In the News

When tragedies like the Texas elementary school shooting happen, parents everywhere are horrified and wonder whether it could happen at their child’s school next. Unfortunately, the short answer is yes. It could happen anywhere. However, in Washington, lawmakers and elected officials believe students are better protected than in most other states because of several new gun laws passed in recent ...

State Sen. David Frockt, D-North Seattle, the bill’s prime sponsor, concedes that’s just a downpayment. “We’re talking at least $1 billion, maybe more, over 10, 12, maybe 20 years,” he says, adding, “you can’t commit new legislatures to fund anything.” But he thinks the standing program will provide a strong impetus. “When you have a formalized program that’s in the ...

OLYMPIA – The Legislature has unanimously passed a $1.5 billion supplemental capital budget that includes funding for affordable housing and behavioral health resources in Spokane. The supplemental plan – an adjustment to the $6.3 billion two-year budget passed last year – would invest in infrastructure and construction projects across the state. That includes $100 million for school seismic safety grants and ...

Today, the Washington State Senate and House passed a bill that will majorly update and expand the state's Motion Picture Competitiveness Program (MPCP), an initiative to attract more film productions to our sexy state. The bill increases the program's funding cap from $3.5 million—among the worst incentives offered by a state in the country—to $15 million per year. It also ...

Movies set in Washington — from vampire flicks on the Olympic Peninsula to a film about workers’ rights protests in Seattle — are often filmed elsewhere. A new bill hopes to increase financial incentives to change that. Washington state has the third smallest film incentive program in the country, according to an industry group. This legislative session, however, state lawmakers are ...

Washington state has lagged behind every other West Coast state and British Columbia in addressing earthquake and tsunami risk to schoolchildren. But that may be changing in a big way. This month, a bipartisan group of state senators proposed putting a referendum on next November's Washington ballot. Their idea is to sell $500 million in state bonds to retrofit or ...

Lawmakers in at least three states are considering measures to counter the onslaught of threats that state and local election officials have endured in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

OLYMPIA — Hypothetical scenario: A candidate for county executive loses an election, then claims there’s been fraud in the county’s election office and announces that something needs to be done about it. “And supporters hear that and they decide, ‘Well, I’m going to go and firebomb the place,'” said Sen. David Frockt, D-Seattle. “And they go and firebomb the place.” “That’s not ...

By David Frockt and Eileen Cody Special to The Times Last spring, something incredible happened: After a decade of gridlock, Congress finally passed a bill that recognizes the enormous strain of health care costs on family and state budgets. Born out of the COVID-19 crisis, the American Rescue Plan Act included direct relief through 2022 for the monthly premiums Washington residents face ...

It’s time to recover and rebuild. But how do we build a stronger community in the wake of one of the worst economic crises in our country’s history?

The key word is “build.”

Building local public infrastructure is ...