It can be argued that if it were not for bad management, Governor Jay Inslee’s administration would have no management at all. That is apparent from the latest Washington State Standard story about how Inslee’s hand-picked “chair of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission is under fire over the use of a racial slur and his passive response to employee allegations of bullying, harassment and discrimination in the regulatory agency.”

This situation would be laughable if it were not for the taxpayer dollars being flushed down the toilet by Gov. Inslee, as he has set the state up for several lawsuits since the manager he hired/cut salary/wants to fire has “warned a lawsuit would be filed ‘to compel the reinstatement of Mr. Danner’s salary if the Governor’s Office does not take this step on its own very soon’.” Indeed, the whole story is just “the latest twist in a nearly three-year saga at the Utilities and Transportation Commission, or UTC, which regulates private, investor-owned electric and natural gas utilities.”

Read on to see how it was the failure to focus on “agency policy to actively promote equity, diversity and inclusion” that was the downfall of Gov. Inslee’s appointee here… Washington State Standard.

It is rare to see the dirty laundry of the public legal profession hung out to dry for all to see, especially when incompetence is alleged. However, the Seattle Times allows readers a good look after the “fight over an elected Seattle Municipal Court judge has escalated as defense attorneys tried to thwart an effort by prosecutors to disqualify Judge Pooja Vaddadi from all criminal cases.”

The judge in charge accused the public lawyers of “causing chaos and disruption” in their attempt to support the soft-on-criminals Judge Vaddadi. Read on to see how the “clash highlights the friction in Seattle between a top lawyer who wants to be tougher on misdemeanor crime and a judge elected in 2022 as a progressive standard-bearer in the lower-level court” here… Seattle Times.

Shift is finding it hard to limit the daily stories highlighting the massive failure of Democrat public safety policies across Washington state, from overdose deaths to enabling outdoor drug markets.  So we’ll have to combine the stories today, starting with KOMO News pointing out that Mexican drug trafficker “Rigoberto Vasquez-Martinez, 32, had a ‘fortified compound’ inside the encampment (in Bellingham), which included armed security around the structure where he stayed” when he was arrested.

It seems that when Vasquez-Martinez was arrested “law enforcement found more than seven kilos of fentanyl pills—more than 65,000 pills in all, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.”

Across the state, KXLY reports that “Spokane police are struggling to curb the city’s problem with open drug use. Throughout Downtown Spokane, open drug use, especially fentanyl use, is a common sight.”

Spokane tried to get a handle on its drug problem last year by creating “a drug use ordinance that made open drug use a misdemeanor” after Democrats, in their push for drug legalization, have insisted for years that public drug use is not a problem. Unfortunately, under new Democrat Mayor Lisa Brown, failure is an option, with a police spokesperson saying “I don’t see a solution at this point.” … KOMO News, KXLY

The folks at the Washington State Senate Republican Caucus want to make sure that you can help focus Gov. Inslee on the error that is House Bill 1589, the Democrat bill to guarantee windfall profits for a foreign-owned utility by banning natural gas in Washington state. You can check in here to see how long voters have to let the governor know that he could do the right thing by vetoing the bill.  Senate Republican Caucus.

The Inslee administration conducted its latest carbon tax auction, and it turns out that the participants can’t wait for voters to kill the program this fall, even while they added another 20+ cents to a gallon of gas.  That’s the message from Center Square, highlighting that the “state held its first quarterly carbon auction of the year on March 6, selling all 7.4 million allowances at a final settlement price of $25.76 to bring in nearly $192 million,” far below what Gov. Inslee’s Ecology Department had projected the state would collect.

Critics have pointed out that the bidding was lackluster because people expect voters to kill the carbon tax at the polls this November, when I-2117 is on the ballot. Read on to see how this will give voters the opportunity to hold the governor accountable after ”Inslee had predicted consumers would see a cost increase of ‘pennies’ at the pump and blamed oil-industry profits as a cause of high gas prices – the highest in the nation at one point – in 2023.” … Center Square.

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