Democrat Senator Manka Dhingra (Redmond) continues to display her support for criminals as she stated she still opposes any meaningful reform of the Democrat’s disastrous police reform restrictions.  The Chair of the Senate Law and Justice Committee stated her opposition even though last week the Democrats on the House Committee on Community Safety, Justice, & Reentry significantly watered down the reforms which were originally included in bi-partisan reform legislation (HB 1363).

Senator Dhingra stated, “Before we change the law of the land, we need to have a compelling reason to do so.”  Evidently the multiple stories heard everyday of suspected criminals allowed to go free because of the restrictions (the Washington State Patrol counted 3,100 incidents in 2022 where suspected criminals fled from police) is not a “compelling reason” to the senator. It also appears that having more than 250 mayors and city councilmembers take the very rare step of signing a letter demanding serious reform is not “compelling” to the stubborn Senator Dhingra.

Instead of passing much needed reforms, Senator Dhingra has stated that she wants to waste even more time (and allow more criminals to remain free) by creating a “work group” to study further the issue of police pursuit (SB 5533).  If the senator is in control the group’s membership, it will likely be controlled by the liberal radical activists who, in the name of racial equity, rioted in Seattle in 2020 and demanded that all levels of government severely restrict law enforcement.  These reforms have resulted in skyrocketing crime rates and created thousands of preventable crime victims, especially in minority neighborhoods. If Senator Dhingra continues to get her way, the same failed policies will continue and more innocent state residents will be forced to suffer. (Seattle Times,  Centralia Chronical/Spokesman Review, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, and Association of Washington Cities letter to the legislature)

The Seattle Times reprinted a New York Times article on how rising food prices are impacting the health of seniors who are on fixed incomes. This is especially true for seniors with diabetes and heart problems who cannot afford the healthy food their bodies require.   Many people on fixed incomes report that they have been forced to visit a local food bank for the first time in their lives.  We should note that not once in the 1,200 word article does it mention that liberal inflationary policies or Democrat energy policies (like Governor Inslee’s cap and trade tax, which has already increased gas prices 24 cents a gallon) are responsible for the leap in food prices.

The Seattle Times has repeatedly failed to inform the public that Republican lawmakers nearly always stress that those on a fixed- or lower- income would benefit the most from a suspension or reduction of the state’s sales or gas tax, and those on fixed incomes are the ones most hurt when the Democrats increase taxes to pay for their massive expansion of government. (New York Times/Seattle Times and Washington Policy Center)

Legislative Democrats have passed a bill in a House committee to eliminate state restrictions which would allow Oregon and Washington marijuana businesses to operate in both states.  The problem with the Democrats’ latest bill is that it would break federal law. Two Democrats from Vancouver, Representatives Sharon Wylie and Monica Jurado Stonier, introduced HB 1159 and it passed the House Committee on Regulated Substances and Gaming along party lines (6-to5) last week. The bill would allow cannabis retailers to sell products grown and produced in either state.  Yet this is illegal due to the federal prohibition on interstate state commerce of cannabis products. (KONA Radio report on a Center Square story and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

A Seattle Times editorial points out yet another failure of the region’s liberal establishment – the Seattle Public Schools (SPS) has lost nearly 10% of its enrollment, has a three-year budget deficit of $277 million, and parents are frustrated that there appears to be no plan for which schools will be closed by the district.  Just like with homelessness, public safety, housing, taxes, drug addiction, downtown Seattle retail, climate emissions, transportation, and even sewage spills, liberal policies have resulted in huge failures in the city’s education system.

The Times’ editorial lays the blame on the SPS administration, which appears shocked that its over-spending actions and policies created the district’s current troubles.  School District leaders appear not to understand that when negotiators caved into the financial demands of the teachers’ unions during the illegal strike last September, it was going to cause an even larger deficit in future SPS budgets.  Administrators like to portray the deficit as a statewide problem, yet that argument is not valid since most other large school districts, including Shoreline, Tacoma and Everett, all have budget surpluses.

The newspaper strongly criticized the district for not attempting to understand why so many parents, especially of younger students, have pulled their children out of the public school system. “Seattle Public Schools doesn’t know exactly why its rolls have fallen so far because it never surveys families to ask why they’ve left. As the saying goes, you can’t fix what you don’t measure.” The editorial concluded, “With customer service like that, Seattle Public Schools should probably prepare for more enrollment declines to come.” And even higher budget deficits. (Seattle Times)

Seattle Police Department administrators and city officials have stopped using  artificial intelligence (AI) technology to “spy” on officers during their interactions with the public.  Unbeknownst to Seattle police officers, city officials were using videos collected by body cams to identify “problem policing” and using artificial intelligence to analyze the data. The president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, Mike Solan, was “irate” that the city was not using the technology to respond to specific complaints, but to “spy” on the random times officers came in contact with a member of the public. President Solan stated his primary concern was that administrators “didn’t let the officers know that they were doing this behind their backs.”

The city stopped the practice, not because officers complained (or that it violated the guild’s labor agreement), but because the city heard from “privacy rights advocates who noted the AI reviews civilian footage, too.”  The city also noted that because of the severe limitations of current AI technology, it “does it understand the full context of interactions, rendering the analysis useless.”

This is yet another reason why the city is unable to attract new recruits to replace the more than 525 police officers who fled the department between 2020 and 2022 thanks to the lack of support from liberal elected officials. The dysfunctional work environment created by Democrats’ pro-criminal policies continues to scare away possible recruits no matter how much money the city offers as a signing bonus.  We should note that well-trained and diverse officers continue to leave in 2023, with 15 more leaving the department so far this year. (MyNorthwest)

The small Pierce County town of Sumner is facing a crime wave and the chief of police says it is similar to what has occurred across the state after the Democrat legislators passed their 2021 anti-police legislation. So far this year there have been six armed robberies (including a carjacking) in the city of 11,000 people.  Last year there was just four such incidents.  Many businesses have been forced to take unprecedented precautions to make sure they are not the next victims. (KOMO News)

Rising crime and resulting higher insurance rates are causing a longtime Spokane church to leave downtown Spokane.  The Redemption Church has seen their monthly insurance premiums jump from $950 to $3,000.  This nearly $25,000 annual increase is too much for the church’s 150 members to pay, and thus they are selling their property and looking to move to a safer neighborhood.  Other churches have boarded up their windows to protect them from having to file claims to fix them.  Many nearby small businesses have also experienced an increase in crime and are fearful their premiums will soon increase. (Spokesman-Review)

Shift’s Newsmaker Interview was 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 a cattle rancher.

Representative Dent shared 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 expressed 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 stated 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, after the Democrats promised farmers they were exempt from this new tax.  The representative highlighted his bill to help reduce childcare costs by lifting some of the unnecessary restrictions which state government has placed on workers. Representative Dent closed with his support for law enforcement and outlined legislation important to the state’s aviation community. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

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