Emily Makings

SeaTac and local minimum wage laws

The Wall Street Journal writes about the “patchwork of local wage laws”: A wave of successful state and local initiatives to raise the minimum wage is creating the potential for a greater patchwork of pay standards around the country than ever before, fueling the debate over whether Congress should raise the federal level. Of course, […]

New brief: High Stakes for Washington in Competition for 777X

In a new policy brief, we write about the tax preference and spending package the Legislature passed earlier this month as part of the effort to secure manufacture of Boeing’s 777X for Washington. Read it here.

Medicaid accounts for 88.1 percent of WA Healthplanfinder enrollments

The Washington Health Benefit Exchange has been sending out the numbers of people enrolled in health care coverage through the exchange (Washington Healthplanfinder) each week. The most recent release shows that 98,399 enrollments have been completed since the Oct. 1 launch of the exchange. Of those, only 11,742 (11.9 percent) are in qualified health plans […]

Announcing our new website

We are excited to unveil our new website today. Our blog, publications, and other work are now all located in one place: researchcouncil.org. Please update your bookmarks. To receive our blog posts by email, please look at the column on the right hand side of the blog and enter your email where it says “follow […]

State Supreme Court hears public pension arguments

This morning the state Supreme Court heard arguments on the public pension gain sharing and uniform COLA cases. The Department of Retirement Services summarized the issues yesterday: At issue in one case is a law from 2008 which repealed gain sharing provisions for members and retirees of certain state retirement plans and replaced them with […]

WRC reports on ballot measures

Ballots are in the mail, if not already in voters’ hands. In light of that, here are our reports on the statewide ballot measures: Initiative 522: Costly, Flawed and Ill-Conceived Initiative 517: Infringing Property Rights and Enshrining a New Protected Class And, for SeaTac voters: Proposition 1 and the “Living Wage Movement” in SeaTac: Increasing […]

"I'm bad at math" versus "I can succeed if I study hard"

Partnership for Learning writes, The office of Superintendent of Public Instruction released results last week for the 2013 Annual Measurable Objectives (AMO) that showed little to no progress — and even some regression — for Washington state’s schools. The AMOs are part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) waiver that was reissued to […]

On the "California Rule" and why it matters for WA pension reform

In a Bloomberg View article, Steven Malanga writes about an effort in California to amend the state constitution to specifically eliminate the notion that employee benefits are a contractual right that bars all future changes. [San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed] is pushing for the amendment because workers are challenging a San Jose pension measure approved […]

New Brief: I-517: Infringing Property Rights and Enshrining a New Protected Class

Initiative 517, on the ballot this fall, would broadly expand the places in which a campaign may gather signatures, including on private property without owners’ consent; elevate interference of signature gathering above other types of harassment, putting signature gatherers and signers above everyone else; require every initiative with sufficient signatures to go to the ballot, […]

Feeding the world through technology

Among the many reasons that I-522 (genetically engineered labeling) is a bad idea is the impact it would have on beneficial new technologies. In a Friday story on I-522, Austin Jenkins quotes Chris Rivera of the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association: “The long-term vision for the biotechnology industry is to heal, feed and fuel the […]