Wednesday, September 14, 2016

STATE GOVERNMENT

► In today’s Olympian — Tentative deal for 30,000 state workers includes raises, $12 minimum wage — About 30,000 Washington state workers would receive pay raises of roughly 6 percent under a tentative deal struck Tuesday between state officials and union leaders. The proposed pay raises, to be spread over two years, would be the largest across-the-board increases state employees have negotiated since they gained full collective bargaining rights in 2004, said Tim Welch, a spokesman for the Washington Federation of State Employees.

ALSO at The Stand — WFSE: State employees reach tentative deal with 6% raises

► In today’s News Tribune — State task force divided on whether it should be easier to prosecute police in Washington — A 1986 state law protects officers from criminal charges who use deadly force even when it’s deemed reckless or negligent. An analysis found black people were disproportionately killed by police in Washington from 2005 to 2014. In only one of 213 cases during that time was an officer prosecuted for killing someone.

► In The Inlander — Rep. Matt Shea presents Oregon-standoff figure Bosworth with ‘2016 Patriot of the Year’ award — Rep. Matt Shea (R-Spokane Valley) presented the award to a man who, according to police, has choked his 17-year-old daughter and dragged her by the hair, has threatened police officers on social media, and was arrested for refusing to leave the Federal Courthouse plaza after being asked not to bring his AK-47 on federal property.

ALSO at The Stand — It’s up to Republicans to hold Rep. Matt Shea accountable — A Republican legislator from Washington state was assisting rabid anti-government extremists actively engaged in criminal activity in Oregon. But don’t hold your breath awaiting any ethics investigation, discipline or accountability for this embarrassment of a legislator. That is, unless the Republican Party decides to stop turning a blind eye to the crazy, indefensible actions of its own.

► From KNKX — Automatic voter registration yields surge in registered voters in Oregon — The Oregon Secretary of State’s office said Tuesday that nearly 300,000 new voters have been added over the past year.

LOCAL

► In today’s Seattle Times — ‘Secure scheduling’ law appears likely to pass Seattle City Council — After unanimous approval Tuesday by five committee members, a “secure scheduling” law heads for the nine-member council. The measure would make Seattle one of the first U.S. cities with sweeping rules governing how retail and food-service employers schedule their workers.

► From KUOW — Full council vote all that’s needed before secure scheduling is law — The measure would require employers to post worker schedules at least two weeks in advance. It would also give workers more control over how many hours they work.

► At PubliCola — Seattle Uber ordinance continues Seattle’s role as worker rights leader (by Danielle Franco-Malone) — Seattle’s for-hire driver ordinance should be celebrated as continuing Washington’s proud tradition on the frontier of workplace rights. We are paving the way for Uber drivers and other disempowered workers across the nation to be able to share in the American dream currently denied to so many – secure employment in a job that guarantees a minimally acceptable middle class lifestyle.

► In today’s News Tribune — Clover Park teachers get 10.2 percent pay bump over 3 years — Teachers in Lakewood’s Clover Park School District will see their pay rise 10.2 percent over the next three school years, thanks to provisions in a new three-year contract approved Monday by the School Board.

BOEING

► In today’s Seattle Times — Boeing’s Conner hits back against Trump on trade, jobs (by Jon Talton) — Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Ray Conner: “Trump has made an issue about our involvement with the Chinese assembly center, saying we’ll move all these jobs to China.” But it’s not true. The Chinese center is “our largest opportunity for sales, creating an expanded relationship, but it will also create more jobs here. It’s lopsided on what we get and give — we get more. It’s being portrayed as the opposite.”

ELECTION 2016

► A bombshell today from Newsweek — How the Trump organization’s foreign business ties could upend U.S. national security — A close examination by Newsweek of the Trump Organization, a private enterprise that pumps potentially hundreds of millions of dollars into the Trump family’s bank accounts each year, reveals an enterprise with deep ties to global financiers, foreign politicians and even criminals. It also reveals a web of contractual entanglements that could not be just canceled. If Trump moves into the White House and his family continues to receive any benefit from the company, during or even after his presidency, almost every foreign policy decision he makes will raise serious conflicts of interest and ethical quagmires.

► In today’s Washington Post — Obama blasts Trump as a phony champion of the working class — President Obama implored Americans to consider the gravity of the presidential election eight weeks away, calling Republican Donald Trump a dangerous fraud who has no real idea of what it means to be president.

► From TPM — Trump supporter cold-cocks 69-year-old protester outside rally — Shirley Teeter, 69, who wears an oxygen mask and lugs around a tank to support it, was protesting outside a Trump rally in North Carolina when a feral Trump backer turned on her and punched her right in the face. This is the same rally where a Trumper inside the arena assaulted three other protesters.

► In today’s NY Times — What’s ‘deplorable’ about presidential campaigns (editorial) — Candidates have become so dependent on the wealthy that America is at risk of forgetting there is any other way to do politics.

► In the News Tribune — Attacks on labor come fast and hard (by Jerry Beckendorf) — Ask your state senator and representatives, city and county council members if they support your freedom to join a union and bargain collectively for improvement in wages, benefits and working conditions. According to their national platforms, Democrats do support unions and Republicans don’t. In November, vote accordingly.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

► From AFGE — VA employees’ union urges House to reject flawed accountability bill — AFGE, the union representing 230,000 employees in the Department of Veterans Affairs, is urging House members to oppose a bill that would undermine veterans’ health care and other services by gutting employees’ due process rights.

► From The Hill — Government funding talks stall — Negotiations over a stopgap measure to fund the government until Dec. 9 have stalled amid squabbling among Republicans over controversial riders related to Zika funding and the Export-Import Bank.

► From The Hill — Dems fear they made a mistake passing ACA provision — Democrats are looking back with regret on a Republican provision that was slipped into a funding bill two years ago, arguing that it is contributing to the insurer problems plaguing ObamaCare.

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Stronger rules needed on predatory payday loans (editorial) — With the public comment period closing Oct. 7 on the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed rules for the payday loan industry, the Washington Public Interest Research Group has released a report that adds weight to need for reforms sought by the federal consumer watchdog and calls for even stronger requirements.

NATIONAL

► In today’s NY Times — U.S. household income grew 5.2% in 2015, breaking pattern of stagnation — Americans last year reaped the largest economic gains in nearly a generation as poverty fell, health insurance coverage spread and incomes rose sharply for households on every rung of the economic ladder, ending years of stagnation. The median household’s income in 2015 was $56,500, up 5.2 percent from the previous year — the largest single-year increase since record-keeping began in 1967, the Census Bureau said on Tuesday. The share of Americans living in poverty also posted the sharpest decline in decades.

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.