WA Public Disclosure Commission investigating initiative sponsor

The Republican and Democratic caucuses in the Washington House of Representatives have elected their leaders for the 2025 session.

The full House of Representatives will vote for Speaker of the House and Speaker pro tempore when the session begins on Jan. 13. Generally, these roles are filled from the majority party’s leadership, and the House Democrats increased their ranks this year, with an expected majority of 59-39.

House Democrats elected Rep. Laurie Jinkins (D-Tacoma) as Speaker of the House designate and Rep. Chris Stearns (D-Auburn) as Speaker pro tempore designate.

Other Democratic House leaders include Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon (D-West Seattle) as majority leader; Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self (D-Mukilteo) as majority caucus chair; Rep. Monica Stonier (D-Vancouver) as majority floor leader; and Rep. Alex Ramel (D-Bellingham) as majority whip.

Republicans reelected Rep. Drew Stokesbary (R-Auburn) as House Republican leader.

Other leaders of the House Republican caucus include Rep. Chris Corry (R-Yakima) as deputy leader; Rep. Peter Abbarno (R-Centralia)  as caucus chair; Rep. Dan Griffey (R-Allyn) as whip;  Rep. April Connors (R-Kennewick)  as floor leader; and Rep. Skyler Rude (R-Walla Walla) and Rep. Travis Couture (R-Allyn)  as assistant floor leaders.

More winds are expected to hit the Puget Sound region on Friday, but they won’t be as strong as the ones that blew through Tuesday night, according to the National Weather Service.

The National Weather Service reports two rounds of winds will hit Western Washington from early Friday morning to 10 p.m. Friday evening, with gusts up to 35-40 mph on the Pacific Coast, Strait of Juan de Fuca and from Admiralty Inlet north to the Canadian border.

The agency advises people to secure loose items outside and to prepare for the potential for additional power outages.

More than 270,000 people in the region were still without power Thursday after Tuesday evening’s “bomb cyclone.” At least two people – one in a Bellevue house, the other in a homeless encampment in Lynnwood – died because of falling trees on Tuesday. The storm caused roads and schools to close due to lost power, fallen trees and power lines blocking roads.

Puget Sound Energy reported more than 269,000 customers were without power Thursday morning. The utility reported that customers in Pierce and Thurston counties are expected to have power restored today; customers in Whatcom, Skagit, Island and Kitsap counties  are expected to have power restored by 6 p.m. on Friday. The majority of customers in east King County, which the utility says was the hardest hit of its regions, are expected to have power restored by noon on Saturday. At the outage’s peak, more than 595,000 customers were without power after Tuesday’s storm.

Seattle City Light, which provides power for Seattle, Shoreline, Burien, Normandy Park and Tukwila, reported between 9,000 customers were still without power on Thursday morning. The estimated restoration time for most areas was by midnight Thursday. At the outage’s peak, more than 100,000 Seattle City Light customers were without electricity.

A Washington program intended to help people with low income buy their homes has not been used, despite available purchase options, according to a recently released performance audit by the Office of the State Auditor. 

The state’s Housing Finance Commission manages the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program and is meant to encourage development of affordable rental housing, but some of the projects give low-income tenants the option to purchase their homes after the home has been available to rent for 15 years or more.

According to a news release from the state auditor Tuesday, while 1,300 program projects are available in Washington, only 18 of those offer the option to purchase. All but one of the 18 purchasing programs are managed by Tribal governments in Washington. Of the 18 projects, only six had homes old enough to qualify for tenant purchase in 2023, for a total of 135 homes, but project owners have not transferred any properties to tenants, the audit showed. 

Auditors found that both tenants and project owners had confusion about the program. Some tenants did not know about the option to purchase, and other tenants had varied understanding of how the program works. According to auditors, most tenants who were interviewed wanted more information about how the program worked. Project owners also faced challenges like limited guidance from the state for how to properly transfer property to tenants. 

“Although it’s disappointing that the promise of the purchase option has yet to lead to homeownership in Washington, this audit sheds needed light on why that is the case,” State Auditor Pat McCarthy said in the statement. 

As part of the audit, the agency provided recommendations to the commission such as improved monitoring of the homeownership program, and providing project owners with clearer guidance.  

Republican candidate Dave Reichert conceded in the Washington state gubernatorial race Tuesday after two weeks of ballot counting.

Reichert, a former King County sheriff and congressman for Washington’s 8th Congressional District, congratulated Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson, who will be inaugurated on Jan. 15, 2025. 

In a social media post Tuesday, Reichert thanked his supporters and said they gave him “hope that we can turn this upside-down world right-side up.” He said while his campaign was built on the “heart of a servant,” his campaign was always about his supporters. 

“While this race did not go as planned, I don’t want you to lose hope,” Reichert said. “I urge you to join me in keeping the hope and staying the course. We must continue to vote and be proud of our values, even if they look different than the majority of our state. And remember: there will always be more that unites us than divides us.”

On election night, Reichert told supporters he would not concede until the last vote was counted.

Ferguson, who is the state’s current attorney general, garnered nearly 56% of the vote in the election, while Reichert brought in around 44%. As of Tuesday, about 24,300 votes are estimated to remain to be counted, according to the secretary of state’s general election results page. That number would not be enough to close the gap between the candidates. 

Reichert’s campaign was focused on crime and safety issues as well as addressing the state’s high cost of living, but he faced intense criticism from opposition groups and some voters for his stances on abortion and reproductive rights throughout his campaign. 

Washington has had a sharp rise this year in cases of pertussis, also known as whooping cough. The state reports that 1,303 cases have been reported statewide so far in 2024, as of Nov. 9. That’s a sharp increase compared to the same time frame in 2023, when there were 54 cases reported statewide, according to a weekly report by the Department of Health.

Pertussis has early symptoms similar to the common cold but can develop into violent coughing fits, breathing struggles and other complications, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Babies younger than a year old are at highest risk for developing life-threatening complications, including apnea (life-threatening pauses in breathing), pneumonia and in serious cases, convulsions and death.

According to a Department of Health announcement earlier this month, at least 28 people in Washington have been hospitalized including 12 infants under the age of 1. The highest rates of confirmed or probable cases have been among children younger than 1, and the highest number of cases have been among children between the ages of 1 and 4, according to the Department of Health’s weekly pertussis report. Counties with the highest rates of cases have been Whitman, Clark and Chelan.

People vaccinated for pertussis can avoid severe cases of whooping cough, the CDC reports. The vaccine wears off over time, so the CDC recommends boosters to maintain protection. Different types of the vaccine against pertussis are available at different ages, starting with a series at 2 months of age. The Washington Department of Health advises pregnant people to get the Tdap vaccine between 27 and 36 weeks of pregnancy, to help protect their newborns who are too young to get vaccinated.

King County Executive Dow Constantine announced this week that he will not run for reelection next year after 15 years in the county’s top job.

Constantine was elected to the position in 2009 after defeating Susan Hutchison. The seat had been vacated earlier that year by Ron Sims, who had left with 11 months left on his term to serve as deputy secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration. (Kurt Triplett, who finished Sims’ term, did not run for election.) Constantine decisively won reelection three times. Prior to being county executive, Constantine served on the county council and was in the state Legislature as a representative and a state senator.

Constantine, who grew up in West Seattle and still lives there, chairs the Sound Transit Board and serves on the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Mountains to Sound Greenway board and others.

King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci, a former Bellevue city councilmember who has been on the King County Council since 2015, launched a campaign to run for county executive after Constantine's announcement. The Seattle Times reported that King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay was “seriously considering” running for the position.

The position is nonpartisan.

Seattle University researchers are seeking public input for the 10th annual Seattle Public Safety Survey.   

The survey asks people who live or work in Seattle to go to publicsafetysurvey.org and share their perceptions of crime and safety citywide and within their own neighborhoods.  

The survey will be open until Nov. 30. It is available in Amharic, Arabic, Chinese, English, Korean, Oromo, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tigrinya and Vietnamese. 

Seattle University’s Department of Criminal Justice, Criminology and Forensics leads the data collection and analysis, which is then provided to Seattle’s police department.  

“No neighborhood in Seattle is alike when it comes to crime and public safety,” said Dr. Jacqueline Helfgott, director of the school's Crime & Justice Research Center in a press release. “Data from the annual Seattle Public Safety Survey provides important information for the city to help the Seattle Police Department and the community work together to identify priorities and strategies to improve quality of life in Seattle neighborhoods.”  

Last year’s survey found people’s top five public safety concerns were traffic safety, police capacity, property crime, homelessness and community capacity. Concerns about “community capacity” include issues with wait times to speak to emergency dispatchers, insufficient resources for people experiencing public mental health crises and a lack of block watches.   

The Washington State Legislature has a new Senate Majority Leader after Senate Democrats elected Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, to the position on Monday.

Democrats retain a majority in the state Senate after this year’s general election.

After Monday’s vote, Washington is now the first state in the country to have two legislative leadership roles filled simultaneously by lawmakers who are members of the LGBTQ+ community. In the state House, Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, has served as the first woman and lesbian in the position since 2020.

Pedersen has been a lawmaker since 2007 when he took office as a state Representative. In 2012 he was elected to the Senate and currently sits on the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee, the Senate Law and Justice Committee, the Senate Rules Committee, and the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Since 2012 he has served as the Senate Majority Floor Leader.

In a news release Monday, Pedersen said he was humbled to lead the Senate and is eager to build on bipartisan progress.

“We are excited to see our majority grow,” Pedersen said. “I am confident this new energy and passion will help Senate Democrats continue to put people first and tackle the issues Washingtonians care about most – affordable housing, great public schools, behavioral health, gun violence prevention, climate change and more.”

Pedersen has sponsored legislation to reduce gun violence and increase access to the Death with Dignity Act, and publicly sponsored the measure to legalize the sale of cannabis in Washington as well as legalize same-sex marriage. 

Pedersen will take the place of Sen. Andy Billig, D-Spokane, who announced earlier this year that he would retire after 14 years in the Legislature. The legislative session begins Jan. 13. 

Currently Pedersen is the executive vice president and general counsel for McKinstry, and lives with his husband Eric and four sons on Capitol Hill.

Everett voters appear to be on track to approve a new minimum wage of $20.24 per hour, nearly four dollars higher than the state minimum wage.  

Initiative 24-01 was passing with 58% of the vote Tuesday night. If it succeeds, large employers in Everett with over 500 employees will begin paying the $20.24 minimum wage beginning July 1, 2025. For companies with 15-500 employees, the minimum wage will be phased in, beginning at $18.24 on July 1 and reaching the same rate paid by large employers by 2027, which will be adjusted annually for inflation.

The measure does not apply to businesses with fewer than 15 employees.  

Supporters of the Everett Deserves a Raise campaign argued the higher wage is necessary to offset rising costs of rent, groceries, gas and other life expenses that are contributing to residents getting displaced from the city. The measure was backed by unions including UFCW 3000, the Snohomish & Island County Labor Council and the Public School Employees of Washington.  

Everett voters were tasked with choosing between two similar and competing minimum wage measures this election. Initiative 24-02, known as Raise the Wage Responsibly, also would have increased the minimum wage to $20.24 over time, but allowed businesses to count tips, health care and retirement contributions toward a worker’s minimum wage.  

The backers of this alternative measure, including the Washington Hospitality Association, argued the tipped wage credit and other exceptions would allow higher pay for workers without hurting businesses also feeling the impact of inflation.  

Initiative 24-02 was losing by 59% after the first ballot count Tuesday night. Had both measures passed, the one with more Yes votes would have superseded the other, according to the Everett Herald.  

Tipped wage credits were a flashpoint issue in Seattle recently. As part of its decade-long phase-in of its highest-in-the-nation minimum wage law in 2015, Seattle allowed businesses like restaurants and coffee shops to count tips toward workers’ minimum wage.  

That exemption is set to expire at the start of 2025. Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth introduced a bill in late July to keep the tipped wage credit in place in response to restaurant and other business owners’ concerns about the ongoing economic impact of the pandemic. Hollingsworth withdrew her bill one week later after facing swift blowback from labor leaders and workers.  

In 2022, Tukwila voters approved a measure to raise the minimum wage — now $20.29 an hour for large employers. Renton voters approved a measure in February 2024 to match neighboring Tukwila’s new wage. Everett would join these cities as having among the highest minimum wages in the country, according to the Economic Policy Institute. 

This article was updated to clarify how Everett's minimum wage would be phased in for medium-sized employers. 

Republican Michael Baumgartner appears to have defeated Democrat Carmela Conroy in the race for Eastern Washington’s 5th Congressional District. 

Baumgartner had 60% of the vote after Tuesday night’s initial ballot count. Conroy was trailing with 40%. 

Baumgartner is a familiar face in Spokane politics. He was a state senator from 2010 to 2019, and currently serves as Spokane County treasurer. Before entering politics, he worked as an economics officer for the U.S. State Department in Iraq and a civilian contractor in Afghanistan. 

Conroy spent 24 years as a foreign service officer and diplomat with the U.S. State Department. She has also worked as a deputy prosecutor in Spokane County and recently chaired the Spokane County Democratic party. 

The 5th District covers the easternmost part of Washington. Much of the district is agricultural, but it also includes major cities like Spokane, Pullman and Walla Walla. U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, has represented the district since 2004. In February, she unexpectedly announced that she would not seek reelection. Baumgartner got 28.5% of the vote in a 11-person primary, one of the most crowded races in Washington this year. 

On the campaign trail, Conroy and Baumgartner were split along party lines on most issues. Baumgartner listed securing the southern border as a top priority, while Conroy emphasized her support for abortion rights. 

Republicans have historically held a large advantage in the 5th District. The last Democrat to hold the seat was Tom Foley, who served as Speaker of the House and was defeated by Republican George Nethercutt in 1994.