DAILY NEWS
Our debtors’ prisons, Mitch doubles down, Social Security tops concerns…
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
L.F.O. REFORM
STATE GOVERNMENT
► From AP — House seeks pay raise for teachers in supplemental budget — House Democrats would hike the state’s portion of the lowest starting salary for public school teachers to $40,000-a-year by closing several tax exemptions as part of their supplemental budget released on Monday. The plan would alter the $38 billion, two-year state budget adopted in 2015, including directing $318 million from the state’s emergency fund to pay for needs such as wildfire suppression, reducing youth homelessness and another $148.9 million from the fund for school construction going to the capital budget.
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — House Dems road budget tackles I-405, Snohomish Co. gridlock — State House Democrats offered a supplemental transportation budget Monday that if approved would spend millions of dollars to improve travel on I-405 where express toll lanes opened five months ago. It also would ensure the state Transportation Commission moves swiftly to open the toll lanes to vehicles at no cost on evenings, weekends, and holidays.
► In today’s Olympian — Senate committee probes why sentencing error didn’t get fixed faster — A records manager and a technology specialist flagged an error in calculating inmate release dates as a priority to fix, but the error persisted as thousands of inmates were released early. The Department of Corrections workers testified under oath Monday in front of a state Senate committee investigating the error.
BOEING
SUPREME COURT
TAKE A STAND! — Tell the Senate: Do your job, fill the court vacancy!
► From Politico — Majority of Americans say Senate should hold hearings on Scalia replacement — A survey by the Pew Research Center found that 56 percent of Americans believe the Senate should hold hearings and vote on the president’s designated successor, while 38 percent say the Senate should wait until the next president. The results break down along party lines.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Translation: the people who voted against Obama don’t want him to be able to do what he was elected to do.
► From Politico — Democrats resist total retaliation in Supreme Court fight — The party could shut down the Senate in response to Mitch McConnell’s stall tactics if it wanted to.
► From Think Progress — No, Joe Biden didn’t say the Senate should block Supreme Court nominees during an election year
► In today’s NY Times — Grief gives way to division in first court arguments since Scalia’s death — The day began with extended and sometimes wry reflections from Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. on the life and work of Justice Antonin Scalia, whose empty chair at the Supreme Court was draped in black. It ended with a liberal justice invoking events in Ferguson, Mo., and accusing a conservative colleague of being ignorant of facts in a case that could lead to “a police state.”
ELECTION 2016
► From The Hill — Cruz backs deportation for 12 million undocumented immigrants — Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is taking a tougher position on illegal immigration, saying he would deport the estimated 12 million immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.
► From KPLU — Where did all that Jeb Bush SuperPAC money go? — Right to Rise USA raised $118 million, and spent $94 million promoting Jeb!, even as Bush never came close to winning a primary.
► From the Onion — Jeb Bush bungles several questions on first day back at home — He repeatedly stumbled over his words and struggled to formulate convincing and consistent responses when asked by his wife about how he slept and what he wanted to have for breakfast.
NATIONAL
► In the Washington Post — How the birthplace of the American labor movement just turned on its unions — The sense that West Virginia had nothing to lose, repeated in speech after speech that day on the floor of the legislature, suggests that the debate wasn’t just about undermining unions. In the same way the legislature moved to place new limits on the ability of people to sue, passing a right-to-work law had become a symbol of the state’s eagerness to reclaim its economic glory. “If you look at West Virginia, we’re 49th in a lot of things,” Del. Lynwood Ireland said. “So we have got to do something different. We can’t set back and watch the place decay without trying something.”
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.