Opponents of a plan to allow Sound Transit use of the center two lanes on the Interstate 90 Bridge in order to extend light rail from Seattle to Bellevue are planning to take their case back to the state’s highest court. Representatives from the Eastside Transportation Association, including former State Sen. Jim Horn and...
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  Washington State Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown (D-Spokane), following a spring that saw her party lose a bruising floor fight during which minority Republicans joined with a handful of Democratic defectors to defeat her preferred budget, has decided not to seek re-election this fall. Brown, 55, announced on Thursday that after 20 years...
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The Washington State Department of Ecology’s newly released climate change strategy, according to at least one outspoken critic, amounts to little more than a thinly veiled attempt to hinder development at a time when the state needs to be doing everything possible to promote private-sector business and jobs. “This is yet another obstacle in...
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Business people who also dabble in social activism were granted legal cover during the just-concluded Washington state legislative session in the form of a bill that would protect “social-purpose corporations” from lawsuits filed by investors more concerned with making money than advancing a personal agenda. And vice versa. Passed by both houses of the...
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  “We’re in nothing less than a battle for the future of our nation,” Shelton business owner Pat Tarzwell told a raucous crowd gathered on the steps of the Capitol Building in Olympia on Saturday. “And we have some serious catching up to do. Progressives have a 100-year headstart growing the size of government.”...
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In the final, frenzied moments of a special legislative session that extended seven hours past its deadline of midnight Tuesday, exhausted Washington state lawmakers who’d spent the past eight months trying to close a $1.6 million gap between projected expenditures and revenues, easily passed a capital budget that included $1.1 billion in new construction...
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Bleary-eyed Washington state lawmakers finally reached agreement on a long-delayed supplemental budget at 6:17 a.m. — more than six hours into a second special legislative session. “It doesn’t cut education, it’s balanced and it’s a quarter to 5,” Rep. Ross Hunter (D-Medina) said of the budget before it passed in that house by a...
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New Washington state government employees will still have the option of retiring early, but they’ll pay more for the privilege and benefit less under a compromise struck between Senate Democrats and a coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats. The deal eliminates one of the major hurdles standing in the way of passing a supplemental...
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Washington State lawmakers, despite having not yet reached agreement on a supplemental budget needed to fill an anticipated $1.6 billion gap between spending plans and expected revenues, have reportedly agreed in principle on a capital budget that would spend $1.1 billion on a statewide wish list of projects. The plan, pushed by Sen. Derek...
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Washington state lawmakers are not only unlikely to reach agreement on a supplemental budget in time to a avert another special session, but the two sides are even farther apart now than before Democrats in the House of Representatives released their latest proposal on Wednesday morning. Members of a bipartisan coalition from the Senate...
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