See you in court, boss!  A lawsuit has been filed against Governor Jay Inslee by his own employees among Washington State Patrol officers, fire fighters, ferry workers, and other government workers over the governor’s recent vaccination mandate.  The lawsuit contends Governor Inslee has overstepped his authority and that the mandates violate government employees’ constitutional rights by requiring them to be vaccinated for the COVID virus before October 18^th or lose their jobs.  The case was filed last Friday in Walla Walla Superior Court.

While employees are allowed to file for narrowly drawn religious or medical exemptions to being vaccinated, state patrol officers have been informed that these people could still lose their positions.  Court documents also include internal emails which reveal that the governor’s staff sought to make these exemptions incredibly narrow and difficult to obtain. The lawsuit contends that the result of the mandate on government employees will be “certain political and religious classes being purged from civil service.”  The lawsuit also takes aim at Governor Inslee’s never-ending use of the executive’s emergency powers, contending that, “By axiom, an event lasting over twenty months is not emergency.”  Gee, we wish we’d been saying that. (Seattle Times)

A coalition of more than 160 employers and associations have asked Governor Inslee to intervene over the disastrous long-term care insurance tax which takes effect in January.  In a letter authored by the Association of Washington Business, the group outlined its many concerns over the new tax.  Among the many problems is that there are no longer any private insurance plans available to employees who want to opt out of the ill-conceived and poorly written state mandate.  Also, many employees who are close to retirement, or who live in border states, will be forced to pay into the state plan even though they will not be able to receive any future benefits.  Unfortunately, as we have already seen from Governor Inslee with other hastily drafted bills (think police reform) passed by the legislature earlier this year, he feels no obligation to assist in cleaning up bad legislation passed by his fellow Democrats. (Association of Washington Business letter to Governor Inslee)

Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney refuted recent comments by liberal lawmakers who supported the heavily criticized police reform measures jammed through the legislature by Democrats to reward the political violence committed by their liberal activists.   The sheriff stated in an Everett Herald op-ed that recent comments by liberal lawmakers that these new laws are not stopping police from stopping criminals were “simply not accurate” and that it is an “overwhelming consensus of law enforcement in the state” that these measures have had a serious impact on the effectiveness of law enforcement.  Sheriff Fortney provided an excellent description of how these radical new laws are the most extreme in the nation and how they are allowing obvious criminals to go free to commit even more crimes. He concludes by stating, “It is not often that the 39 elected sheriffs in Washington state are in agreement,” but they all agree that dramatic “fixes” need to be made to the new laws and that a special session of the legislature should be called to ensure criminals do not roam free with impunity. (Everett Herald)

An in-depth article written by one of the first graduates of the “Slade Gorton Leaders Program” details the former U.S. senator’s important contributions to the 9/11 Commission.  After a weekend during which the nation commemorated the 20^th anniversary of the terrorist attack on our country, Sean O’Brien (who is currently a senior advisor to Congressman Dan Newhouse) describes how much of the success of the commission has been universally attributed to Senator Gorton’s efforts during public hearings and behind the scenes. (Washington State Wire)

Yet another small downtown Seattle employer has notified city officials of the unsafe working conditions which failed liberal homeless policies have created for her workers, and she added she may be joining the ranks of 500 other downtown businesses which have closed their doors in the past couple of years. In the latest complaint by a Seattle small business owner over the conditions they must endure, Katherine Anderson (proprietor of the Pioneer Square eatery London Place) wrote a public letter to mayoral candidates and current city council members detailing recent incidents in which her workers were physically threatened by unstable individuals, which the city’s liberal policies allow to remain untreated and creating public disturbances.

Anderson stated that when she previously spoke with Councilmember Andrew Lewis about the never-ending problems, his only solution was to have her contact an extremely difficult to reach agency (which Anderson claims she has still yet to make contact).  Anderson stressed that she could lose her current workers over these daily incidents. “As you may or may not know, there is a crisis in available employees in the restaurant business right now and we absolutely cannot afford to lose any of our staff.” (Post Alley)

The Dupont City Council will be voting on whether its city will become the eighth in Washington State to ban a local income tax.  The Pierce County community’s city council will decide on at its monthly meeting on Tuesday evening whether it will join Battle Ground, Granger, Kennewick, Moses Lake, Spokane, Spokane Valley, and Union Gap in banning an income tax in its jurisdiction. (DuPont City Council agenda)

Area law enforcement officers are extremely upset at the bail amount which a “substitute” King County judge set for a suspect in a drive-by shooting attempt on a Renton police officer.   Frankie Taijon Robertson is suspected of shooting 15 rounds at a Renton police officer at a busy intersection last Tuesday afternoon.  Fortunately, the police officer was not hit as she ducked down in her car. Robertson was subsequently caught, and prosecutors asked that her bail be set at $1 million. Judge David O (his full last name is just “O”), who is a current defense attorney, instead set the bail at just $50,000.  We should note that Robertson is also a suspect in another attempted shooting of yet another police officer, and at a later charging hearing a more rational judge increased the bail amount to $500,000.

Judge O is not a full-time judge, but one who “temporarily serves when needed.”  His full-time job is a criminal defense attorney.  It is obvious that in this case, Judge O was acting more as a second defense attorney for the suspect instead of serving the judicial requirements of the position. His services should not be needed by King County when his idea of justice is to place such a low bail amount on an attempted cop killer. (MyNorthwest)

A new report by the Washington Policy Center informs us that the Yakima County became the first of Washington’s 39 counties to ban an income tax in its jurisdiction. The Yakima County Council passed a resolution on August 17^th prohibiting the county from imposing an income tax.  The resolution stated that, “such a tax would be in conflict with the high value the County places on promoting economic development through attraction and expansion of our local, regional, state and national employers.” (Washington Policy Center and Yakima County Council resolution)

Many students across Washington have expressed frustration over the state’s mandates that all students, regardless of their vaccination status, must wear face masks.  Approximately 60 students at Colfax High School protested the mandates at a rally in front of their school after their first day back. (Lewiston Tribune)

Shift’s Newsmaker Interview is with Toby Nixon, Kirkland City Councilmember and President Emeritus of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.  Last week, as part of a national Democrat effort to divert public attention away from the Biden Administration’s disastrous Afghanistan retreat and slipping economic numbers, Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler used his office to send out an extremely partisan and divisive press release over new abortion laws in Texas, which of course have no impact in Washington State which has paid Mr. Kreidler’s salary for decades. Nixon immediately filed a complaint against Kreidler with the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission over misuse of public funds.  We talk with Nixon about his complaint against Commissioner Kreidler, about the mission of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, the push to open negotiations to the public with government unions, and how the City of Kirkland is handling the many problems that are crippling Seattle. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview

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