Washington state’s newest congressional district will be centered around Olympia as part of a bipartisan proposal unveiled in the capitol on Wednesday morning. The proposal would also create a majority-minority 9th District in the Seattle area. The plan, created by Democrat Tim Ceis and Republican Slade Gorton, still must be approved by the other...
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Washington state residents should finally see the final draft version of how their state’s legislative and congressional districts will be divvied up by tomorrow. On Tuesday afternoon, the four-member Redistricting Commission held a public meeting in Olympia at which it was announced a tentative agreement had been reached on redrawing the boundaries of the...
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Washington state residents could be within two hours of seeing how their state’s legislative and congressional districts will be divvied up. The four-member Redistricting Commission, which has until the first of the year to redraw the boundaries for the state’s 49 legislative districts and 10 congressional districts, convened on Tuesday for its scheduled meeting...
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Washington state’s new redistricting maps could be unveiled by Friday or even tomorrow. Or they might not be ready until next week, although with a deadline to finish their work by the end of the year, the Redistricting Commission is working feverishly to arrive at a compromise. “We met all day yesterday, exchanged maps...
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A day after legislators adjourned from the special session having identified only a quarter of the spending cuts needed to balance the 2011-13 budget, Gov. Christine Gregoire on Thursday rolled out a series recommendations designed to streamline government functions. Among her actions: • an executive order requiring all executive agencies to use LEAN management...
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State officials have ordered the Occupy Olympia protesters to evacuate Heritage Park by midnight tonight. The order, authorized by Department of Enterprise Services director Joyce Turner on Thursday morning, cites health and safety concerns at the two-month-old protest on the shores of Lake Olympia. Asked during a press conference on Thursday morning whether she...
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The Washington State Senate on Wednesday passed a compromise spending bill approved a day earlier by the House — and promptly adjourned the special session $1.5 billion short of filling the $2 billion revenue shortfall the lawmakers had been called to Olympia to address. House Bill 2058, which the senators approved with little debate...
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Members of the Washington State House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to approve a budget compromise that would get them home for Christmas having found only about $479 million of the $2 billion in spending reductions the state will need in order to keep within current revenue projections. But they did so only after...
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An hour after its companion bill was sent to the floor by the Senate Ways and Means Committee, the Washington State House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon voted 86-8 to approve a supplemental budget compromise that would get the state a quarter of the way toward plugging its $2 billion revenue gap. A similar...
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The budget deal proposed on Monday by the state House of Representatives was greeted appreciatively by those whose programs were spared — for now — from the budget ax. “We want to thank you,” Charlie Brown, representing The Schools Alliance, told members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Monday as it heard...
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