• Sources say that Washington State’s new $9.04 an hour minimum wage, which took effect on January 1, is coming with a toll for certain restaurant employees. Linda Derschang, owner of King’s Hardware, Oddfellows Cafe and Bar, Smith, and Linda’s Tavern, reportedly cut free employee meals to counterbalance the automatic 37-cent raise. Called to confirm, Derschang explained that other costs were also mounting, including health care. “I don’t think many businesses feed their staff lunch during the workday,” she said.
• Despite Representative Adam Smith’s recent claim that Seattle City Council member Bruce Harrell wouldn’t challenge him for his seat in Congress this year, that’s not the story we’re getting. “Adam Smith… does not speak for Bruce Harrell,” says Harrell’s campaign manager/niece Monisha Harrell.
• Alleged Democrat Mary Margaret Haugen—a state senator from the 10th District—got an earful from constituents on January 7 about why she should vote for a gay marriage bill this year. But Haugen said she wouldn’t vote for marriage equality, only send it to a vote of the people.
• Meanwhile, Republican state senator Steve Litzow, of Mercer Island, will vote for gay marriage, telling the Seattle Times this week that “it’s the right thing to do, and it’s very consistent with the tenets of being a Republican—such as individual freedom and personal responsibility.”
• In other totally gay news, Shaunita Felder wrote to The Stranger complaining that bisexuals had been omitted from Governor Chris Gregoire’s recent speech on same-sex marriage. “By leaving us out of her speech, she relegates us to an invisible darkness,” Felder wrote.
• The structure of police misconduct investigations “violates human rights requirements,” according to a Seattle Human Rights Commission report released January 8. Among its recommendations: Citizens who accuse a Seattle police officer of misconduct and are unsatisfied with the results should be allowed to appeal to a citizen oversight panel.
• Democratic congressman Jay Inslee, who is running for governor, was short on details about his agenda in a recent meeting with The Stranger. Nonetheless, he promised, “I will be a stand-up guy that will take positions that show some spine and some backbone.”
• An Elway Research poll released last week finds that 48 percent of Washington State voters would vote to approve marijuana legalization, down six points from a poll in summer that found 54 percent supported legalization. 
Re the Elway poll: number of subjects? Margin of error? A statement like this in isolation is close to meaningless.
Oh shut up shaunita felder person. I’m bisexual and your statement even pisses ME off. Bi folks have it a million times easy compared to straight folks. And since the parts we don’t ‘have easy’ are the same parts homos don’t have easy, when they win, we win. So when gregoire was talking to gays, she was also talking half to you, get it?
dancinghobotom, I agree with the sentiment that the governor was almost certainly using shorthand — not trying to be all-inclusive– and that to be offended by not being explicitly included is a bit silly. But then you stray into really vague territory. What exactly do bi folks have “easy”? Just wondering. I assume the “parts we don’t have easy” refers to society’s ongoing and unjustified judgment of same-sex attraction?
I’m just confused. Thanks for clarifying.
that’s why I support Sea Hag as she comes around eventually? how long dose it take to change a constitution to reflect human rights?
Seems America is still trying?
You go Sea Hag! I love you.