Our “green” governor Jay Inslee does a lot of outreach to his campaign supporters – mainly reaching for their wallets. In return, he willing to ignore little things, like existing state law, as he tries to please his million-dollar donors.
That fact was on clear display over the holiday weekend, when Inslee’s pandering to his campaign contributors in the labor community showed a serious lack of awareness of an initiative passed in 1998, which provides for a state minimum wage increase every year that the cost of living increases.
In Jay’s campaign fundraising email, his campaign manager writes “Jay has made it crystal clear: It’s time for Washington’s minimum wage to keep pace with cost-of-living increases.”
Umm, what part of Initiative 688 doesn’t the Inslee campaign understand? The voter-passed law has been in place for almost two decades, and increased out state’s minimum wage by over 80% during that time, due on a “cost-of-living adjustment to the minimum wage each year based on the federal Consumer Price Index.”
Evidently the opportunity to make a false attack on his opponent Bill Bryant (“There’s only one candidate running for governor this year who supports a fair minimum wage”) overrode actually telling the truth in the email.