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: 59
That’s how many days remain until Election Day, yet court fights continue that could affect how states handle mailed ballots. On Friday, a federal judge ruled against a U.S. Postal Service rule that stems from the executive order on mail-in voting President Trump issued in March. The Trump administration quickly appealed, and the case is likely to end at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Portions of the rule set new standards for ballot envelopes. A more controversial provision would require states to send the Postal Service lists of eligible voters. The Trump administration and a handful of GOP state attorneys general have defended the rule as a “modest” mail regulation, not an election regulation.
But more than 20 Democratic-led states, including Washington, said in a court filing this week that, “In some States, it would be impossible at this point to comply with the last-minute rollout of USPS’ novel ballot-verification program.”
“In other States, there will be chaos,” the court brief says.
The states presented a list of tasks state and local elections administrators would have to complete: redesigning ballot envelopes and obtaining USPS approval, purchasing new envelopes, developing technology systems to meet envelope barcode standards in the rule, uploading voter-specific information to a USPS portal that they have not yet received access to, and training state and local officials and voters on the new standards.
“There’s a pretty universal feeling that the courts will stop it from happening,” Katy Owens Hubler, director of elections at the National Conference of State Legislatures, told States Newsroom this week. “In general, you don’t want to be changing things right before the election. So in a lot of ways, it is already too late.”
READ MORE:
Judge extends pause on postal rule limiting vote-by-mail | by Jacob Fischler
Why the USPS plan for mail-in voting has states in a panic | by Jacob Fischler
Ballot envelopes in Thurston County in 2024. (Washington State Standard file photo)
Election officials have also raised concerns about ballots getting postmarked late. Last year, the Postal Service finalized a rule saying that a piece of mail’s “postmark date does not inherently or necessarily align with the date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of the mailpiece.”
Data for the August primary show 20,267 rejected ballots due to late postmarks, up from 16,131 in 2024. Rural counties saw some of the largest increases in ballots that weren’t counted because they were postmarked after primary election day. A Postal Service spokesperson emphasized this week that people can bring ballots to a post office and ask for a manual postmark at no charge to ensure ballots are postmarked on time.
In the primary, over two-thirds of ballots were returned via drop box.
READ MORE: Uncounted late ballots jump in WA | by Jake Goldstein-Street
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State worker contract clash
State employees near the Capitol in Olympia during Monday’s lunch hour walkout. (Photo by Aspen Ford/Washington State Standard)
State employees walked off the job in Olympia and other locations for an hour on Monday to highlight their demands for pay increases in the next round of labor contracts. “We’re not going to agree to furloughs. We’re not going to agree to cuts,” said Ashley Fueston, vice president of the Washington Federation of State Employees. “We’re not going to agree to takeaways. That’s not acceptable.”
The Washington Federation of State Employees has a rally at the Capitol planned beginning at noon on Saturday.
“We've made serious progress following the walkouts, but we're not quite there yet,” says a notice for the event. “Our goal is a fair Tentative Agreement. Until we have one, we are showing up at the Capitol to keep the pressure on.” WFSE President Mike Yestramski and Washington State Labor Council President April Sims are among the scheduled speakers.
Officials from Gov. Bob Ferguson's administration are negotiating for the state. The talks come as the state budget is strained. The deadline to ratify an agreement is Oct. 1 for it to be considered for funding in the next budget. Ferguson will propose his spending plan in December. The governor declined to comment this week on the status of negotiations or criticism that he isn’t living up to commitments he made to workers while campaigning.
The contract talks have obvious implications for the budget, but could have political repercussions, too. A rocky outcome could leave powerful public sector labor unions soured on Ferguson ahead of his expected reelection run in 2028. But the contracts span two years, meaning another round of negotiations ahead of November that year.
READ MORE: WA state workers stage walkout amid clash over pay demands | by Jerry Cornfield and Aspen Ford
Where’s the governor?
He was in Seattle’s Chinatown International District on Thursday to sign an executive order preparing the state to respond to federal healthcare cuts from the tax cut and spending law congressional Republicans passed last year.
The order creates the H.R. 1 Continuous Medicaid Response Committee, led by state healthcare officials, to respond to the “big beautiful bill,” especially its fallout for Medicaid. The order also calls for a statewide public awareness campaign to let Washingtonians know what’s going on, and directs the Department of Health to establish a data accountability system to track health coverage losses.
The governor’s office hasn’t sent out a public calendar update since mid-August.
This week, the governor posted on social media about attending the opening of the Ostrea Solar project in Yakima County.
He also shared a photo of himself speaking at a CleanTech Alliance event in Richland to celebrate “Fusion Week.” Ferguson noted that earlier this year the state issued “the world’s first regulatory licenses for a commercial (nuclear) fusion energy facility.” He added: “Now we have an opportunity to become the place where fusion moves from the laboratory to the power grid. Washington state is ready to win that race.”
The Richland event is Ferguson’s latest interaction with the nuclear industry. His prior engagements include a July meeting with representatives from the uranium enrichment company General Matter. He declined to comment on that meeting. His office also participated in a two-day National Governors Association nuclear energy retreat held at the state Capitol last year. That event was closed to the press.
The latest calendar documents we received through a records request show the governor had at least a half-dozen “legislative meetings” since Aug. 26, but do not specify which lawmakers, if any, attended.
IN OTHER NEWS THIS WEEK…
A last-ditch legal effort nearly succeeded in knocking a statement off ballots that characterizes how repealing Washington’s new income tax on high earners would affect the state budget.
A state ethics panel has ordered Democratic state Rep. Tarra Simmons to pay roughly $52,000 in penalties and fees for multiple violations of Washington ethics laws.
Washington state officials are keeping a longstanding program seen as vital to parents of children with developmental disabilities, but cutting its funding, ending weeks of unease about its future.
Utilities are spending millions of dollars to deal with wildfire risks, and there are growing concerns about the expense spilling over to ratepayers.
Gov. Bob Ferguson won’t punish two members of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission for violating public records and open meeting laws but has warned each that they will face removal if they don’t comply with state transparency statutes and conflict of interest rules in the remaining months of their terms.
The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from 22 states sued Amazon Monday, claiming the online retail company used artificial bids to inflate costs for advertisers, bringing in tens of billions of dollars.
New Jersey has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a ruling that found a federal 2010 law bars states from regulating sports bets offered on prediction markets, arguing the high court should step in because lower courts have split on this issue.
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