By Bill Lucia | Editor
Welcome back to the Daily Standard's weekend edition, where we recap some of the week's top stories.
Number of the week: 6.74%
That’s the share of registered voters in Washington who’d returned ballots as of Friday, with the Aug. 4 primary 11 days away. The statistic from the secretary of state’s office is trailing 2022, when it was 7.97% at the same point in the run-up to the primary. About 41% of voters ultimately cast primary ballots in 2022.
It’s still early, but a peek at county-level figures shows ballot returns trending ahead of 2022 in Clark County — the county with the most voters in the hotly contested 3rd Congressional District. Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is trying to fend off a pack of challengers, including state Senate Republican Leader John Braun, to keep her seat for a third term. As of Friday, 7.72% of voters in Clark County had submitted ballots compared to 5.57% in 2022. This is one of the battleground districts around the country that will determine which party controls the U.S. House. Recent polling from the Northwest Progressive Institute showed Gluesenkamp Perez and Braun statistically tied heading toward the primary and in a toss-up if they go head-to-head in the fall.
You have until 8 p.m. on Aug. 4 to turn in your ballot at an official drop box. If you’re voting by mail, officials recommend getting your ballot in the mail more than a week before Election Day (meaning early next week at the latest). You can check out our primary election voter guide here, which features more than 100 candidates across 27 key races. The secretary of state has the nuts and bolts here on deadlines and so forth. The state’s online voter guide is here.
Our primary guide focuses on legislative races with more than two candidates (in races with only two, both will advance to November). But there are one-on-one primary matchups worth watching to see what they reveal about the dynamics heading into the fall. For example: the Democrat-vs.-Democrat showdown in the 29th District, which extends south from Tacoma to around Spanaway and Joint Base Lewis-McChord. There, Rep. Melanie Morgan faces a challenge from Krista Perez. Perez, who has backing from major unions and the 29th Legislative District Democrats, went on the attack this week with an ad slamming Morgan for her vote in this year’s session against the new income tax on millionaire earners.
In general, we’ll be watching to see how Democratic incumbents’ votes on the income tax get attention this cycle. Take, for instance, the 48th District, east of Seattle, where Redmond City Council member Jessica Forsythe, a progressive Democrat, is attempting to unseat Democratic Rep. Amy Walen. Walen was one of the eight House Democrats to vote against the income tax. Forsythe has said she supports the tax.
Have you cast your primary ballot yet? (Photo by Bill Lucia/Washington State Standard)
Speaking of elections, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs was sworn in late last week as the next president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, at the group’s summer conference in Rapid City, South Dakota. “As NASS president, I will work to ensure that our elections are secure, transparent and accessible,” Hobbs said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to working with both Republican and Democrat Secretaries of State to make sure that happens.”
Meanwhile, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown appeared in The New York Times this week, talking about steps Democratic state officials are taking to protect against potential election security threats from the federal government. The article describes a meeting in Wisconsin in May, where staff from the offices of Democratic AG’s and secretaries of state gamed out scenarios like “what might happen if the F.B.I. showed up, demanding election materials or equipment? What if federal troops or agents were deployed in the country in ways that could intimidate voters or disrupt the election? What if President Trump tried to declare an election-related national emergency?”
“The sad reality now is that the federal government is our biggest concern,” Brown told The Times. He added: “It used to be that the Department of Justice was our No. 1 partner, helping states prepare for election-related issues.”
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How did we get here?
In 2027, state lawmakers will confront a significant budget shortfall for a third consecutive legislative session. This week, a new state panel began its work digging into the reasons behind the wave of budget stress. The 18-person Joint Legislative-Executive Committee on Budget Transparency and Fiscal Sustainability was created by a provision in this year’s budget legislation. It includes two lawmakers from each of the four legislative caucuses, four members of Gov. Bob Ferguson’s administration, and leaders of two business associations and two labor organizations.
For more on the panel’s first meeting, see: New effort underway to understand WA’s budget shortfalls | by Jerry Cornfield
By the numbers…
A couple of charts stood out in a “Budget Basics” presentation to the committee. The first (below) shows the growth trajectory in the state’s general fund over the past 26 years, with the bulk of the $56 billion in new spending coming after 2015.
The next chart shows where that $56 billion flowed within the budget — mostly to K-12 education. Other abbreviations in the pie chart include the Department of Social and Health Services, Health Care Authority (which handles Medicaid for the state), Department of Children, Youth and Families, and Department of Corrections.
Where’s the governor?
Out of state again. He headed out Thursday for his daughter’s final softball tournament in Oregon. He planned to take meetings remotely, his staff said. Ferguson is due back in the state tomorrow. A week ago, he was out of state for a tournament too. But at the time, his staff declined to say where he went. We later learned, via a social media post by Ferguson, that he’d visited Boston. Public records show he also made his way to Connecticut, traveling to Hartford on July 16 to meet with Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont. His public schedule for Monday shows a “meeting on climate,” as well as meetings with the president of the Washington Education Association, unspecified mayors and the North Coast State Carpenters Union.
Next week will mark a year since we launched “Where’s the governor?” in our Saturday newsletter, in response to his office’s lackluster efforts to let the press and public know where he’d be and what he’d be doing. Since then, we’ve seen minor improvement in how the governor’s office sends out calendar updates and communicates about his appearances. But the public calendars are frequently incomplete. And the governor continues to pop up at public events without the press corps getting a heads-up. Ferguson himself seems inclined to want to control the flow of information about what he’s doing by posting about it afterward on social media.
Before we begin a second year of “Where’s the governor?” we’d like to hear from readers. Do you find value in it? Should we dial it back to an occasional newsletter feature? Keep it weekly? What obligations do you think the governor has to be transparent about what he’s doing, when he’s leaving the state, or who he’s meeting with? Do you know any where’s-the-governor tidbits that we missed? If you have thoughts, ping me at: [email protected].
IN OTHER NEWS THIS WEEK
The state’s runaway payouts for government misconduct climbed to $537 million in the past year, continuing to strain the state’s finances.
Nearly half of front-line staff at Washington’s overcrowded juvenile detention facilities leave within a year, and many report feeling unsafe, unprepared and unsupported, according to a new audit of the state’s youth prison system.
Washington could spend $1 million repairing damage from vandalism at the state Capitol last year.
State officials have finally settled on where to move an 11-foot, 9,144-pound bronze statue of missionary Marcus Whitman in the state Capitol.
A Washington judge has ordered the state to pay roughly $120 million to thousands of public school teachers for withholding interest on pension contributions they made more than two decades ago.
In the first comprehensive update to high school graduation requirements in over a decade, the state Board of Education is retooling the current framework with an eye to better prepare students for life after graduation.
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