy Seattle-area environmentalists. But, since the money has to be spent, The Capital Press provided a pro-hydro perspective that a “study by experts who are ‘apolitical and above the fray’ would be welcome, said Kurt Miller, executive director of Northwest River Partners, a pro-hydropower association of electric utilities.” These studies will be on top of all the other studies which Shift has written about before. However, Miller threw a bit of a challenge at the green crowd, pointing out that his group “didn’t advocate for them to do another study, but we didn’t try to kill it, either. We’re not afraid of the data.” You can ponder what data the Democrats might fear by reading here. (Capital Press, Shift)

The local headline tells you all you need to know about another community having to step up and do what Democrat state legislators could not – write a law outlawing public use and possession of hard drugs. “Yakima County leaders ponder drug penalties in absence of state law.” (Yakima Herald)

Democrats did most of their “negotiating” this legislative session amongst themselves and in private. That’s why it sometimes takes a few days for details to leak out about how some dirty deals get done. PubliCola breaks one such story, that “Seattle lawmakers quietly bailed out a hotel-based homeless shelter program that ran out of money in early April, using $6 million in “underspend” from a program that addresses encampments in state-owned rights-of-way,” a disturbing bailout that could become a trend given the poor management of the billions in homelessness resources being spent in the state. You would think that the Democrats would be proud enough of their work to play these budget games in the light of day, but no. Instead, you can read how they stole the money from cleaning up homeless sites on state lands to bail out their Seattle friends here. (PubliCola)

WHAT AN IDEA: MAKING DRUG USAGE (SORT OF) ILLEGAL EVEN IN SEATTLE

MAYBE DOW SHOULD CHECK REFERENCES BEFORE HANDING OUT TAX DOLLARS

HEY SHIFT READERS – DOW IS ASKING FOR YOUR ADVICE SINCE HE HAS BLOWN THROUGH YOUR MONEY

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