Just two weeks after the case was argued in court, a federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a group of environmental activists that sought to overturn the Washington State Department of Transportation’s analysis of a new State Route 520 bridge. U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo S. Martinez issued the ruling on July 25,...
Read More »

A coalition of environmental activists filed notice on Wednesday they plan to sue the six companies that own and operate eastern Montana’s Colstrip power plant – which provides about half the electric power consumed by Puget Sound Energy which, in turn, accounts for around 18 percent of all electricity in Washington state. At the...
Read More »

Washington state residents, most surveys have consistently shown, prefer the so-called “top-two” primary system because they believe it gives them more choices. But in practice, a newly released study asserts, the rules tend to shrink the pool of candidates, thus giving voters fewer candidates from whom to choose. The report, authored by Gonzaga University...
Read More »

Washington state will likely be paying $390 more into state government pension plans during the 2013-15 biennium following a vote on Wednesday of the state’s Pension Funding Council. Local governments, which also participate in the state retirement system, will see their contribution levels increased by $460 million over the same period. At the recommendation...
Read More »

Members of the legislature’s Health Reform Implementation Committee heard nearly three hours of testimony on Wednesday about how last month’s Supreme Court Ruling on the Affordable Care Act will affect its future in Washington state. And not once did anyone suggest it might not have one. Instead, against the backdrop of a neck-and-neck presidential...
Read More »

Washington state lawmakers spent three hours on Monday listening to a presentation on the state’s employment picture that was long on academic theories and calls for government intervention but decidedly under-represented in terms of the business perspective. Modeled after a two-day series of hearings hosted in March by the University of Washington and dubbed...
Read More »

Brian Cladoosby, under whose leadership Washington’s Swinomish Tribe has actively opposed everything from wells drilled on private property to plastic water bottles in the name of preserving salmon runs, was apparently cited himself last month for poaching. According to a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Program report, Cladoosby allegedly sold sockeye salmon...
Read More »

The Washington State Supreme Court on Wednesday took steps to put some meat on the bones of its January ruling that the Legislature hadn’t done enough to fund basic education. In response to a July 11 conference between state atorneys and the plaintiffs in McCleary v. State of Washington, the court issued a supplemental...
Read More »

For the Olympia Report The husband and daughter of a Washington Department of Social and Health Services client will serve jail time for stealing $111,705 from state and federal healthcare programs. “This was a significant case of fraud and justice was served,” Senior Counsel Carrie Bashaw of the Washington State Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud...
Read More »

Statistically speaking, there’s little difference between the education systems of Washington state and North Carolina. Washington’s K-12 network operates 2,318 schools to serve just over 1 million students; North Carolina has 2,550 schools and 1.5 million students. And academically, the two are virtually indistinguishable. Using the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test as...
Read More »