U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear challenge to WA Voting Rights Act

The Washington State Senate has approved a bill – for the second year in a row – to give local governments a new taxing authority to support their affordable housing and homeless service efforts. 

Senate Bill 5334 also passed the Senate in 2023, but the session ended before the House and Senate could work out compromise language.

The proposal would allow counties and cities to adopt an excise tax on the sale of lodging or short-term rentals. The revenue generated could be used to pay for various programs, including homeless assistance, temporary shelters and affordable housing. Local governments, however, could exempt seniors or people on a fixed income who operate a short-term rental. 

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Liz Lovelett, D-Anacortes, passed the Senate primarily along party lines. However, Sen. Nikki Torres, R-Pasco, voted in favor with Democratic senators, while Sen. Marko Liias, D-Edmonds, voted against the bill with Republican senators. The bill now moves to the state House for consideration. 

Increasing affordable housing continues to be a top priority for lawmakers and Gov. Jay Inslee, with various proposals this session from legislators on both sides of the aisle. In a recent Elway poll, Democratic voters in Washington strongly supported spending more on housing, while most Republicans were against the idea.

Short-term rentals have been seen as detrimental to local housing supplies, and various proposals at all levels of government, such as one by the Seattle City Council, have been passed to limit such listings. 

A Taylor Swift-inspired deceptive ticket sale bill passed out of the House Consumer Protection & Business Committee Friday morning.

House Bill 1648, or the “TSWIFT Consumer Protection Act,” follows the Ticketmaster meltdown fans experienced when trying to buy presale tickets to pop star Taylor Swift’s Seattle concerts on the Eras Tour.

The House Appropriations Committee will now consider the proposal to reduce ticket sale fees for concerts, sporting events, theatrical performances and more, following the fervor and failure of last summer’s concert season. The bill was previously introduced in the 2023 session but did not pass.

The proposed bill states: “Concert fans were frustrated at the ‘nightmare dressed like a daydream’ when trying to get access to their favorite artist’s live events. When fans felt the ticket sales industry created ‘bad blood’ with consumers, they refused to be told ‘you need to calm down.’ The legislature believes ticket sellers should be ‘fearless’ in providing integrity, fairness, and transparency with consumers, and therefore, the legislature refuses to ‘shake it off.’” 

Sponsored by Rep. Kristine Reeves, D-Federal Way, the bill aims to tackle hidden fees and dynamic pricing, in which prices fluctuate based on demand; clearly establish a refund policy if an event is cancelled; ban non-transferrable or speculative ticket sales; propose limits on ticket resellers, and ban using bots or software to buy tickets. 

Ticket sellers would also be required to obtain a state license, with an exception for  individuals selling tickets purchased for personal use. The bill would not apply to schools and universities, nonprofit cultural institutions or movie theater tickets. 

“I committed to my constituents in the community that I would not ‘shake it off’ and that we would continue to do this work until we were able to resolve ticket sales in Washington,” said Rep. Reeves when reintroducing the bill at a House Consumer, Protection & Business hearing on Jan. 16. 

A coalition of musicians and music groups, including SAG-AFTRA, Songwriters of North America and Washington-based artist Mount Eerie, have spoken out in opposition to the bill, claiming the current proposal does not effectively ban speculative ticketing and that it would deny artists the right to protect fans by ensuring tickets are not sold higher than the intended price.

Forty-seven Democrats are pushing a bill through the Washington House to study the creation of a new state agency — a housing department. 

The Housing Committee heard testimony Tuesday on House Bill 2270, which would have the Office of Financial Management hire a consultant to study consolidating all the state government’s scattered housing-related sections into one department. 

That consultant would also be asked to identify gaps in the state’s housing efforts; set up a clear mission for the new agency; recommend how the proposed department would be structured; and come up with a cost estimate for the reorganization. If the bill passes, the consultant’s recommendations would be due Dec. 1. 

Rep. Melanie Morgan, D-Spanaway, proposed a similar bill in 2022, but it never made it out of committee. This year’s bill has 46 Democratic co-sponsors in addition to Morgan. 

“We have not been able to end homelessness,” Morgan told the committee Tuesday. Washington would need roughly 1.1 million new housing units to do so, she said. With the housing department proposal, “We will go from a broad patchwork to a one-stop shop,” Morgan said. 

No one testified against the bill Tuesday.

Those testifying in favor included the Association of Washington Business, the largest business coalition in the state; Futurewise; Habitat for Humanity for King and Kittitas counties; the Washington Low-Income Housing Alliance and Local 1199NW of the Service Employees International Union, which represents health care workers. 

“It’s a good move for the state of Washington,” said Morgan Irwin, representing the AWB.

A member of the public, Arthur West, said: ”What I see now is various agencies putting band-aids on the problem.”

Washington lawmakers are considering a proposal to require gas and electric utilities to tell customers if they are passing along pollution auction costs to their consumers. 

The Washington Senate Energy & Environment Committee held a public hearing Wednesday on Senate Bill 5826, in response to a debate about whether utility customers should see cap-and-invest program expenses on their invoices. 

Sen. Drew MacEwen, R-Shelton, proposed the bill after the state Attorney General’s Office told the Washington Utilities & Transportation Commission that more discussion was needed before mandating that cap-and-invest costs be listed on consumer utility bills. Critics of the state’s new carbon pricing system have accused the Attorney General’s Office of deliberately hiding those costs.

In a July 3, 2023, letter to the utilities commission, the Attorney General’s Office argued “If all program-specific charges were included as line items, customer bills would quickly become incomprehensible.” The office called for a more public discussion before including the information on bills.

“What’s the fear in being transparent?” MacEwen said after Wednesday’s hearing. Attorney General Bob Ferguson enforces transparency “when it is convenient and not when it criticizes the administration.”

Brionna Aho, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s office, responded with an emailed statement: “This was a public comment calling for more discussion. We are not aware of any allegation of unlawful conduct by any party. If Sen. McEwen would like to tell us who he thinks broke the law, we can look into it. He has not done so.” 

The state’s cap-and-invest program — in which oil companies and other polluting businesses and utilities bid on state allowances for their carbon emissions — has been connected by some to increased gas prices at the pump, because they believe oil companies are passing their auction costs along. 

“People need to know what the charges are,” Todd Myers, environment policy director for the think tank Washington Policy Center, told the Senate committee on Wednesday.

Puget Sound Energy, the Association of Washington Business, the Northwest Gas Association and Pullman-based Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories echoed that point of view.

Committee chairman Sen. Joe Nguyen, D-White Center, and Sen. Yasmine Trudeau, D-Tacoma, said utility costs and prices are difficult to separate into components and pin down because of the economic complexities of the power and fuel industries.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has informed city department directors and finance managers that the city is implementing a hiring freeze for most positions. The move comes as the city faces a projected budget deficit that could reach as much as $251 million by 2025.

The freeze exempts public safety hires including police officers, firefighters and employees at the new CARE “dual dispatch” department. It also exempts employees backfilling for those using the city’s paid parental or family care leave and employees “providing essential public services,” according to a mayoral spokesperson. Exemptions for positions providing essential public services will be decided on a case by case basis but might include, for example, civilian staff in the police and fire departments.

Offers of employment made before Jan. 19 are not affected.

The city jobs website shows 115 open positions as of Jan. 22, though at least 14 of them are public safety positions exempt from the freeze.

The number of open jobs underplays the scope of vacancies in city departments. For example, according to data obtained by Crosscut, City Light, Public Utilities and Parks and Recreation had 287, 171 and 137 vacant positions, respectively, as of August 2022.

The Coalition of City Unions, which represents nearly 6,000 city workers in 11 unions, said pay and safety issues have contributed to the lingering vacancies.

The projected general fund budget deficit stems from a combination of tax revenue decreases, the impact of inflation, and a likely increase to city employee wages. The Coalition of City Unions and the Seattle Police Officers Guild are both currently bargaining new contracts with the city.

In an email, the mayor’s spokesperson said, “The city is taking a comprehensive approach to addressing the forecasted budget gap and structural budget issues, including thorough analysis of current city spending and an array of strategies to drive efficiencies, optimize investments, and prioritize the needs of residents, in collaboration with the City Council.”

He continued, saying that the mayor is still considering all options for addressing the shortfall, including “the potential for new or adjusted revenue sources.”

Harrell and former Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda convened a task force in 2022 to explore new progressive tax ideas for the city, in response to earlier projections of the coming budget deficit. That task force came up with nine ideas for new or expanded city taxes.

A Thurston County judge dismissed a challenge to disqualify former president Donald Trump from the ballot of the March 12 presidential primary. 

In a hearing Thursday morning, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Mary Sue Wilson ruled that Secretary of State Steve Hobbs' office made no errors in including Trump on the primary ballot. In Washington, state law allows any voter to challenge a candidate’s right to be on a ballot on several grounds, including felony convictions, election officer misconduct and eligibility for the office.

Eight Kitsap County voters had challenged Trump’s inclusion on the primary ballot, arguing that the former president should be excluded based on his eligibility outlined by federal law. They cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which disqualifies government office holders who have supported an insurrection from holding a federal office. Trump was impeached by Congress in 2021 on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection, but was acquitted by the Senate, where a simple majority voted to convict – 10 votes short of the two-thirds supermajority necessary for conviction. The conviction vote was made largely along party lines, though seven Republicans voted with Democrats to convict.

Wilson also declined to remove Trump’s name from the general election ballot, saying it would be “premature” to do so at this time. But Wilson added that her decision doesn’t block any future challenges to Trump’s inclusion on November’s ballot. 

Washington is one of 35 states where Trump’s eligibility to run for president in 2024 has been challenged. The challenges either have been dismissed or rejected in at least 15 states. Two of the states, Maine and Colorado, disqualified the former president from their ballots, though those decisions are under appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the Colorado case on Feb. 8.

Washington’s Democratic and Republican parties use the results of the primary as one factor to select state delegates to their national conventions, where the parties choose their general-election presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Primary voters in Washington must choose only one political party on their return envelope and then vote for one person in that party’s slate of candidates.

The state Republican Party named Donald J. Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Chris Christie as its primary candidates; and the state Democratic Party named Joseph R. Biden Jr., Dean Phillips, and Marianne Williamson as its candidates.

The three Tacoma Police Department officers acquitted in the death of Manuel Ellis will resign with settlements of $500,000 each, the city announced this week. The agreement between each officer and the city also states that the “parties agree that the employee separates in good standing.”

The three former officers, Christopher Burbank, Matthew Collins and Timothy Rankine, were cleared of wrongdoing by Police Chief Avery Moore, except for a finding regarding Collins’ violation of the Tacoma Police Department’s policy on courtesy.

Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man, died during a police stop in Tacoma in March 2020 after the officers restrained him. Three other officers were present during the stop, but did not face charges. Ellis’ death came a few months before the death of George Floyd, whose death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers sparked nationwide protests about police brutality.

Moore said he reached his decisions regarding the officers’ conduct based on the police department’s use-of-force policy that was in place when Ellis was killed. It has since been changed.

“The Use of Force policy in place in March of 2020 failed to serve the best interests of the police department or the community,” said Moore, who was hired to lead the Tacoma Police Department in February 2022. He said that the department is undergoing a “comprehensive review” of its policies with the assistance of a consulting firm and the city’s Community's Police Advisory Committee (CPAC).

“While acknowledging our incomplete achievement of reform goals in the past decade, the last two years have witnessed substantial efforts to revolutionize the Tacoma Police Department, placing a strong emphasis on fostering inclusivity and pride among all stakeholders,” Moore said in a statement. “These strides are a result of a collective endeavor.”

Last month a Pierce County Superior Court jury acquitted Burbank and Collins of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter charges, and Rankine of first-degree manslaughter. The Seattle Times reported last week that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Western Washington has launched a review of the state prosecutors’ case. 

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging Washington state’s capital gains tax. 

A group looking to repeal the law appealed to the Supreme Court last August, following a March ruling by the Washington Supreme Court to uphold the law, which puts a 7% tax on profits from the sales of stocks and bonds exceeding $250,000, with exemptions for sales of real estate, retirement accounts, livestock and timber for ranching or farming. There’s also a special deduction for the sale of family-owned businesses.  

Those who have pushed the capital gains tax, passed in 2021, see it as a move toward a less-regressive tax system, including a first step toward an income tax. Implementing an income tax, however, has been unpopular — with Washington residents rejecting several measures that would do so. 

However, the Washington Supreme Court deemed in its ruling on the case, Quinn v. Washington, that the new tax was on the sale of goods and services, not income. 

In its first year, the tax generated $889 million, according to November figures from the state Department of Revenue. The first $500 million was allocated to a state fund for K-12 education and child-care programs. The remaining dollars are expected to go to an account paying for school construction.

On Friday, the Seattle City Council took the next step toward filling the vacant citywide District 8 position with the nomination of eight finalists for consideration. The position was left open by former Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda’s election to King County Council.

The finalists were chosen from a list of 72 qualified applicants who applied before the Jan. 9. deadline. During a special meeting Friday afternoon, each councilmember was allowed to nominate one finalist.

Councilmember Bob Kettle nominated Tanya Woo, a Chinatown-International District community advocate and business owner who lost to incumbent Tammy Morales in November’s District 2 election. Like many of the new councilmembers who won office in November, Woo made public safety and police hiring a centerpiece of her campaign.

Councilmember Cathy Moore nominated Neha Nariya, but noted that Woo was her first pick. Nariya operates her family’s business, the Civic Hotel in Pioneer Square, and is a Seattle Hotel Association board member.

Councilmember Tammy Morales nominated Mari Sugiyama, a longtime grants and contracts manager at the Seattle Human Services Department.

Councilmember Maritza Rivera nominated Juan Cotto, a government affairs and community relations strategist at Bloodworks Northwest, a nonprofit blood bank. Rivera also noted that Woo was her first pick. 

Councilmember Rob Saka nominated Mark Solomon, a longtime Seattle Police Department crime-prevention coordinator. Solomon lost the District 2 race to Morales in the 2019 election. 

Councilmember Dan Strauss nominated Vivian Song, a Seattle Public Schools board member elected to the school board in 2021.

Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth nominated Linh Thai, a former district staffer for Congressman Adam Smith who now works as operations manager for a military veteran nonprofit called The Mission Continues.

Council President Sara Nelson nominated Steven Strand, a Seattle Police Department captain in the West Precinct and 33-year veteran of the force.

The finalists will answer questions at a public forum hosted by Seattle City Club, likely to be held on Jan. 17 or 18 at City Hall. On Jan. 22 they will answer questions at a special City Council meeting before the Council votes on an appointee on Jan. 23.

A proposal to link Washington’s cap-and-invest system with California’s and Quebec’s combined program drew no opposition, but did collect several requests for technical tweaks during a hearing Friday before the Senate Energy & Environment Committee.

Senate Bill 6058 is intended to create a larger carbon-pricing market to bring down bidding allowances, and is supposed to shrink the impact on gas prices of Washington’s cap-and-invest program.

Washington’s year-old cap-and-invest program has added 21 to 50 cents per gallon at the pump, depending on how the calculations are done. The quarterly settlement prices in 2023 — $48.50 to $63.03 per allowance, representing one metric ton of emissions — were much higher than state experts predicted in 2021. By comparison, California’s settlement auction prices began in 2012 at $10 per allowance, reaching slightly above $36 in 2023.

‘“This will help bring down costs for customers,” said Matt Miller, a lobbyist for Puget Sound Energy, at the hearing.

Committee Chairman Sen. Joe Nguyen, D-White Center and sponsor of SB 6058, said joining the larger California/Quebec market would shrink and stabilize auction prices. He hoped that the larger markets would encourage other states to join the coalition to further shrink auction prices. Currently, New York is designing its own cap-and-trade program and New England has a limited program for some utilities.

The earliest this linkage could take place is 2025. However, a public referendum on repealing the entire cap-and-invest program is likely going to Washington voters in November.

Most of the proposed changes in the bill are highly technical, involving how many allowances an individual bidder could buy.

Both business and environmental speakers at the hearing were largely in favor of SB6058, but Sept Gernez of the Washington Sierra Club expressed concerns that lowering auction prices would also decrease the amount of money going to climate-change mitigation efforts – the “invest” part of the system.

Even the Washington Policy Center, which supports eliminating the program entirely due to gas price hikes, spoke in favor of linking with California and Quebec. However, Todd Myers, the WPC’s environmental issues director,  wondered if a wider cap-and-trade market would bring outside political and economic pressures into the Washington system.