Washington Attorney General Nick Brown (D) is gearing up for yet another legal battle with the Trump administration after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed portions of President Donald Trump’s mail-voting executive order to move forward.

The 6-3 decision lifted an injunction Washington and other Democrat-led states had won against the order, which directs the federal government to develop state-by-state lists of eligible voters and imposes new requirements involving mail ballots and election administration. The ruling wasn’t a final decision on whether Trump’s policy is legal, and another injunction means Washington’s vote-by-mail system isn’t changing for now.

That hasn’t stopped Brown from declaring another emergency. He accused Trump of trying to suppress legitimate votes and promised more litigation if the administration moves ahead. Washington joined 22 other states challenging the order, with Brown helping lead the lawsuit alongside Oregon.

For Washington Democrats, fighting Trump in court has become practically another function of state government. Rather than wait to see how the federal rules are implemented—or acknowledge that election-security requirements aren’t exactly a radical concept—Brown is already preparing the next round of taxpayer-funded litigation.

Washington voters will still receive their ballots as usual this fall. But Olympia Democrats get something they appear to believe is nearly as valuable: another opportunity to campaign against Trump from the Attorney General’s Office. Read more at Seattle Red and Axios.

Even The Seattle Times can no longer completely ignore the damage Olympia Democrats have done to Washington’s business climate.

The paper’s editorial board recently sounded the alarm over tech layoffs, businesses looking elsewhere, Washington’s 5.2% unemployment rate and the roughly 200,000 regulations businesses are forced to navigate. There was just one rather convenient omission: Democrats’ shiny new 9.9% income tax and the November initiative seeking to repeal it.

Let’s Go Washington founder Brian Heywood noticed. His organization collected more than 511,000 signatures to qualify Initiative 645, which would repeal Democrats’ tax on household income above $1 million. Heywood blasted the paper for diagnosing Washington’s economic problems while carefully stepping around one of Olympia Democrats’ biggest new additions to the state’s tax burden.

And businesses aren’t exactly hiding their concerns. An Association of Washington Business survey found nearly one-quarter of employers were considering leaving Washington, while 17% said economic-development officials from other states had already come calling. Yet the Times largely settled on regulatory reform as the answer—as though Washington somehow accumulated 200,000 regulations and a hostile tax climate without decades of Democratic control in Olympia.

Meanwhile, voters will get their own opportunity to weigh in. The state Supreme Court last week rejected activist Arthur West’s emergency effort to remove the state-mandated “public investment impact disclosure” from the I-645 ballot description. His broader appeal continues, but the initiative remains headed for November.

Democrats spent years making Washington more expensive to live, work and run a business in. Now that the consequences are becoming difficult to hide, even their friends in the media are noticing the smoke—just not mentioning who keeps lighting the matches. Read more at Seattle Red.

Nearly 20 Washington lawmakers are leaving their seats, setting up another major turnover in Olympia just two years after 29 new legislators arrived at the Capitol. But while the names may be changing, Democrats are hoping November gives them even more votes for the same tax-and-spend agenda.

Some of the most consequential fights are in districts where Republicans are trying to prevent Democrats from expanding their already dominant majorities. In the 26th Legislative District, Republican Katy Cornell finished first in the primary for retiring Republican Rep. Michelle Valdez’s seat, but Democrat Renee Hernandez Greenfield advanced and Democrats collectively pulled more than half the primary vote. In the 39th District, Republican Steve Ewing is trying to keep retiring Republican Rep. Carolyn Eslick’s seat from flipping to Ida Keeley, who is running as an “Independent Democrat.”

In safely Democratic districts, meanwhile, the question isn’t whether Democrats win but how much further left their caucus moves. In the 48th District, Redmond City Councilmember Jessica Forsythe edged Democrat Rep. Amy Walen by just 17 votes in the primary. In Seattle’s 37th District, longtime Democrat Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos trailed challenger Kelabe Tewolde by nearly 1,400 votes.

Then there’s the 29th District, where Democrat Krista Perez finished ahead of incumbent Democrat Rep. Melanie Morgan—and was charged with DUI days later following allegations that she crashed into multiple parked vehicles. Apparently, even winning a Democratic primary isn’t enough drama for one election cycle.

The stakes extend beyond individual seats. Democrats are already within striking distance of a legislative supermajority, meaning these races could determine whether Olympia’s one-party government gets even fewer meaningful restraints. After years of record spending, new taxes—including Democrats’ 9.9% income tax—and an ever-growing regulatory state, their pitch to voters is effectively that the solution to Olympia’s problems is giving Olympia Democrats even more power. Read more at the Washington State Standard.

A heartbreaking new report shows the human cost of Washington’s troubled child welfare system was even worse than previously known.

The Office of the Family and Children’s Ombuds found that 35 children died and another 49 nearly died in 2025after their families had contact with the child welfare system during the previous year. DCYF’s own count was lower—23 deaths and 34 near-fatalities—because the agency uses a narrower standard for reviewing cases.

Many of the victims were especially vulnerable. Most of the children who died were under a year old, about a quarter of the deaths were ruled homicides, and three children died after previously being removed from their homes and later reunited with their families.

Republican State Rep. Tom Dent, a member of the DCYF Oversight Board, said the state needs to learn from these cases and be willing to change its approach. After another year of children dying, simply collecting grim statistics isn’t enough—the information needs to lead to action.

Yet despite bipartisan interest in reforms during the 2026 legislative session, Democrats merely approved more money for caseworkers and programs and another workgroup to study the problem. After years of dysfunction at DCYF, simply spending more taxpayer money to examine a crisis everyone already knows exists is no substitute for accountability or meaningful reform.

Thirty-five children lost their lives. They deserve more than another study, another workgroup and another round of government spending. They deserve a child welfare system that learns from its failures and an Olympia willing to demand accountability when it doesn’t. Read more at KUOW.

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