It was a good night for Republicans, on both the national and state scale. Across the country, the GOP flipped the U.S. Senate, won the largest House majority since the 1920’s and surprised political pundits in significant gubernatorial races. Here at home, Republican Senators Andy Hill, Steve O’Ban, Doug Erickson and GOP candidate Mark Miloscia fought back malicious—and illegal—attacks funded by special interests and California billionaire Tom Steyer to win an outright majority in the State Senate.
By every indication, Republicans will go into the 2015 legislative cycle with 25 senators. Add in maverick Democrat Sen. Tim Sheldon’s victory—also despite illegal attacks by the Left—and the Republican led Majority Coalition Caucus (MCC) will maintain its 26-23 majority.
The victory is significant. As SHIFT reported, Jay Inslee placed himself and his extreme political agenda on the ballot. Last night, voters rejected him and his plans. But, that doesn’t mean Inslee is getting a clue.
Inslee insisted on re-iterating his extreme low carbon fuel mandate agenda – with its promised increase in gasoline costs – in the last week leading up to Election Day. He confidently indicated that votes for Democrat state legislative candidates are votes for raising gas prices when he released another draft report on his environmental agenda. By his reaction to election results last night, Inslee didn’t seem to understand that voters’ said “NO” to his priorities. Rather than backing off from his gas tax agenda, our green governor suggested he will continue down the road he’s on, merrily mocking Republicans – and the voters – who don’t want to see gas prices skyrocket.
Whether that means Inslee will resort to the use of an executive order to defy voters and get his and Steyer’s way remains to be seen. Certainly, Inslee hasn’t been shy about pushing his agenda through via executive order in the past.
If election results as of this morning stand, voters also narrowly rejected (50.57%) the Washington Education Association’s (WEA) latest power-grab, Initiative 1351. Considering how much money the WEA spent on passing I-1351—and the fact that no organized opposition existed on the other side—the result may indicate a loss of voter trust in the power-hungry teachers’ union.
So, on an Election Day where the GOP won big across the country, the Washington state legislature remains in exactly the same place it has been for years, with the lower House controlled by Democrats, and the upper House controlled by Republicans. It sure looks like any effort to “shift the debate in Olympia” should therefore be counted as a complete and utter failure. Do we have an accounting on just how much money has been publicly squandered on that humiliating failure at this site alone?
For the most part I am happy with the outcome of the electron. Question how do we overturn I-594?
Seems to me that I-594 is a fee for exercising a right. Just like a poll tax, it should be illegal. That could be one way to challenge it.
I-594 merely extends the background checks required prior to sales by licensed dealers to informal settings, like gun shows. Any challenge along the lines of a “poll tax” will likely fail.
The only “Shift” in “WA” during this election was the historic passage of I-594. Somehow, the people running this site are not rushing to claim victory…
“I-594 merely extends the background checks required prior to sales by licensed dealers to informal settings, like gun shows” Why do you consider an insignificant change like that to be “historic passage”?
Because I-594 was passed by popular vote.
Yeah, So was the monorail initiative. How was your last ride on the monorail? Just because some initiative passes doesn’t make it “historic” unless you think there’s something more to I-594 than It “merely extends the background checks required prior to sales by licensed dealers to informal settings, like gun shows”. Something more like registration/confiscation. Now that would be “historic”
I-594 will prove to be unenforceable. The issue is how the state will regulate legal uses of guns by legal gun owners. Back ground checks only work for legal gun sales and will not impact sales much at all. The gun control lobby wants further control and now has their nose under the tent. We will see how far these gun control nuts go when they bring out their real agenda in the next election cycle. They got their first initiative passed and will be eager to got to the next. Control of gun ranges making it impossible for regular people to build new ranges due to excessive regulation will be their next target. WAC has the best solution for regulating gun show sales by restricting them to people who pass their back ground check requirements. It is voluntary and must be brought to the state level. This can be done by having the state issue a back ground check ID card good for 3 threes which can be taken away if the individual violates regulations under the statute. A voluntary program passed by the people will make it more agreeable, but in the end will not silence the gun control nuts out their. They will only be happy when all guns are removed from the masses.
Go ahead, do that executive order for green agenda. Make our day.
Why worry about the limited attention span of those electing them while they must concentrate on the special interest groups who drive political investment. They want a lower carbon impact economy, then we need to establish a hydrogen generation development program which will replace our carbon economy, but that would take the eyes off carbon and the green economy would suffer. Less need for solar, and wind power will reduce the amount of investment for those companies??? Or they could shift (no pun intended) to hydrogen. Solar and wind will still be an option but not for large scale production of energy.
With all the talk about gun control how does this bill effect illegal gun sales??? Bad guys get their guns from other bad guys. They do not go to legal gun sales dealers who sell to the public. Most illegal gun sales comes from stolen guns from legal owners, or from those bad guys who buy guns from bad legal gun sellers. Where is the program where the police go after these illegal sales??? We never hear about the Seattle Police finding and arresting these sellers. We never hear the mayor or governor saying they are going after illegal sales. So this bill is a waste of time and is only one step in their process of taking our guns away. But if we get ahead of this we can stop them. Pass a bill calling for a background check system where an individual applies for a card which will be good for three years, which is regulated so that if a person becomes unqualified under the law will loose their privilege to purchase guns. As part of this bill have regulations covering mental health issues,or domestic violence, but write a bill that makes sense.