Senator Patty Kuderer (D – Bellevue) took time away from seeking the early release of criminals and restoring felons’ voting rights before they have completed their sentences to promote a new bloated housing agency (outside of her own legislative district) which will significantly increase the cost of living in King County while actually doing little about affordable  housing.  Last month, the East King County liberal state senator took to Twitter to endorse Seattle progressives’ plan to create a huge new government public housing bureaucracy.  Evidently Senator Kuderer forgot that these are the same people who developed Seattle’s failed homeless, public safety, housing, education, and tax policies.

This wasteful new government bureaucracy would be like a “housing” version of Sound Transit.  The leaders would have no accountability to taxpayers, so predictably the projects will suffer from massive cost overruns and fail to meet construction deadlines. Thus while many families struggle to meet their mortgage or pay rent every month, Senator Kuderer wants to raise their taxes even further to pay the bloated salaries and golden benefits of a bunch of government bureaucrats while occasionally building a few people a free home. (Click to read full Shift Article)

Democrat Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson just fired a member of his staff who is financially supporting her Ukrainian family, due to the state’s vaccine mandate. Natalia Corduneanu has been a paralegal in the AG’s office for five years.  For the past two-plus years she has worked from home.  Corduneanu initially obtained a religious exemption and was “accommodated” to work from home after the vaccine mandate went into effect last October.  For the past couple of months she has been financially supporting her family members in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, which has recently been the target of Russian bombs.  Yet recently AG Ferguson informed Corduneanu that last Friday was her last day (what a cruel April Fools’ Day joke).

After Oregon lifted its vaccine mandate on state workers last month, Washington and Massachusetts remain the only locations where state workers are required to have vaccines.  Oregon’s Governor Kate Brown said that the “’extraordinary emergency’ orders are no longer necessary as ‘we learn to live with this virus.’”  Workers across the country are adapting to a new work environment which allows many to continue to work from home and those who must work in an office are allowed to take regular COVID tests.

Last month, after the Russians invaded Ukraine, Governor Inslee stated, “As the world responds to this crisis with humanitarian and military aid, Washington State must also do its part in this common effort.”  Evidently, Washington State’s part does not include keeping employed an Ukrainian women who is financially helping her family, just because the governor continues to abuse his authority. (Washington Policy Center, Ballotpedia, and Governor Inslee media release)

Governor Jay Inslee continued his assault on rural Washington by issuing a line-item veto which would have created more jobs in rural communities.  Last week, the governor eliminated an item in a bi-partisan bill (SB 5901) which would have provided tax incentives to build job-creating warehouses and silos in rural communities.  When asked to defend his actions, the governor said, “I could not justify thinking that it was a good investment for Washingtonians to subsidize warehouse owners, when every time I turn around I see a new warehouse.”  (Yes, he really said that.)

First of all, not sure where the confused governor is standing in rural Washington if everywhere he looks he sees warehouses, unless he believes the Port of Tacoma and the Kent Valley are “rural.”  But worst of all, the governor didn’t quote a study or any data to confirm there is not a need for more warehouses in rural Washington. FYI – rural communities nearly always have a higher unemployment rate than those in urban Washington.

Governor Inslee didn’t even make some flakey unscientific environmental excuse.  The only reason the governor gave was based on his own very limited and partisan observations, which primarily hurts those who do not contribute or support to his campaigns.  This is what happens after 765 days of one-man rule and not having to justify your decisions. (Seattle Times and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

Democrats blame “time” for their failure to fix their disastrous “police reform” package to allow law enforcement to pursue suspected criminals.  The Democrats found time during the 2022 legislative session to pass bills that increased the cost of building homes, increased taxes and fees associated with driving in the state, and even one that made pickleball the state’s official sport, but they could not find the time to pass a bill to make our communities safer and stop the skyrocketing theft of vehicles which are occurring in Washington.

When asked why the Democrats during the 2022 legislative session failed to pass SB 5919, which would have allegedly “fixed” the pursuit provisions in the Democrats disastrous 2021 “police reform” package, Senator Christina Rolfes (D – Bainbridge Island) provided the typical a Democrat response, “The process ran out of time.”  And here’s what she means – Democrats had no intention of making life harder on criminals, so they did not schedule time to fix this law they alone passed.

Three times Republicans brought up an attempt to fix the flawed law, and each time the Democrats refused to act on it because their campaign donors do not prioritize public safety.  The Democrats completely controlled both chambers of the legislature and thus they set the legislative agenda.  It was not the fault of “time” for the failure to fix this flawed law, it was the Democrats deciding it was a good law which continued to benefit criminals, which evidently benefits Democrats. (Kitsap Sun, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, and CenterSquare)

Even some Democrats are already predicting a national “bloodbath” in this year’s election, and they believe Seattle’s far-Left radical policies are to blame.  Longtime Democrat consultant Sandeep Kaushik echoes in a Post Alley column our own long-standing opinion that Seattle is the epitome of failed liberal policies which have delivered a homeless crisis, public safety crisis, housing crisis, employer exodus crisis, education crisis, race crisis, drug addiction crisis, etc., all while failing to fix anything despite bloated government agencies.  Like similar results in other “one-party, prog-left city states” such as Portland and San Francisco, these failures have been repeatedly broadcasted across the country and voters do not like what they see.  National polls are revealing that the public, especially those in key swing suburban districts, are fleeing from Democrat policies and embracing GOP candidates in the 2022 election.

Kaushik, who was a Seattle Stranger reporter and now advises Democrat political candidates (which are basically the same job), attempts to exonerate the “moderate” members of his party by saying the far-Left’s “hectoring, self-congratulatory cultural toxicity of big blue cities’ political culture — is politically kryptonite with the voters.”  He then goes on to proclaim there is still time left for moderate Democrats to retake their party before the “bloodbath” occurs in November.

There is a huge problem with Kaushik’s belief that the moderates are blameless for the multiple failed liberal policies passed by the Democrats.  When given the choice, “moderate” Democrats always side with the radical members of their party instead of working with moderate Republicans.

We clearly have seen this recently in the Washington State Legislature.  “Moderate” Democrats had numerous opportunities to work with moderate GOP lawmakers, and they always chose instead to join the radical-Left members in their caucuses to pass large tax hikes, dangerous “police reform” packages, disastrous Long-Term Care programs, attack our agriculture community, increase the cost of housing, and pass ineffective and expensive “climate” energy policies.  Only a small handful of “moderate” Democrats could have prevented the radical liberal policies from passing.  But instead the “moderate” Democrats chose not to stand up to the radicals in their party. So, the question is, does the current Democrat Party allow any “moderate” members”? (Post Alley)

Chelan County wineries are beginning to win many awards and have experienced strong growth during the two years of the pandemic.  While Washington residents were cancelling long vacations elsewhere, they were traveling instead to the picturesque wineries just outside of Wenatchee, which are centrally located in Washington State.  The winery business in the Chelan Valley is somewhat new and comparatively small (currently only 269 acres) compared to other regions in the state (the Columbia Valley AVA has nearly 60,000 acres planted, and Yakima Valley has vineyards on almost 20,000 acres).  (Wenatchee World)

Shift’s Newsmaker Interview was with 30^th Legislative District Senate candidate Linda Kochmar, the former state representative running to unseat failed first-term Democrat Senator Claire Wilson.  This contest is one of just a half-dozen races in swing suburban districts which will determine which party controls the Washington State Senate during the 2023 legislative session.  Kochmar is currently the Federal Way City Council President after having served two terms in the Washington State House of Representatives.

South King County has been severely impacted by the reckless 2021 “police reform” laws passed by the Democrats (and strongly supported by Senator Wilson).  Kochmar has made restoring crime fighting tools to police departments one of her campaign’s central themes.

In her interview, Kochmar describes how Senator Wilson voted against allowing police to pursue suspected criminals even though it has been well-established that criminals know they can simply speed away from police officers under the rules the Democrats have put in place.  Besides crime issues, Kochmar also describes how the Democrats refused to provide tax relief to low- and middle-income households and how Senator Wilson’s support for legalizing drugs is simply adding more homeless individuals to our streets. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

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