Planned Parenthood has managed to un-do a budget cut, convincing lawmakers and the governor to overrule a state agency's decision to ctop paying for 70 family planning nurses across the state.The Department of Social and Health Services had decded to end those contract positions today.…
Lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced bills to broaden the rights of couples who register with the state as domestic partners. So far, nearly 5,000 couples have signed up for the registry. Many are same-sex partners; others are heterosexual senior citizens. (The latter…
I spent a couple of hours yesterday sitting in on meetings between state officials and a large group of business/political/community leaders from Spokane. Among the things that came up:-Gov. Chris Gregoire said she expects the state's revenue picture to keep getting worse for a while.…
There's another interesting farmers-versus-environmentalists water battle shaping up in the statehouse this year.Farm groups are backing a reform that sounds utterly common-sense: changing decades-old laws that require farmers to use every drop of their water allocation or, after a few years of failing to do…
Environmentalists and cattlemen clashed Thursday over a decades-old law that allows largely unlimited pumping from wells – with no permit – as long as the water is used for livestock.To ranchers, that’s a common-sense exception that helps agriculture and dates back many decades.To environmental groups…
More from the print paper:In 2007, jubilant Democratic lawmakers approved $250-a-week stipends to workers who take unpaid time off to bond with a new baby.Two years, later without paying anyone a dime, paid family medical leave has stalled. Gov. Chris Gregoire halted computer work on…
Lawmakers, unhappy with a recent court ruling saying that it's not illegal for a teacher to have sex with a student, so long as the student's 18, are trying to now make it illegal.The recent court ruling “opens the door for this being open season…
Fascinating and depressing, here's a 1981 look at a quirky new technology: reading your newspaper on your "home computer" via signals transmitted over phone lines.The news report has Tomorrowland feel to it, fat monitors with tiny screens, clunky keyboards, a guy setting a phone handset…
Short takes and breaking news from the Washington Legislature and the state capital.
