OLYMPIA -- The Senate operating budget proposal, fresh off yesterday's roll out, gets a vote in the Ways and Means Committee and both chambers' transportation budgets are in their respective committees. Legislation on small nuclear plants is among items in a House energy committee and a Senate committee got info on subpoenas.
OLYMPIA -- A Senate committee will not vote on the proposed $12 minimum wage, a mandatory sick leave policy or a new equal pay law. Those proposals, which all passed the House, could be dead for the session.
OLYMPIA -- Senate Republicans unveiled a budget that cuts tuition at state colleges and universities, pumps money into public schools and doesn't raise taxes.
The relatively monolithic Spokane County Commission showed signs of dissent Tuesday, as commissioners argued about their stance on a proposed sales tax increase to fund changes to the area's transit system.
OLYMPIA -- Senate Republicans will release their budget at noon.
OLYMPIA – Raising the state’s minimum wage to $12 by 2019 was described as not enough by some and too much by others as a Senate committee provided another forum for what’s become a familiar debate in this session.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said Monday that most of the messages of support for Obamacare posted on her Facebook page concerned parts of the health care legislation that had bipartisan support.
OLYMPIA – Trains crossing Washington with crude oil would need larger crews but those with other farm chemicals would not, under a revised bill passed by a House committee Monday. The latest version of a bill on one of the session’s hottest topics also has a higher tax than Senate Republicans approved this month.
The county's Republican Party released a video today, kicking the election year off in grand old fashion. The video is part uplifting, part combative as it first takes on the Spokane City Council, the media and the Democratic Party, before shifting and re-branding itself as...
OLYMPIA – A state agency could set up rules for advertising and warning labels for e-cigarettes next July, but an excise tax that would almost double their cost was stripped for a proposal by a key committee.
A minimum wage hearing, a budget vote and a med school bill signing
Who said: “Being weird has never stopped us from passing a bill.” And why?
Last week’s column about Oregon’s new law that automatically registers residents as voters when they get or renew a driver’s license prompted some readers to conclude Spin Control is against more voters. Not true...
OLYMPIA – Slogging through stories of budgets and taxes, the average reader might think Olympia is a pretty dreary, humorless place. Some days it is about as gray as the fog that rolls up from the South Puget Sound. But not always. . .
OLYMPIA -- House Democrats rolled out a $38.8 billion spending plan that would sent an extra $1.4 billion to public schools over the next two years. To help pay for some of the programs, it calls for a capital gains tax on high income residents.
OLYMPIA -- Business leaders and local government officials calling for a higher gas tax dominated a House committee hearing. Environmental groups objected to the "poison pill" over carbon fuel standards.
The Washington Public Disclosure Commission on Thursday fined Spokane County Commissioner Todd Mielke $100 and put him on four-year probation after finding he improperly used county email to obtain information ahead of a candidate debate against John Roskelley in June 2012.
OLYMPIA -- State Auditor Troy Kelley, who has had his house searched by federal agents and documents collected from state offices, is being asked to appear at a Senate committee meeting on Wednesday.
OLYMPIA -- The House Transportation Committee looks at the Senate's 11.7 cent gasoline tax hike and the House Higher Education Committee looks at the Senate's tuition cut bill.
OLYMPIA -- On a 47-1 vote, the Senate gave final passage to a bill giving WSU authority to start its own medical school in Spokane.
OLYMPIA -- WSU's hopes for its own medical school should get a big boost today with the Senate expected to give final passage to the bill that gives it that authority.
OLYMPIA -- House Democrats say today they will release their 2015-17 operating budget late Friday morning. House and Senate Republicans responded by reiterating their "show me the money" demand, that any extra revenue have a specific tax source.
OLYMPIA -- Pot again provided legislators with plenty to talk about.
Rep. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, said Saturday he would not challenge Spokane Mayor David Condon in this year's city elections. Riccelli, the prime sponsor of a House bill that gave Washington State University the authority, although not the money, to start a new medical school in...
OLYMPIA -- A long list of bills with a wide array of topics on the committee hearing schedule today.
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