As lawsuits pile up against the state’s shiny new 9.9% income tax, Republicans are raising alarms about Justice Colleen Melody—who may soon help decide the tax’s fate—having some awfully convenient connections. She was handpicked by Gov. Bob Ferguson after a glowing recommendation from Solicitor General Noah Purcell… the same guy whose office will be defending the tax in court.

Even better, Purcell wasn’t just offering friendly career advice—he was reportedly helping lawmakers figure out how to pass the tax in a way that dodges voter backlash and tees it up for a Supreme Court reconsideration of the state’s long-standing ban on income taxes. Efficient!

Now Republicans are asking the obvious question: should someone elevated by the very people defending the law—and backed financially by their colleagues—be ruling on it? State judicial conduct rules say recusal is appropriate when impartiality might “reasonably be questioned.” But in Olympia, that bar seems to be somewhere between “unlikely” and “don’t ask.”

Meanwhile, the Attorney General’s office insists everything is perfectly fine, noting Melody didn’t personally work on the tax issue. Which is comforting—if you ignore the part where the same political orbit keeps putting all the pieces in place.

With multiple Supreme Court seats up for election and the case likely headed there soon, the stakes are obvious. The only real question left: will the court look like a neutral referee—or just another extension of the same political playbook that passed the tax in the first place? Read more at Center Square.

Eight Snohomish firefighters are now heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking a pretty basic question: do religious rights actually mean anything when government employers don’t like them?

During the pandemic, Snohomish Regional Fire & Rescue denied their vaccine exemptions—claiming it would create a hardship. No real proof required, just a “reasonable concern,” which in today’s bureaucratic language seems to mean because we said so.

Now their attorneys are pushing for a standard that sounds almost radical in 2026: if the government wants to deny a religious accommodation, it should have to show an actual problem—not just speculate one into existence.

And here’s where it gets awkward for the Democrats who cheered this kind of heavy-handed approach: the same department that insisted unvaccinated firefighters were too dangerous to work… quietly brought them back anyway. Still unvaccinated. No collapse of public safety. No catastrophe. Just a narrative that didn’t hold up.

Even better, while Snohomish was sidelining them without pay, other fire departments had no issue hiring these same firefighters—and even relied on them for mutual aid. So apparently they were “too risky” to work… except everywhere else they were needed.

The firefighters are now seeking back pay for months they were forced off the job, and more importantly, a ruling that could rein in a growing double standard: religious freedom in theory, but optional in practice.

Because if the government can deny your beliefs based on a guess, it’s not really a right—it’s a permission slip. Read more at Seattle Red.

In Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, Democrats are proving once again that “local representation” is more of a slogan than a practice. As Shift readers know, incumbent Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez pulled in a hefty $1.3 million this quarter—and only about 7.8% of that came from Washington state. 

Translation? The campaign may have a Washington zip code, but the funding has a strong East Coast accent.

Republican challenger John Braun, meanwhile, is leaning into the contrast—highlighting that most of his fundraising actually comes from within the state and the district he wants to represent. A novel concept: being backed by the people you’d serve.

Perez’s camp insists she’s fighting for “working people,” but the numbers tell a different story. When hundreds of thousands are flowing in from places like New York financiers, it raises a pretty obvious question—who exactly is she working for?

And then there’s the silence on Washington’s controversial new income tax. Braun says it’s one of the top issues voters bring up. Perez? Not much to say. Funny how that works when your political allies are the ones pushing it.

Democrats love to talk about grassroots campaigns—until the grass starts growing outside their donor base. Read more at Center Square.