Washington
North Mason School District officials are considering presenting a bond to voters as early as May to build a new middle school, Superintendent Dave Peterson announced Tuesday.
The state Supreme Court agreed unanimously this morning to uphold increases in tobacco and alcohol taxes approved by the 2005 Legislature. But no substantive constitutional issues were settled. For the second time the court sidestepped the issue of whether the 1993 voter-approved Initiative 601 was constitutional. In 1994 the court declined to rule on a challenge to implementation of the law, saying the plaintiffs could not yet show any harm from the measure.
The simple-majority ballot measure for school levies is ahead by a comfortable enough margin to break open the champagne. This ballot measure had a simple request: Allow school levy requests to pass by a 50 percent-plus-one voting majority rather than a 60 percent supermajority.
The ballot measure that would allow school levies to pass with a majority vote pulled ahead for the first time Tuesday with a 7,000-vote lead.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels says Sound Transit should rebound from Tuesday’s drubbing at the polls and come back with a new light rail plan for voters on the 2008 ballot.
Here’s a bracing corrective from reader Patrick Higgins, arguing that “the people” didn’t really speak, as we pundits like to say, since the large majority of voters stayed silent. Mr. Higgins, you have the microphone:
The roads-and-transit ballot measure may be dead, but one of its star projects, a new Evergreen Point Bridge, has state officials scrambling to salvage the $4.4 billion needed for the project.
“Off-year” elections do not attract the large number of referendums and issue initiatives that are typically found on ballots in presidential and congressional election years. But Tuesday, the Election Day for most states holding 2007 contests, featured a handful of ballot propositions that had national implications. The following are analyses of the outcomes of four of these measures.
Voters in the central Puget Sound counties were rejecting the biggest transportation tax proposal in state history, one designed to unite transit and highway advocates to improve regional traffic congestion.
Despite a record-setting deluge of spending by the insurance industry, voters on Tuesday handily approved a measure that allows policyholders to sue for triple damages if an insurance company “unreasonably” denies a legitimate claim.
The insurance industry’s $11.5 million campaign to repeal new consumer protection legislation was defeated Tuesday night.
Voters rejected a multibillion-dollar regional roads-and-transit package on Tuesday, likely leaving state lawmakers with a transportation mess that could take years to sort out.
This place is minuscule compared with some other Sequim structures - which is part of the reason why its Friends are raring to expand it.
A record-setting opposition campaign couldn’t buy a lead on election night, leaving foes of Referendum 67 with fading hopes for a comeback as Washington’s vote count continues.
Whether you’re talking about its lush, rain-drenched lawns or its pro-earth policies, Seattle ranks among the greenest of American cities. But to experience the beauty of the Emerald City, a gas-guzzling, air-polluting car is pretty much the only way to see it.