As the number of cases and geographic reach expands in Southwest Washington’s measles crisis, state lawmakers are looking to revisit who can opt out of vaccinations.Read More
A bill in the Washington state House of Representatives would create a wolf sanctuary on Bainbridge Island. And while the bill’s sponsor, Republican Joel Kretz, knows it’s unlikely to even get a hearing, he said he introduced it to make a point.Read More
Oregon and Washington voters could get a say at the next general election on whether to adopt daylight saving time year-round — and thereby abolish the twice-yearly clock changes.Read More
Following in the steps of the European Union and California, Washington lawmakers are considering a sweeping data privacy proposal that its sponsors say could become a model for the nation.Read More
The handling of sexual harassment in the Washington Legislature will evolve following a new code of conduct that has already passed one chamber. Read More
Murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls are the focus of a bill introduced in the Washington House of Representatives on Friday.Read More
A new bill in the state legislature would ease the tax burden on working families by giving a chunk of sales tax money back to them.Read More
A bill in the Washington Senate seeks to improve voting rights for Native Americans. The Native American Voting Rights Act is sponsored by John McCoy, the only tribal member in the state Senate.Read More
The question hanging over the Washington state Legislature this winter isn’t so much what laws will pass, but how they’ll be funded.Read More
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee will take his most visible step yet towards a possible bid for president when he visits New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state, on Monday and Tuesday.Read More
A bipartisan effort to make Washington the first state to legalize human composting faced its first test in front of lawmakers on Tuesday — and the idea seemed to go over relatively well. Read More
The gas and diesel you use to fuel your car are some of the biggest sources of greenhouse gasses and air pollution in Washington. Some lawmakers want to change that.Read More
Warning that Washington state is at a "tipping point," Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday delivered a State of the State address that called on lawmakers to address carbon pollution, "transform" the mental health system and save Puget Sound orcas.Read More
Washington state Sen. Kevin Ranker, an Orcas Island Democrat, has resigned his seat in the midst of a workplace conduct investigation. In a letter to Gov. Jay Inslee dated Friday, Ranker, who served in the Senate for a decade, said his resignation was effective immediately. Read More
Two decades ago, Washington voters overwhelming adopted an initiative that effectively banned affirmative action programs in the state. That could soon change.Read More
A Washington state senator under investigation for alleged workplace misconduct involving his former legislative assistant acknowledged Tuesday that he had a "brief relationship" with the woman before he hired her in 2009.Read More
Washington state Sen. Kevin Ranker, an Orcas Island Democrat best known for his work on environmental issues, has confirmed that he is under investigation for alleged workplace misconduct involving a former employee.Read More
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is proposing a hefty $10 billion increase in state spending over the next two years to maintain current services and fund new priorities, including mental health and orca recovery. To pay for it, Inslee is once again pushing for a new state capital gains tax on high income earners as well as an increase in the business and occupation tax on Read More
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is taking the first step toward a plan to help house and treat psychiatric patients who have been involved in the criminal justice system: a new, 500-bed state mental hospital.Read More
Following eight months of meetings, a workgroup on the prevention of sexual harassment in the Washington state House is recommending an independent office where victims could report misconduct. The recommendation is part of a package of suggested reforms.Read More
The Washington State Senate announced Tuesday that it will not go forward with its planned investigation of Senator Joe Fain (R-Auburn). Fain has been accused of raping a Seattle woman in 2007 before he took office and has denied the allegation.Read More
A 2017 law that requires Washington gun dealers to report when someone tries to buy a firearm and fails a background check has resulted in at least 10 arrests and two convictions so far, according to a report by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.Read More
Nearly 20 years after Washington voters passed Initiative 695, which repealed Washington's motor vehicle excise tax, anti-tax activist Tim Eyman says he's close to qualifying a new initiative to repeal taxes to support Sound Transit and restrict car tabs to $30. Read More
Washington State Senator Joe Fain conceded to his opponent, Mona Das, Friday night. It came after the latest vote tally, and an expected outside investigation into a rape accusation made in September.Read More
Matt Manweller and Joe Fain, two Washington legislators accused of sexual misconduct during their re-election campaigns, are seeing very different outcomes in their races this week. Read More
Washington state Sen. Doug Ericksen was among the Republicans fighting to keep his seat after Tuesday’s election. AUSTIN JENKINS / N3 Listen It wasn’t a sweeping blue wave, but Democrats […]Read More
The attack on Berni that September evening was the third serious patient-on-staff assault at Western State Hospital in a two-month period. In August, two other members of the nursing staff had been pushed to the floor and stomped by patients, according to press reports and hospital administrators. One of the nursing staff who was attacked appeared so bloody that a coworker Read More
Six years ago, Steven Gonzalez's last name likely cost him votes in his first race for the Washington Supreme Court. He won nonetheless. Gonzalez is just one of three sitting Washington justices up for re-election this year. Justices Susan Owens and Sheryl Gordon McCloud are running unopposed after their opponents were bounced from the ballot because they were disbarred lawyers.Read More
The Washington Supreme Court upheld most of the state's charter school law Thursday, eliminating the specter that a dozen schools serving about 3,400 students might have to close.Read More
Washington's Public Disclosure Commission said Monday it's received nine complaints about a series of controversial mailers that were sent to voters in Thurston County and four hotly contested state legislative districts from coastal Washington to Spokane.Read More
In statehouse races across Washington this year, there are two potential boogeymen: President Donald Trump and the city of Seattle. Democrats are counting on an anti-Trump bump while Republicans are running against the liberal policies of the state’s largest city.Read More
The Washington state Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penalty Thursday, Oct. 11, and converted all death sentences to life in prison.Read More
Washington Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz is asking the state legislature to nearly double funding to manage and respond to wildfire.Read More
A Washington state senator who says he’s heard from “literally hundreds of parents” of adult children who are struggling with mental illness or addiction wants to allow families to petition for temporary guardianship.Read More
Washington state Sen. Joe Fain denied Faber’s written allegations to The Seattle Times. “Any allegation of this serious nature deserves to be heard and investigated for all parties involved,” Fain told the Times.Read More
Washington State 5th Congressional District Republican U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers contends in a television ad that her Democratic opponent Lisa Brown voted to raise college tuition in Washington by more than 80 percent while serving as a state lawmaker.Read More
Under pressure to resign following a new allegation of sexual misconduct, Republican state legislator Matt Manweller on Monday told a reporter from the Columbia Basin Herald that he would resign if re-elected this November. In his statement, Manweller neither denied what he called the "alleged relationship" nor apologized.Read More
A new state political action committee with a high-profile co-chair from California and national financial backing has launched a campaign to unseat Washington state legislator Matt Manweller.Read More
House Republican leaders on Friday called on embattled state Rep. Matt Manweller (R-Cle-Elum) to resign. The move followed the publication of a story by the public radio Northwest News Network earlier in the day detailing an alleged sexual relationship between Manweller and a 17-year-old former high school student of his in 1997.Read More
A former Idaho high school student of embattled GOP Washington legislator and longtime educator Rep. Matt Manweller says she had a sexual relationship with him beginning after she graduated in 1997, when she was 17 years old and he was a decade her senior. Under Idaho state law at the time, sex between an adult male and a female younger than 18 constituted statutory rape.Read More
Washington state Rep. Matt Manweller “engaged in a pattern of unprofessional and inappropriate behavior” with current and former female students at Central Washington University (CWU) over a 13-year period, according to an 85-page investigative report released by the university on Wednesday.Read More
Central Washington University fired Republican state Rep. Matt Manweller Tuesday, Aug. 14, from his position as a tenured professor of political science following a months-long investigation into his conduct toward students.Read More
Washington Republicans are regrouping after a primary election pounding Tuesday that extended beyond swing districts to rock-ribbed GOP pockets of the state.Read More
Democratic state Rep. David Sawyer of Tacoma was in third place in early primary returns Tuesday night, an indication of the political fallout he’s facing over numerous allegations of inappropriate behavior toward women and an investigation that found he violated House harassment policy. Read More
With less than a week until the primary election in his district, Republican state Rep. Matt Manweller has released a video accusing his employer—Central Washington University —of pursuing a partisan-driven investigation into his workplace conduct.Read More
The past eight months have been a whirlwind of victories for Tarra Simmons—an honors law school graduate with a criminal past. This week something happened that Simmons could not have anticipated. A political mailer started showing up in mailboxes in the 26th Legislative District that attacked a Democratic candidate for state Senate, Emily Randall, for supporting Simmons Read More
In response to the #MeToo movement, the Washington state Senate will create a new human resources officer position to investigate complaints of harassment and other workplace misconduct, replacing a previous system of “facilitators” who served as a go-to resource for victims.Read More
It’s the agony of modern day parents: how to find and afford decent child care. This has become such a problem, the Washington Legislature has created a task force to tackle the issue.Read More
In the aftermath of a recent workplace conduct investigation at the state Capitol, the Democratic lawmaker at the heart of the inquiry and one of his accusers say the process has revealed flaws in how the Legislature handles complaints made against elected officials.Read More
Despite a two year turnaround effort, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Monday that it will strip Washington’s Western State Hospital of federal certification for failing to comply with standards.Read More
