WashingtonStateWire.com

The Washington Supreme Court granted a stay of a lower court’s ruling that the state’s new capital gains tax is unconstitutional, giving proponents of the tax at least a temporary win in one of the most significant legal fights in many years.  The Supremes are expected to hear arguments on the question early next year.

This is the time of year that our focus shifts from the bare-knuckle fights in the political arena to the subtler gamesmanship of policy-making. To launch that season, we’re holding the Re-Wire Conference on Dec. 5 at the Hotel Murano in Tacoma. In the next few editions, we’re going to preview the players and policies

After the August primary, Democrats had reason to be worried about winning in Whatcom County’s 42nd Legislative District, where they were trying to unseat a Republican senator and hold two Democratic House seats considered among the most vulnerable in the state. They finished with less than 50 percent of the primary vote in all three

We’ll never know exactly which set of campaign tactics carried Democratic newcomer Marie Gluesenkamp Perez to her unlikely win in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District. But with a result this close, her win over MAGA Republican Joe Kent was one of those rare races where the subtleties of campaign strategy really matter. Perez and her team

Instead of the shift toward Republicans in the Legislature that was widely expected earlier this year, it looks like Democrats may slightly expand their majorities.  On the Senate side, first-term Sen. Emily Randall, D-Bremerton, was leading Rep. Jesse Young, R-Gig Harbor, in the 26th District, generally considered to be Democrats’ most vulnerable seat. Democrats pulled

Lame-duck state Rep. Brad Klippert may not be back in Olympia next year, but it looks like the Tri-Cities Republican will leave a mark on this election regardless. More than 3 percent of the votes cast in the Secretary of State’s race were write-ins, presumably for Klippert, because he jumped in to carry the GOP

It’s looking like a bad year for Trump-loving election deniers in Washington. The big news from Tuesday’s results is down in Southwest Washington, where Democrat Marie Glusenkamp Perez leads Joe Kent, the Trump loyalist who took out GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in the primary.  Perez is absolutely washing Kent away in populous Clark County,

In these polarized times, players in Washington politics mostly back one party or the other. And even for those few who play both sides of the aisle, what the Realtors are doing in Snohomish County’s 44th District is unusual.  They’re supporting the Republican candidate in one of the district’s two state House seats, and the

In general, an incumbent polling at less than 50 percent is considered to be in significant danger of getting unelected. So what to make of the second poll in less than a month that puts Secretary of State Steve Hobbs not just below 50 percent, but under 40 percent? The latest number was in a

There’s a new skirmish in the ongoing legal fight against the capital gains tax. A conservative legal advocacy group is threatening to take the Department of Revenue to court because the department is writing rules to implement the tax even though it was ruled unconstitutional earlier this year.  Read the rest in The Sunday Observer.