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Shift fills you in today on the details showing just how, cough cough, “tough” a negotiator Jay Inslee is with his big campaign donors at the state employee unions. Evidently his generosity knows no bounds when it comes to spending $130 million or more in other people’s money. And speaking of big money, we give … Continued
Sorry for the second version of the Daily Shift today, but you may have recognized the first one as containing yesterday’s language – we suspect Russian hackers might be involved, but we’ll just focus on getting this corrected version out, rather than launching a full investigation into our technology snafu. Again, our apologies. Jay Inslee’s … Continued
The days are getting shorter, and even though summer weather has returned for a few days, the election is getting closer, so Shift gets to report on silly fundraising emails from Jay Inslee. The latest series concerned his need for $60,000 for the last 60 days of his campaign – on top of the more than $8 million he … Continued
On this Blue Friday, we bring to you the Ice Cream Wars over the minimum wage. Seems like in Seattle, a designer ice cream shop wants to pay its employees a $15 minimum wage – and they want everyone else to pay the same high wages. Yet in Federal Way, a local shop owner would … Continued
Another day, another opportunity for Jay Inslee to dip into the trough of public money – this time for his campaign. Shift highlights Jay’s “back-to-school tour” today, which his Olympia office is publicizing since that way he can keep his campaign folks working on the fundraisers that he doesn’t publicize. Someone Inslee also generally keeps … Continued
If you listen closely you can hear the sound of the Sound Transit PR machine spinning slowly into a higher gear now that Labor Day has passed. Shift features today the latest example of its work, a Publicola-published editorial from Seattle City Council member Lorena Gonzalez extolling the (cough, cough) congestion-relieving aspects of the Sound … Continued
The Labor Day weekend – and summer – are behind us, and the general election is just nine weeks away. That means the big news must be about … the start of football season. Yes the Huskies opened with a victory Saturday, but on Shift the loss to write about for Washington State University last … Continued
Welcome to the end of the last week of summer, and another of our Friday Funny reviews of Jay Inslee’s calendar of work. The “green” governor actually managed to put in double digits of official business during the week ending August 28 – over 13 hours – thanks mainly to one day in his Olympic … Continued
One has to be very flexible when you work for King County government. You must be willing to set aside any suburban sensibilities you might have – just ask Claudia Balducci, who used to represent Bellevue’s interests before she was elected to a courthouse position – in favor of whatever King County King, err, Executive … Continued
The Shift Team is realistic about Seattle politics, and we knew that a Republican (or even semi-business friendly Democrat) was not going to get elected to replace Jim McDermott as the member of Congress from the 7th Congressional District. However, we did hold out hope that Baghdad Jim would be replaced by someone closer to, … Continued
The best laid plans of mice and men – and government agencies – just don’t always work out, as we highlighted today on Shift. In the lead was Sound Transit, which imagined itself coasting to victory in November with the biggest tax increase in state history, and then having 25 years to spend $54 billion … Continued
The summer heat is causing everything to go a little slower, including the writers on Shift’s team. So, without further ado, here’s a look at what caught our interest today. First, the on-again, off-again income tax initiative in Olympia may yet be on, as supporters are planning to appeal to judge’s ruling (from yesterday) that … Continued