I heard that 5466 is classist and racist for forcing affordable housing into zones subject to disproportionate pollution from transit.

The bills protecting abortion and trans rights are great, and part of the reason I feel comfortable living in this state. Definitely not moving to Montana any time soon.

I'm not so sure that the baby bond programs are "meaningful change". They seem fine as far as they go and I have no objection to them, but they seem to be more of a quick patch than actual change. The problem is the over-reliance on money and the culture of self-interested materialism, not that some people have less money than others. Basic income seems more meaningful, and about as far as legislation can go. Real change has to happen in reality before it can be codified into law. At their best, legislatures follow, not lead - when they try to lead they inevitably become authoritarian, because we can't mandate that somebody's opinions change, we can only coerce them into changing their behavior.

The lack of progress on curtailing law enforcement is disheartening. It seems like what basically happened (everywhere, not just here) is that in 2020 leadership was like "let's just lie about our political beliefs until the energy dissipates". Then, typical scare tactics and scapegoating were used to scare people into thinking that it's good to have a bunch of people with guns running around telling people what to do. And so those with the most electoral influence - that is, those least likely to be abused by the police - decided that things should just go back to normal. I disagree with a lot of abolitionist arguments that say we can just get rid of the police overnight, but we need to recognize that this is not a long-term solution for maintaining a healthy society in perpetuity. Abolition is the goal, and we should be consistently taking steps in that direction even if it takes some time to get there. "It takes time" is different than "do nothing".

I am excited to look at the new website when it goes up. Not sure where to look for it, but hopefully the link will be mentioned in a slog after it goes live (this August? or do we have to wait for next year?). I've liked some of the dashboards the government has put up in other areas, hopefully this one will be good too.