A solution to ending this idiotic state gridlock?
Get rid of the following stinking up Olympia: Senator Doug--Free Lunching Lobbyist to the Fossil Fuel Industry--Ericksen R, Ferndale; Michael--Whooppee!-Free Money from King County AND the Fossil Fuel Industry!-- Baumgartner--R, Spokane; Pam--Kiss My Ass and Like it, I'm Ba-ack!--Roach R, Auburn, and Tim--Flip flopping Republicrat--Sheldon.
Renounce these obstructionist thugs and we just may get our state back.

Ahahahahahah. Have you lived here long? Either the Rs have been fucking up congress for the better part of two decades, or our Ds are corrupt as fuck (I'm leaning toward both).

Over the past 15-20 years: our congress has fucked over our unemployment system by shackling it 3 separate times while reducing taxes for businesses, have passed tax cut after tax cut for businesses while M$ takes a lot of its tax base to Arizona, have passed regressive tax after regressive tax in a meager attempt to pay for the tax cuts for the rich, have refused to do anything to change the law regarding the constitutional interpretation that income isn't taxable, has decimated our education system, refuses to allow cities to pass rent control (actually, I know for a fact that Seattle Democrats are refusing to do this), etc.

Our state Democrats are DINOs and need to be ousted. But, as has been noted for Western Washington Ds, "just show up for work and claim you're a liberal, regardless of your actions, and you'll keep your seat for life. Hell, even The Stranger will keep sponsoring you."

You think this inactivity has only been going on for three years? Please.

Thanks for the breakdown, John! Telling it like it is.

@2: can you explain what you mean by "corrupt as fuck"? like, they take bribes? be specific, please. "corrupt" gets slung around willy-nilly these days.

On McCleary and fully-funding our schools, some items to note:

- some legislators say nothing will get done on McCleary until the issue of charter schools gets cleared up (see Rep. Chad Magendanz.) Basically, they will hold McCleary hostage until they get their way. Not so statesman-like.

McCleary IS Job #1 for this short legislative session and no other public ed issues.

- And a one-pager to the Supreme Court with a "timetable" and suggestions on how to pay for it won't do. Inslee's "work group" had time to come up with something and did not. It's now time for all of them to get it gear and get this done.

- Otherwise, as Justice Johnson pointed out to the Times' editorial board, other things might be done. Like what they did in New Jersey by pulling the plug on the money for the entire school system until their legislature got it done. We could be seeing a real fight between these branches.

The charter law is dead. Trying to frankenstein it back to life is not going to work because of the detail and nuance of public education. It's not just, "Hey kids,let's open a school." There's already one half-assed bill to do this and it simply won't work.

And, trying to divert attention from the job at head - McCleary - is the wrong move for any legislator to make and I think they will be hearing that loud and clear in the coming weeks.

The reason we are at this point with regard to McCleary specifically, and the other issues more broadly, is that the electorate wants the McCleary funding mandated by the State Supreme Court (as well as smaller class sizes) but they don't want legislators to raise taxes to accomplish that. See publicola's discussion of the most recent Elway poll http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2016/…

@5 Lets look at what happened with Boeing in 2013. Boeing demanded a shitton of tax breaks and our lawmakers CALLED A SPECIAL SESSION to pass that shit. They just rolled over.

But, they did more than that.

Boeing wanted a union contract with severe cuts in it. Government officials, including Jay Inslee and Frank Chopp interfered with the normal negotiation process and pressured Union members through the press to pass the contract that didn't benefit the workers. That's corruption.

The legislature's continued failure to fully fund education is intolerable. I have no confidence that they will tackle it this session, so we have to rely on the State Supreme Court to bring the hammer down on them. I only hope they do.

9

And do what? Is the state Supreme Court going to order state troopers to arrest legislators? This whole thing is a comedy show, the justices can write ruling after ruling, they have no enforcement mechanism over the entire legislative branch.

10 and as an add on,

What will happen if the court tries ruling tax breaks unconstitutional or stuff like that? The interests that donate to legislators will simply pay for a new slate of judges, buying 9 is easier then 150

@4 Steve: I know, but is there any way they can be publicly ousted prior to 2018? The future of Washington State and this planet very largely depends on it.

@2: I am a Washington native, how about you? How long have you lived here? Have you voted every election when you could? I did not vote for the four corrupt-as-fuck, inept Republican lobbyists, and don't see why I and so many of us should suffer because they bought their way in--or in Pam's case, got secretly ushered back into the state senate via GOP backdoor shenanigans.

10, how about the New Jersey Supreme Court's approach? Works for me.

@13

I'm a Washington native myself, I live in Sheldon's district, and I am a supporter of his.

See as it turns out those of us in Mason County have an equal right to representation in the legislature. And we're happy with ours.

14

Except I do not believe judges are elected in NJ. All judges in Wash are elected.

The problem from there is, if it becomes important enough, thanks to citizens united, interests can put out large sums of money to influence judicial elections.

And if the court declares themselves a super legislature that's exactly what will happen

I frankly think the court is overstepping their bounds, I support funding education, but not at the risk of a constitutional crisis

The Supreme Court doesn't have to do anything to legislators. What they CAN do is what happened in New Jersey - they shut the entire school system down until the legislature acted.

It worked.

@13 What about the years where Democrats had control of House, Senate and Governorship? They still managed to act, fiscally, like Republicans even if they were socially acting like Democrats. You can't blame those four people for fucking up our tax structure and our unemployment in the past three years when the Ds had control for decades before that. And Frank "I don't have to answer for my past" Chopp is a significant part of our shitty past.

@15: Fair enough. I hope Tim serves you and the Mason County voters in your district well. The only thing I don't like about Sheldon is that he tends to flip flop more often than a dolphin on speed on issues in the State Senate.
@18: There are plenty on both sides who are bad, but I name Doug Ericksen as the worst offender of all time. He doesn't even serve the people of the 42nd District, who he was elected to represent, and he is deliberately making life miserable for Senator Kevin Ranker, who serves my district--and, YES, I voted for Kevin Ranker. Despite the shamefully criminal political opposition that got bought in for another disastrous 6 years by outside fossil fuel money, Kevin on the other hand is doing a wonderful job.

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Someone should never run for office that doesn’t have experience. WRONG.
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Better to vote for someone that supports the Populous Agenda than Establishment Democrat Hillary Clinton who refuses to tax the rich, close the corporate loopholes, and break up the too big to fail banks.
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Populism as an Electoral Strategy: From Howard Dean to Hillary Clinton http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34327…

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