Some members of Washington’s media are finally taking notice of Democrat legislators’ reckless use of the “emergency clause,” which prohibits legislation they pass from being repealed by voters through the referendum process.  In a story about the many taxes which liberal lawmakers are seeking to impose on Washington citizens this year, a reporter asked Senate Democrat Leader Andy Billig about the Democrats’ increasing use of the “emergency clause” in their tax bills. Senator Billig responded, “We do have an emergency. We have an emergency when it comes to childcare, and we have an emergency when it comes to tax fairness, and that’s the reason it’s there.” Thus, what the senator wants his Spokane constituents – and the rest of us – to understand is that there is no actual “emergency”, but Democrats reserve the right to declare an “emergency” whenever citizens do not approve of everything on their liberal agenda, in order to prohibit citizens from using their constitutional rights to overturn their legislators’ unpopular actions. Got that? (MyNorthwest)

While speaking to a class of elementary school students in Spokane, Governor Jay Inslee said that he has no plans yet for what would be required for regions to move into Phase 3 of his random “Roadmap to Recovery”, or what would be allowed once a region reaches it.  The governor said, “I doubt there will be anything clear in the next several days about the issue.” And he ought to know, since he is the only one who gets to decide how the state re-opens its economy. This is more evidence that Inslee’s “Roadmap to Recovery” is more of a “Random Acts of Stagnation Program”, as thousands of small business owners and workers are seeking leadership on what needs to occur for them to pay off all the debts they have incurred under the past year of Inslee’s one-man rule. (KHQ TV)

State Senate Republican Leader John Braun exposes the hyper-partisanship underlying Governor Inslee’s COVID-19 related actions by stating, “The executive branch cannot expect its COVID-19 policy decisions to be welcomed and trusted when the underlying data is unreliable and unverified, measures are applied arbitrarily rather than scientifically, and reasonable questions go unanswered.”  In a well-reasoned argument in his newsletter “Economic Sense”, the senator from Centralia criticizes Inslee’s use of unverified data in making arbitrary decisions, while providing little or no transparency in the process.  Senator Braun was critical of the governor’s refusal to work with local health officials before making decisions which continue to negatively impact millions of lives.  Braun cited the recent mistake of state officials using faulty hospital data, which initially kept six counties in South Central Washington stuck in the economy-crushing Phase 1 of Inslee’s plan.  When local health officials identified the data error, they notified the state, which eventually enabled hundreds of small businesses across those counties to partially reopen.  Senator Braun was also critical that the governor “hasn’t confirmed there is a Phase 3, which activities will be allowed in a Phase 3, and whether the metrics for advancing to a Phase 3 are the same as they were for advancing to Phase 2?  Those are reasonable questions that the executive branch should have anticipated, yet no answers have been offered.” (Economic Sense)

Washington Alliance 4 Kids is maintaining a list on its website of local parent organizations that are standing up for students and challenging efforts by union officials at the Washington Education Association to keep students away from safely returning to in-person instruction.  Click on the link to find a parent group in your school district.  To have your local organization listed on the site, please email [email protected]. (Washington Alliance 4 Kids website)

This is sooooo Seattle: the person finally selected to lead the controversial and way-behind-schedule Regional Homelessness Authority (RHA) has turned down the job.  Just three weeks after Regina Cannon was announced by King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan as the leader worthy of the $200,000+ per year position to head the regional agency, she informed local officials that she is no longer interested in the position.  Cannon has not stated why she declined the job, even after she spent much of the past year seeking the position.  This is the latest setback for the RHA, which has been beset by liberal infighting and multiple delays in launching.  Meanwhile, some five-and-a-half years after former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and Executive Constantine declared a homelessness state of emergency, and after billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted by government agencies and their allies in the Homelessness Industrial Complex, thousands of individuals continue to experience the very cruel existence of living without shelter on the streets of Seattle, and their numbers continue to grow. (Seattle Times)

Do not assume this is connected in an way to the story above, but more businesses are leaving downtown Seattle due to crime and safety issues, and others are making it known they are considering following them.  As liberal policies flowing from Seattle City Hall continue to wreak havoc on downtown Seattle (and many of those same policies are ones Democrat legislators are attempting to impose on the entire state), employers’ concerns over their employees’ safety are leading them to move out of downtown.  The latest company to load up moving vans is Syndio Solutions, a national wage consulting firm.  Their Pioneer Square neighbors, Seattle E-Bike, moved to West Seattle last October.  Another nearby business, Beyond Threads, is also considering leaving downtown.  According to the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, more than 160 street-level businesses have closed their downtown Seattle locations. The owner of Seattle E-Bike said, “It’s astonishing what has happened to this city in a short time.” Actually, it’s more astonishing that the city council has moved even further Left in search of more bad solutions to the problems they have created. (KOMO TV)

Q13’s Brandi Kruse refuted a claim by Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold that “the media” says the Seattle City Council does not care about crime.  Kruse pointed out that the allegations about the council’s crime indifference were made by Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz.  Herbold made her “let’s blame someone else” comments in a Seattle Times op-ed, in which she attempted to distance her policies and those of her fellow lefties on the council from the increase in crime in Seattle.  Herbold wants the public to believe that the council’s recent actions to defund the police department, remove Navigation Teams, and look the other way from the cruel existence of drug addiction and homelessness right outside City Hall, have had nothing to do with the recent spike in crime in Seattle. In refuting Herbold’s claim that it’s only the media saying the council does not care about crime, Kruse provided clips from her “The Divide” program of Mayor Durkan and Chief Diaz making their statements.  Kruse also pointed out that she offered Herbold and other councilmembers the opportunity to respond to the mayor and police chief, to correct the record if they felt like doing so, and they refused. (Brandi Kruse Facebook and Seattle Times)

The Seattle Times Company announced that it would be cutting 50 full-time jobs at the Yakima Herald Republic, moving the paper out of its current Yakima location, and having the Herald-Republic printed in Walla Walla.  The Times said the decisions were due to a 30% drop in advertising revenue and a 40% drop in its commercial printing business.  The Times owns both the Yakima Herald-Republic and the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin. The Walla Walla paper recently opened a new production facility, which will now be printing the Herald-Republic. (Seattle Times)

In the latest example of urban Democrat legislators imposing costly regulations on an agricultural community which they do not understand, the Democrat-controlled State House of Representatives has passed a bill which will be very costly for many farmers, and has proposed no alternative for what can be done to mitigate the damage of their regulations.  On a party-line vote, the House passed HB 1050 on Tuesday, a bill to eliminate hydrochlorofluorocarbon refrigerant, which federal government regulators have determined is safe.  Representative Mark Klicker (R – Walla Walla) is concerned that the urban legislators have never discussed with the agriculture community the impact this legislation will have on farmers.  “They don’t understand the slim and the narrow and small profit margins, if any. that agriculture is making.” (Pacific Northwest AG Network and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

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