Even the most strident Democrat legislators now are publicly admitting that their radical and unpopular policies will likely result in major election losses (even the likelihood of losing control of the State House of Representatives) this November.  Senate Democrat Floor Leader Jamie Pederson (Capitol Hill) admitted to his fellow 43^rd Legislative District Democrats last week, “We’re going into an absolutely perilous year for Democrats. It’s not out-of-the-question that we could lose the House this fall.”

Yet, as the nutty-left conversation shows, several out-of-touch touch Seattle Democrat lawmakers are still proud of their radical policies (such as eliminating the sales of gas-powered vehicles by 2030 and pushing a very unpopular state income tax) which will likely cost them seats in swing suburban districts around the state. (Click to read full Shift Article)

A Seattle Times editorial and cartoon from Pulitzer Prize-recipient David Horsey belatedly praises the efforts of the Washington Coalition for Open Government (WCOG) and longtime president Toby Nixon, even as Democrat and liberal lawmakers continue their attempts to remove the public from state political processes.  Democrats in Washington continue to prove that British aristocrat Lord Acton was correct when he famously observed said, “Absolute power, corrupts absolutely.”  Increasingly liberals have abused their powers by seeking to remove the public from our state’s decision-making processes and to keep their political actions private.

In just the past year DEMOCRATS have:

• illegally conducted public business in backrooms away from public view;
• defended efforts to negotiate large contracts with government employee unions in secret,
• deleted official texts which have been sought in public records requests;
• refused to defend the state’s public redistricting process from a lawsuit by a liberal special interest groups;
• included fake “emergency” language in their unpopular state income tax legislation which prevents the public from repealing the tax through a citizens’ vote;
• sought to eliminate initiatives and referendums in odd-numbered years;
• continued to shut out the public from legislative hearings (saying it was due to COVID restrictions, yet 17,000 people were safely gathering indoors to watch Seattle Kraken games or attend concerts);
• illegally used taxpayer money to promote partisan activities;
• Pushed to remove public advisory votes on tax measures from ballots;
• and worst of all, refused to end Governor Jay Inslee’s 751 days (and counting) of denying legislators, local health officials, and the public from having any input on how the state should manage its COVID response.

Former Republican state legislator and current Kirkland City Councilman Toby Nixon was honored at a recent WCOG event for his continued efforts to promote open government principles, with the open government advocacy group naming their annual award after him. For more information on WCOG, please read Shift’s September 2021 interview with Councilmember Nixon. (Seattle Times, Washington Policy Center, KNKX News, Former Redistricting Commission Chair Sarah Augustine op-ed, Clark County Today, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, Representative Abbarno/Legislative Update, Office of the Washington Insurance Commissioner media release, Shift Article, and Shift Newsmaker Interview)

Over the weekend, newly appointed Democrat Secretary of State Steve Hobbs tweeted a link for a puff piece editorial from his hometown Everett Herald. The beyond liberal editorial board falsely stated the new chief overseer of the state’s election process was rebuilding public trust in the voting process.  Are they even paying attention in the herald’s board room?  It is extremely hard to believe Secretary Hobbs is strengthening “public trust in the state and county-run election systems” when one of his very first major decisions in office was to refuse to defend the state’s redistricting process from a lawsuit filed by liberal special interest groups seeking to push their selfish legislative boundaries instead of the maps drawn and negotiated by the bi-partisan Redistricting Commission. In fact Hobbs’ refusal to do his actual job and legally defend the commission’s work led the non-partisan chair of the commission to resign.  Not exactly a sign of “rebuilding trust” and definitely far from the non-partisan actions taken by Hobbs’ Republican predecessors Kim Wyman, Sam Reed, Ralph Munro, and Bruce Chapman.  (Steve Hobbs Twitter, Everett Herald Editorial, and Seattle Times Op-ed by former chair of Redistricting Commission Sarah Augustine)

We are thinking of our friends up north as longtime Alaska Congressman Don Young passed away on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle last Friday. The 25 term Congressman was the longest serving representative in the current congress. The congressman was well known by many in the Puget Sound region as he often criticized Seattle’s liberal policies which negatively impacted Alaskans. (Alaska News Source)

Violent crimes continue to skyrocket in Seattle, smashing the record number of incidents set just last year.  As the negative impact of liberal “public safety” measures at both the state and local levels continue to make Seattle and surrounding areas a more comfortable place to be a criminal, the city, especially in lower-income neighborhoods, continues to experience a dramatic increase in violent crimes.  In the first two months of 2021, there were a record 701 reports of violent crimes in Seattle.  During the same time period in 2022, the city reported 904 violent incidents – a whopping 29% increase over the previous record. This is what happens when liberal lawmakers at both the state and city levels allow violent rioters to determine the city’s public safety policies. (City of Seattle Crime Dashboard)

Democrats believe it is “a relatively small investment” for taxpayers to throw “hundreds of millions of dollars” to pay Sound Transit (which has built a solid record of being extremely over-budget on all of its projects) to build yet another tunnel under downtown Seattle.  We all remember the hundreds of millions in cost-overruns and multiple-year delay in building the Highway 99 tunnel through Seattle (and then the subsequent expensive lawsuits still being decided).  Now Sound Transit now wants to build another tunnel underneath the city and the region’s liberal lawmakers want to make sure it has all the bells and whistles, no matter what it costs taxpayers.

Feeling no need to be responsible for how lawmakers spend our tax dollars, State Senator Jamie Pederson said, “We’re going to be making an absolutely massive investment in the new tunnel downtown..  or a relatively small investment, they could essentially future-proof the tunnel and that line by including expansion capacity for a crosstown line. I mean, we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars, but in the scheme, it’s relatively small.” Translation – Since Sound Transit is already billions of dollars over budget, let us all spend billions more on a project where no person is accountable for the massive cost overruns. (Crosscut and Seattle Times)

The City of Kennewick is looking to revise its ethics complaints process due to an overabundance of complaints currently be filed by lawmakers against political opponents.  Unfortunately, over the past couple of years, city councilmembers have been filing numerous petty ethics complaints against one another as they battle over issues before the council. Three members who have not been recent subjects of ethics complaints have been tasked with coming up with a better process which does not waste so much of the city’s resources investing the multiple complaints. (Tri-City Herald)

Shift’s last Newsmaker Interview was with Senate Republican Leader John Braun (Centralia) as we wrapped up our coverage of the 2022 legislative session.  In our extensive interview with the third-term senator, he provided his insights into one of the most divisive and irresponsible legislative sessions in state history.  The majority Democrats repeatedly failed to fix their previous legislative mistakes, and then compounded their errors by ignoring the concerns of financially struggling households by greedily refusing to provide tax relief to Washington residents, despite a record-breaking state revenue surplus of $15 billion.

Senator Braun shared his thoughts on the Democrats’ refusal to repair their disastrous 2021 “police reform” laws or their poorly developed Long-Term Care payroll tax (which Senator Braun believes should be totally repealed).  The Senate Republican Leader states that the Democrats’ unwillingness to reform the governor’s emergency powers confirms “they can’t be trusted to stand up to the governor.” The senate minority party leader also shares his thoughts on Governor Jay Inslee’s repeated attacks on the state’s agriculture community (with help from urban environmental groups) and the Democrats’ divisive partisan desire to destroy the work of the bi-partisan Redistricting Commission, which led to the recent resignation of its chair. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

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