Washington’s union leaders are gathering this week to decide which radical liberals they will be supporting in the 2022 elections.  The Washington State Labor Council will be convening its Committee on Political Education (COPE) to decide where to spend all the money they have taken from workers’ paychecks. This will be occurring weeks ahead of when candidates must file for office in mid-May.  Union bosses from all the government employee unions will make sure all of labor’s money will go towards Democrat candidates who will promise to make all levels of government even larger and who support increasing taxes to pay for government to hire even more forced dues-paying employees. (Click to read full Shift article)

It appears some Democrat legislators will use the lack of a full-time, highly paid legislature as their excuse for why they are not running for re-election.  After the liberals got one of their friends in the media to write a column that not having a full-time, highly paid legislature was racist, one of the many Democrats who have chosen not to face re-election this year tweeted that it is the reason why he chose not to run.  Representative Jesse Johnson (D – Federal Way) posted a tweet last night saying “we consider systemic changes in who can afford to give 110% to the job” in order for everyone to serve in the Washington Legislature. Apparently making $56,000 for two or three months’ work every year is not enough to encourage someone living in poverty to run for the legislature.

A skeptical person might think this is a handy excuse for Representative Johnson who joined with long-time anti-police politician Representative Roger Goodman (D – Kirkland) as the major architects of the Democrats’ 2021 disastrous anti-police package which has since caused an unprecedented jump in crime rates.  South King County has been especially impacted negatively by Representative Johnson’s anti-police legislation, and he must have heard the outrage from his constituents.  While in Olympia, he also saw polls which showed Washington Republicans were in their strongest position in a couple of decades, and concerns about public safety were the prime reason. Representative Johnson is a smart young man. He knew that having a major election defeat, especially over legislation he wrote, will hurt his future political career. So this is his weak excuse. (Representative Johnson Twitter, Seattle Times, Shift and Federal Way Mirror)

Senator Mike Padden (R – Spokane Valley) said that due to the large increase in vehicle thefts and property crimes in the state he is already working on legislation for the 2023 legislative session to increase sentences for repeat criminals.  The former Spokane County judge and current Ranking Republican on the Senate’s Law & Justice Committee said he wants to reverse the anti-police course which Seattle Democrats have taken the legislature. “The crime stats we have been seeing lately are frightful,” Padden said. “These numbers are so awful they deserve a response from the Legislature now. I hope my bill will provide a focus for the debate we will have regarding the damage the Washington Legislature has done to public safety over the past five years.” (Senator Padden media release)

Legal briefs have been filed in the lawsuit brought by the backers of Initiative 1929, which would repeal the state income tax on capital gains, against Attorney General Bob Ferguson for the partisan political games he is playing with the ballot title of the initiative.  The Attorney General is required by state law to provide “a true and impartial description of the measure’s essential content” for filed initiatives.  AG Ferguson chose to ignore state law, what 49 other states and the IRS call a tax on capital gains (i.e. an “income tax”), and a recent ruling of a Douglas County Superior Court judge who also determined the tax is an “income tax”, when he chose to define the capital gains tax an “excise tax” in the title of the initiative (despite those words not appearing in the initiative). The attorneys for I-1929 contend that Attorney General Ferguson has chosen to not be impartial in his duties and has instead chosen language which will purposely confuse and mislead potential petition signers and voters. And further delay the signature collecting phase of the effort to stop the state income tax. (Washington Policy Center)

Puget Sound transit agencies dropped their mask mandates earlier today, after initially stating they would not adhere to yesterday’s federal court decision that health officials do not have the authority to enforce mask mandates on federal transportation options, such as airports and government-operated transit agencies.  Metro, Sound Transit, Kitsap Transit, Pierce Transit, Everett Transit, and Community Transit were among the agencies which announced this morning that they would no longer enforce the mandate. Sea-Tac and Paine Field airports, along with nearly all major air carriers, also announced that mask restrictions have been lifted. (MyNorthwest)

While the rest of the world is removing COVID-related protocols, the Seattle teachers union is seeking to keep many in place while asking for more money if they become sick.  Specifically the unions are asking for more paid sick leave for teachers, encouraging COVID tests to be used on students, and for schools to continue to follow COVID precautions. Because, money… (KOMO News)

Democrat Senate leader Andy Billig faced strong disapproval from Spokane area constituents for his Senate Democrats refusing to fix the state’s police pursuit laws (part of the Democrats’ disastrous 2021 anti-police package), instead preferring that criminals be allowed to simply drive away from police officers without fear of being chased.  In a virtual forum with Eastern Washington business leaders last Friday, the senator from Spokane’s 3^rd Legislative District said that he personally supported the legislation (SB 5919) which would have enabled police to pursue suspected criminals, but the majority of his Democrat caucus did not, and that is why the final bill was not brought to a vote before the full chamber.

All 21 members of the Republican caucus supported the bill even after a watered down compromise bill passed the House.  Since the Republicans supported the legislation, Senator Billig just needed four Democrat Senators to support the legislation in order for it receive the 25 votes needed to pass.  Senator Billig said that Democrat caucus rules prohibited him from bringing the bill to the floor unless it is supported by a majority of Democrat senators.  This led the forum moderator to ask Billig, “Do you represent us or do you represent the west side (where the majority of Democrat senators reside)?”

At the forum hosted by the Spokane Business & Commercial Property Owners Council, a group formed due to the recent jump in crime, Senator Billig gave a preview of how Democrat candidates plan to combat the public’s frustration over the dramatic rise in crime.  The Democrat Senate Leader said the rise in crime is not the result of the 2021 anti-police legislation the Democrats passed, but it is due to the nine liberal judges on the Washington State Supreme Court deciding to overturn the state’s drug possession laws in the State v. Blake case.

If Senator Billig believes this is true, then why didn’t the Democrat legislators support legislation which fixed the problems caused by the court’s misguided decision?  Republican lawmakers put forth seven separate pieces of legislation which would have done this. Senator Billig could have drafted up his own legislation to fix the problems he believes were created by the court’s decision. But he chose not to.  (CenterSquare, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, Bellevue Reporter, and House Republican Caucus media release)

The City of Kennewick has seen a 933% jump in vehicular car thefts since the passage of the Democrats’ anti-police measures last year in the Washington State Legislature.  Last March, the city experienced 9 car thefts.  This March the number jumped to 84 reports of cars stolen.  During the first three months of 2021, there were 41 cars stolen in Kennewick, while during the first quarter of 2022 the number jumped 412% to 210 vehicular thefts.  According to Senate Democrat Leader Andy Billig (see story above) this is all due to the Washington State Supreme Court’s State v. Blake ruling and nothing to do with his failure to pass fixes to the Democrats’ laws which prohibit police from pursuing most suspected criminals. (YakTriNews)

The liberals’ latest effort to make state government larger and more expensive is a proposal to make the Washington State Legislature full time (with high-paying salaries and huge increases in the number of full-time staff) and they are using false claims of institutional racism to support their argument.  In a recent Seattle Times article, columnist Naomi Ishisaka contends that since three of the dozen-plus legislators who have announced their retirement are people of color, then a part-time legislature must be itself racist, and the only cure for this racism is to make the legislature full-time.  This argument ignores the fact that two of the three legislators of color (Senator Mona Das and Representative Jesse Johnson) chose retirement over almost certain election defeat this November, and that the overwhelming majority of legislators who are retiring are not people of color – in fact most are white men.  In what can easily be called one of the worst arguments ever, those supporting a full-time legislature point to the Seattle City Council, where councilmembers are highly paid and have five staff members each (as opposed to legislators who have but one staff member).  With the Seattle City Council’s track record for supporting absolutely horrendous policies that nearly always fail, why would anyone want our state legislature to emulate it in any way? (Click to read full Shift Article)

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