Author: Carleen Johnson | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – Both sides are gearing up for the next round in court in the fight over Washington state’s law prohibiting the sale, attempted sale, manufacture and distribution of high-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. The case of the State of Washington v. Gator’s Custom Guns Inc. will be heard by the Washington…

(The Center Square) – Clark County election officials have finished a machine recount in the Legislative District 18 Senate contest between Republican candidate Brad Benton and Democrat challenger Adrian Cortes. Out of 84,123 votes in the race, Cortes was leading Benton by 172 votes when the secretary of state certified election results on Dec. 5,…

(The Center Square) – Washington state is overspending its revenue by billions of dollars, but finding out just how many billions has state officials offering up broadly different figures. During last Thursday’s meeting of the Washington State Board of Education, J. Lee Schultz, SBE’s deputy executive director, provided a brief update on the coming legislative session, which was…

(The Center Square) – The Washington State Republican Party has unveiled the “Project to Resist Tyranny in Washington,” designed to “prevent elected officials with authoritarian impulses from ruining the lives of people living in Washington,” according to a news release emailed to The Center Square. “It is focused on several points of policy that are…

(The Center Square) – Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee has approved a revised Site Certification Agreement for the Horse Heaven Wind Farm Project in Benton County. The project is to be located just south of the Tri-Cities, where residents and local leaders are not giving up the fight against the massive wind turbine and solar array project.…

(The Center Square) – Recently released polling on the Washington initiatives to the ballot indicates voters may not be in the mood to support three of the four measures. Backers of the initiatives aren’t swayed by the results, adding that language included by Attorney General Bob Ferguson paints a partisan pall over the measures.  The SurveyUSA poll was…

(The Center Square) – Political action committee Let’s Go Washington, the organization behind several initiatives on the November ballot, was fined $20,000 – half suspended – by the Public Disclosure Commission for not reporting what signature-gathering firms paid to sub-vendors, as well as not producing documents to investigators in a timely manner. Callie Castillo, legal…

(The Center Square) – The Climate Commitment Act’s focus on environmental justice may be complicating efforts to link Washington state’s carbon market with the California-Quebec carbon market, a move supporters say will ensure the durability of the cap-and-trade program in the Evergreen State. California and Quebec have expressed interest in linking to Washington’s carbon market. “Linking California’s, Quebec’s…

(The Center Square) – The Washington State Board of Education is moving closer to officially updating and expanding a 2021 resolution that established an ethnic studies graduation requirement. Board members discussed “incorporating Ethnic Studies into the legislative platform, and/or addressing Ethnic Studies through the FutureReady graduation requirements initiative,” according to the agenda for Thursday’s virtual…

(The Center Square) – The battle over what will be printed on ballots for four statewide initiatives has ended, at least for this election season. The final blow came late Thursday, when Tim Eyman was informed there would be no Friday morning hearing for his attempt to block what initiative supporters call “warning labels” on…