In Olympia, affordability now means higher bills for you and subsidies for Democrats' favorite industries.

Democrats’ Definition of “Affordability”: Make Everyone Else Pay for Green Giveaways

HB 1302 sailed through the House with Democrats cheering a plan that lets local governments waive massive utility hookup fees for “green” industries, while quietly shifting those costs onto everyone else. Because nothing says affordability like forcing regular ratepayers to subsidize politically trendy projects.

Republicans called it out for what it is: a thumb on the scale. Rep. Mary Dye warned the waived fees can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, creating an uneven playing field where some businesses get sweetheart deals and everyone else gets the bill. Rep. Jim Walsh summed it up perfectly, saying the road to inflation is paved with “good intentions.”

Democrats, meanwhile, wrapped the whole thing in environmental buzzwords and utopian jargon about “industrial symbiosis,” where companies use each other’s waste to make products. It sounds very futuristic, until you realize the cost doesn’t disappear — it just gets dumped onto utility customers who had no say in the deal.

Even more absurd is that this comes while Democrats claim “affordability” is their top priority. As Walsh pointed out, their version of affordability now means government paying for things — conveniently forgetting that government has no money of its own. It only has your money.

So while favored industries get subsidized hookups and green applause lines, ordinary families and small businesses get higher utility costs hidden in the system. Democrats call it environmental leadership. Everyone else calls it another backdoor rate hike.

Once again, Olympia proved it can subsidize anything… as long as someone else is forced to pay for it. Read more at Center Square.

Fix the Roads? Nah, Let’s Borrow Billions and Build Bike Lanes Instead

In an op-ed by Bob Pishue, a policy analyst with the Mountain States Policy Center, Governor Bob Ferguson’s transportation plan gets exposed for what it really is: borrowing billions under the banner of “preservation” while quietly diverting road money to political pet projects.

Ferguson wants to borrow $2.1 billion more even though Washington already carries about $15,400 in debt per person, making it the 11th most indebted state in the nation. The justification is road and bridge maintenance and ferry replacement, which sounds responsible—until you read the fine print.

Roughly half of the new “preservation” money is expected to be funneled into the state’s “Complete Streets” program, meaning bike lanes and cycling infrastructure instead of fixing failing pavement and bridges. So once again, infrastructure repair becomes a piggy bank for ideological priorities.

And the condition of Washington’s roads is already embarrassing:

• Only 70%are rated “acceptable.”
• The national average is 81%.
• Idaho sits at 94%.
• Washington ranks 47thin highway performance nationwide.

WSDOT itself admits it needs more than $1.5 billion every single year just to keep roads from slipping into “critical failure.” Yet Democrats keep siphoning that money away to serve a narrow set of users while pretending it’s about safety and preservation.

Former WSDOT leadership even admitted that funding bike and pedestrian projects means less money for pavement and bridge repair—and said it was worth it. In other words, ideology first, infrastructure second.

As Pishue points out, Washington is responsible for protecting $239 billion in public transportation assets. A serious government would focus on keeping those assets functional and safe. Instead, Democrats borrow more, redirect more, and let the preservation backlog grow.

They call it “multimodal transportation.”
Drivers call it more debt, worse roads, and another year of government pretending potholes are a lifestyle choice. Read more at Center Square.

Democrats Solve a Problem That Doesn’t Exist… and Break Agriculture in the Process

On the very first day of the 2026 legislative session, Democrats wasted no time rolling out Senate Bill 6045, a bill that pretends agricultural workers in Washington lack “fundamental labor protections.” That’s a bold claim, considering every single “protection” the bill lists already exists under state law for everyone.

Spousal immunity? Already exists.
Attorney-client privilege? Already exists.
Doctor-patient confidentiality? Already exists.
Religious confession protections? Already exists.
Parent-child privilege and peer support confidentiality? Already exist.

So SB 6045 isn’t fixing a gap in the law. It’s copy-pasting rights workers already have and pretending it’s progress.

Where the bill gets dangerous is its push for forced unionization through card-check, with no secret ballot election. That means no private vote, no protection from pressure, and no guarantee workers are actually choosing to unionize freely. Just sign the card and hope nobody was coerced.

Even worse, the bill allows strikes lasting up to three months before arbitration is required. In retail or manufacturing, that’s painful. In agriculture, it’s catastrophic. Crops don’t wait. Miss a harvest window and an entire season is destroyed. A three-month strike doesn’t hurt a farm — it wipes it out.

And the timing couldn’t be more absurd. In 2024, Washington’s agricultural industry finished $295 million in the red. That means farmers and agricultural employers were already underwater. Democrats saw a struggling industry and thought, “Perfect time to experiment.”

The bill also hands oversight to PERC, an agency with no real ability to monitor card-check abuse, especially when many farm workers are recruited from outside the state and may already be pressured into signing union cards before they ever set foot in Washington. Once signed, SB 6045 doesn’t even allow them to leave the union.

This isn’t worker protection. It’s political theater wrapped in union power expansion, built on the false claim that existing laws somehow don’t apply to farm workers.

If agricultural employees are being mistreated, enforce the laws already on the books. If employers are violating rights, punish them. But inventing fake legal gaps and handing unions unchecked power isn’t reform — it’s reckless.

As the Washington Policy Center explains, SB 6045 doesn’t protect workers. It protects Democrats’ talking points while putting Washington agriculture at risk of total collapse. Read more at the Washington Policy Center.

Democrats’ “Recovery” Plan: Crush the Small Businesses and Call It Progress

Seattle-area small businesses now say they’re worse off than they were during COVID, which is an impressive failure considering the economy was literally shut down back then. A new survey shows only 12% of small business owners feel they’re even covering basic expenses, and more than two-thirds say financial stress is higher now than at the height of the pandemic.

During COVID, businesses had lifelines like PPP loans. Today, they have inflation, shrinking consumer spending, rising rents, higher insurance, higher inventory costs, and a state and city government that treats them like an ATM. Democrats promised a “strong recovery,” but what they delivered was a slow-motion squeeze.

Owners like Boon Boona Coffee had to jack prices up 15% just to survive, thanks in part to tariff costs that hit before anyone bothered to reverse them. Others, like Hood Famous Bakery in the Chinatown-International District, are seeing foot traffic drop even lower than last year, forcing layoffs and menu cuts just to stay afloat.

Many owners are now working unpaid, borrowing from family, and maxing out personal credit cards to keep their doors open. That’s not entrepreneurship — that’s desperation.

And the official response? Maybe lower some permitting fees. Maybe think about rent stabilization. In other words: more bureaucracy, more government tinkering, and no accountability for the policies that helped cause the mess.

Democrats love to talk about “supporting small business,” but their policies tell a different story. When only 12% of owners can cover basic expenses and stress is worse than during a global shutdown, it’s clear their economic model isn’t recovery — it’s slow strangulation. Read more at Seattle Red.

Marie’s Mask Slips: “Moderate” Until the Activists Start Yelling

In Southwest Washington, she campaigns as a centrist — in D.C., she votes like the squad sent her a group text.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is once again reminding voters that her “moderate” brand lasts exactly as long as it takes progressive activists to apply pressure. After getting scolded by the left for not attacking ICE loudly enough, she promptly joined the pile-on, criticizing immigration enforcement and accusing the agency of undermining its own legitimacy.

Republicans say this wasn’t some sudden change of heart — it was the real Marie showing up right on schedule.

Her record backs it up. She previously embraced a far-left anti-police group that helped funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into her campaign. In Congress, she voted against a $170 billion package designed to enforce immigration laws and deport criminal illegal immigrants. That’s not moderation. That’s alignment.

The National Republican Congressional Committee summed it up bluntly: when the radical left called, Gluesenkamp Perez “folded like a cheap lawn chair” and turned her back on law enforcement again.

With one of the most competitive House seats in the country, this latest episode pokes a hole straight through the carefully crafted image she sells back home. You can only pretend to be a centrist for so long before your voting record and activist allies give the game away.

For a “moderate,” she sure has a habit of siding with the most radical voices in the room. Read more at Seattle Red.

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