The mainstream media seems to agree on two things when it comes to secrets being kept by the Washington state legislature (which has a long history on Shift’s pages), mainly that they don’t like secrets being kept from them and they don’t want to blame Democrats for keeping the secrets. The second media priority is apparent from this Crosscut piece about an embarrassing Inslee administration claim of a “legislative privilege policy (which) is the latest twist in a long and troubled period for government transparency in Washington that could continue in the new year.”

The writer took great pains to let the governor off the hook for his party’s tendency to keep secrets, though it took until the 11^th paragraph of the story for the word “Democrat” to appear in a story about a legislature keeping secrets which isdominated by Democrats. Read on to decide if it’s as if those documents just made themselves into secrets, without any Democrats involved here… Shift, Crosscut.

Shift has been fortunate to feature the writings by national environmental expert Todd Myers since the earliest days of our briefings, and happily brought his insight to readers through one of our weekly interviews. His views are carried today in the Spokesman-Review, contrasting his correct prediction back in June 2022 on just how much Governor Jay Inslee’s carbon tax would cost Washington drivers, while the governor “now claims that he was misled by his own agency staff who weren’t capable of anything better” when predicting how high gas prices would soar.

The governor’s attempt to avoid accountability for jacking up our gas prices raises even more questions, however, as it’s “telling that the governor thinks this badly inaccurate projection is the best the Ecology staff can do. If that is the case, why would anyone believe the Ecology staff with future predictions about the impact of state policy?” Read on to answer the question why “the governor knows he can’t admit he was wrong or being dishonest” here… Shift, Shift, Spokesman-Review.

It would be refreshing for a local government to lead by example in these challenging financial times and perhaps not fill every high-paid executive position as soon as it can. Unfortunately, the city of Everett missed that opportunity, with the Herald reporting that Deputy Mayor Nick Harper “quietly” left his $211,000 per year position in October, but a “little over a month after Harper’s resignation from the city, (Mayor Cassie) Franklin hired former Police Chief Dan Templeman as the city’s senior executive director.”

Harper perhaps preferred the quiet to the controversy he often generated, since he had been in the news after “an outside investigation found he had a romantic relationship with the mayor earlier this year.” Read on to find out how Everett can afford to spend plenty at the top of its executive pyramid as “Executive directors sit parallel to deputy mayor in the city’s organizational chart” here… (Everett) Herald.

It is one of the ironies of far-Left governance in today’s Washington state that the same Democrats who claim to care about the poor and being equitable will choose to expand unfair taxes to expand the size of government when given the chance. That is apparent from an op-ed in the Seattle Times that points out “well-meaning efforts to reduce greenhouse gases by curtailing natural gas use will harm these very households” that liberals claim to care most about.

Former Attorney General Rob McKenna points out in the op-ed that extreme green activists ask for mandates “such as eliminating natural gas hookups in new housing — (which) threaten to create injustices of their own by making new housing more expensive and less accessible.” Of course, jacking up energy costs on the poor is nothing new for Democrats, so read on to find out why liberals are ignoring that “(N)atural gas is much less carbon intensive than coal and oil and, crucially, usually is a less expensive way to heat homes and power hot-water heaters” here… Seattle Times.

Shift provides plenty of news on the environmental failures of the Inslee administration, since examples pop up so often. However, it’s worth reminding readers that the massive delusions of grandeur which are so apparent with our green governor also extend far deeper into the Democrat-dominated legislature, as you can tell when the Washington State Standard lets State Senator Joe Nguyen claim that their carbon tax “has implications not just in Washington state, it has implications globally.”

That’s right, little ol’ Washington is driving global climate policy with its gas-price raising policies, because local Democrats really believe that is so. This national story points out that there must be some money to be made here, as former State Senator Reuven Carlyle, “who now leads a startup that provides consulting and financing for climate-conscious organizations”, is leveraging his role in creating the carbon tax since “we can help this scale to a national and worldwide level” here… Washington State Standard.

The Legislature doesn’t return until next January 8, but the people of Washington state are already starting to fill the agenda for the majority Democrats, though as Shift has covered, the liberals don’t like being told what to talk about. That became even more apparent with the news from Crosscut that “Let’s Go Washington on Tuesday announced it is submitting signatures to put on the ballot a parents’-rights initiative that could be decided by voters next November.”

Initiative 2081 is part of an effort “aiming to qualify half a dozen proposed initiatives to the Legislature by an end-of-year deadline.” Read on to see how this fits in with the voters seeking to directly change the direction of state government who previously submitted over 420,000 signatures for “I-2117, an initiative to the Legislature that seeks to repeal Washington’s carbon cap-and-trade system” here… Shift, Crosscut.

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