Shift’s Newsmaker Interview is with Representative Tom Dent (R – Moses Lake) who is in his fifth term representing Central Washington’s 13^th Legislative District (all of Kittitas County, most of Grant County, and the northern portion of Yakima County).  He owns his own small aviation company which provides pilot instruction and aviation services for local farmers.  He is also cattle rancher.

Representative Dent shares his thoughts on the important agricultural issues being discussed in Olympia, including the bi-partisan riparian (buffer zones along streams) bill he helped negotiate. He expresses his concern that urban Democrats will not support much needed reform to the state’s current agriculture overtime wage laws which threaten the existence of many small farms and has already caused smaller paychecks for farm workers. He states his frustration over the Inslee Administration’s failure to follow the law by not providing a process for farmers to be exempt from the higher fuel prices caused by the governor’s cap-and-trade law.  The representative highlights his bill to help reduce childcare costs by lifting some of the unnecessary restrictions state government has placed on workers. Representative Dent closes with his support for law enforcement and outlines legislation important to the state’s aviation community. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

The Democrats on the House Community Safety, Justice, and Reentry Committee severely weakened bi-partisan legislation which was initially proposed to repeal most of the disastrous restrictions which Democrats placed on police pursuits in 2021. The watered-down bill showed that legislative Democrats remain unconcerned about the victims of the state’s high crime rate.  The much-diluted bill (HB 1363) is a slight improvement over current conditions, but the Democrats’ amendments to the legislation still place unnecessary restrictions on police officers and does not even allow law enforcement to pursue vehicles they know are stolen!  Evidently none of the Democrats on the committee have seen that vehicle theft rates have more than doubled since the passage of their 2021 anti-police package, and that these stolen automobiles are often used to commit other crimes, such as using them to ram down the entry ways in armed robberies of convenience stores and marijuana retailers.

Senator Mike Padden (R – Spokane) stated his frustration with the Democrats’ failure to understand the severity of the vehicular theft rate in the state. “What came out of the House committee this morning is closer to the current restrictions, and I’m disappointed that it deliberately preserves the hands-off approach to suspected car thieves.”

Co-sponsor of the original bi-partisan bill, and former Washington State Patrol Officer, Representative Eric Robertson (R – Sumner) expressed his displeasure with the Democrats’ actions on the bill.  “I was disappointed to see the amendments offered and accepted by the committee. Where the defining circumstances under which a law enforcement officer can pursue a fleeing criminal is a start and puts us in a better position than we currently are, I believe these provisions are still too narrow. I’m afraid I also have to disagree with the sunset clause to allow the reasonable suspicion standard to expire in July 2025.” Because evidently Democrats want to the opportunity to remove these small changes to the law if they inconvenience criminals too much. (Centralia Chronicle/Spokesman Review, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, Monthly Auto Theft Rates chart, KOMO News, News Tribune/YouTube,  Senate Republican Caucus media release, Shift Newsmaker Interview and House Republican Caucus media release)

Democrat House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon (Burien) stated that he believes it is more important to push liberal, anti-male discrimination rhetoric than it is to help a segment of the population which data reveals is in crisis.  Representative Mary Dye (R – Pomeroy) was so concerned about the data regarding problems impacting males that she introduced bi-partisan legislation (HB 1270) to create the first-in-the-country state Commission on Boys and Men.

Representative Dye recently wrote in a Shift Guest Commentary about some of the statistics that are most troubling.  Like 77% of suicides in the state are males (most are young boys between ages 10-14). Or that 70% of those who are homeless are males. And 66% of those who died from excessive alcohol abuse are males. And 75% of those suspended from school are males. Finally, the average male student is a year behind female students in high school reading levels.

Yet none of this data matters to the Democrats’ House Leader.  Representative Fitzgibbon clearly demonstrated the sexism that is very prevalent and openly accepted by the Democrats. He stated he would not support a public hearing on the bill because it might help males.  He said, “I think we want to be really careful that the solutions that we bring forward to help reduce incidents of youth suicide or gun violence are solutions that, that we don’t narrowcast to, you know, just the segment of our society that’s been historically most advantaged.” Thus Representative Fitzgibbon believes solutions which might reduce suicides of teenage boys or keep them off of lethal drugs should not be advanced because those boys’ grandfathers had advantages. Thanks for that elite and discriminatory perspective, Representative Fitzgibbon. (KING5 News, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, and  Shift Guest Commentary)

The Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) is the latest Inslee Administration agency which is failing to perform its job and is the target of legislative reform.  The House Committee on Human Services, Youth, & Early Learning held a public hearing this morning on HB 1397, which is called the “Oakley Carlson Act”, after a five-year-old Grays Harbor County girl who went missing after DCYF took her from her foster family and returned her to her troubled birth parents in 2021.  Representative Jim Walsh (R – Aberdeen) said the testimony of many people (led by Oakley Carlson’s foster mother) was very moving and illustrates that “DCYF needs to be reformed so that it protects at-risk children more effectively.” (House Republican Caucus media release, Washington Legislative Bill Summary, and Q13 Fox News)

A new dangerous drug mixture has begun to circulate through Seattle’s large drug abuse community, and not even naloxone (or “Narcan”) can revive those who overdose.  The new drug “Tranq” is a mixture of fentanyl and xylazine (a drug used to tranquilize elephants, horses, and other large animals).  The Seattle King County Public Health department broadly distributes naloxone to those who abuse fentanyl since it is a possible antidote for those who overdose on the lethal drug.  Yet naloxone is not an effective antidote for Tranq.

Not everyone who takes Tranq does so knowingly, for fentanyl pills are often laced with xylazine. Those who don’t die from overdosing on Tranq might suffer other terrible side effects, such as having their flesh rot away in open sores while they are still alive.  Sadly, the increasing use of such dangerous drugs often occurs in locations (like Seattle) where the government enables those who are slowly killing themselves with their drug addiction.  (MyNorthwest)

The Washington State Farm Bureau is demanding an apology from Democrat Senator Rebecca Saldaña (Seattle) for adding her own personal commentary while providing translation for a Hispanic farm worker during a public hearing on reforming agriculture overtime wage rules. The incident occurred last week in front of the Senate Committee on Labor and Commerce, during a hearing on SB 5476.  That is an agriculture community-supported compromise bill to allow farmers to select 12 weeks a year (usually during harvesting) to not pay overtime wages until a worker reaches 50 hours.

Urban Democrats passed a bill in 2021 which will require farmers to pay overtime wages once a worker reaches 40 hours a week. Many family farmers say this will put them out of business and workers complain that their paychecks will be smaller since some farms will avoid paying overtime wages by hiring more workers and each worker will work less hours.

During the hearing, Senator Saldaña did not convey that the farm worker supported SB 5476 in his testimony and instead made commentary that the farm worker was not informed.  The Farm Bureau stated that Senator Saldaña “took advantage of the testifier’s language barrier to further (her) own position. Then tried to cover (herself) by claiming farmers are not being honest to their employees. Or insinuated that farmworkers are too ignorant to know the facts around this issue.”

Readers will remember Senator Saldaña, who many people describe as an “AOC wannabe”, for her famous 2021 incident in which was caught driving while giving testimony in a virtual hearing.  While this is an illegal act, she avoided any penalty by issuing a half-hearted apology. (The Center Square, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, and Shift)

Denny Westneat of the Seattle Times writes another story about how the city’s homelessness, drug, and crime problems have caused yet another neighborhood business to close its doors.  Yet it is almost never mentioned in the media that these problems were caused by the unrestrained extreme liberal policies that come from Seattle City Hall.  No moderate, let alone a conservative, has served on the city council for decades, as non-liberals have either fled the city or have been silenced in fear of being labeled a “racist,” “fascist,” or any of the many other hate-filled insults liberals love to pin on those who dare challenge their viewpoint. The media also needs to take its share of responsibility for Seattle’s eliminating of moderate and reasonable voices from the debate as they too often act as the communications department for the Democrat Party. (Click to read full Shift article)

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