Tag: washington

Washington Lawmakers Once Again Abandon Effort To Allow Adults To Grow Marijuana At Home

Democrats in the Washington State legislature have once again given up on a plan to legalize home cultivation of marijuana for personal use, opting instead to keep the conduct classified as a felony.

Lawmakers in the House Appropriations Committee did not act on the homegrow bill—HB 1449, from Rep. Shelley Kloba—before a legislative deadline on Friday, meaning it’s now dead for the session.

If enacted law, the bill would have allowed adults 21 and older to grow up to six cannabis plants at home for personal use, with households capped at 15 plants regardless of how many adults reside on the premises. People could also lawfully keep the marijuana produced by those plants despite the state’s existing one-ounce limit on possession.

Kloba and other supportive lawmakers have worked for nearly a decade to pass a law allowing adults to grow a small number of cannabis plants for their own use, but each year, other lawmakers and executive agencies have stood in the way of the proposal.

Kloba’s staff on Friday confirmed to Marijuana Moment that the bill would not move forward this year, saying that the lawmaker “will continue pursuing this policy” but declining to comment further.

Last year, Kloba sponsored HB 2194, which similarly died after not being called for a vote in the House Appropriations Committee.

After last year’s proposal failed to advance, Kloba similarly said she would continue to pursue the reform.

“Every session has its own character and constraints, which so far have meant that the bill has not advanced to the Senate,” she told Marijuana Moment at the time. “But I am not giving up.”

Washington was one of the first U.S. states to legalize adult-use marijuana, passing a ballot initiative in 2012. Growing marijuana for personal use without a state medical card, however, remains a Class C felony, carrying up to five years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.

Legislative efforts to allow personal cultivation stretch back to at least 2015, but so far each has failed.

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Washington State Launches Bullying Investigation into Teen Girl Who Refused to Play Against Trans Opponent

Officials of deep blue Washington State have launched a full-blown “investigation” alleging “harassment” against a teen high school girl who refused to take the court against a transgender player on an opposing girl’s basketball team.

The Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR) filed a complaint against the school for teen Frances Staudt, a girl who plays for the Tumwater High School girl’s basketball team.

At issue is Staudt’s refusal to play in a game on February 6 after she noticed that one of the players on the opposing team, Andi Rooks, is a transgender athlete and her subsequent accusations that the school district moved to punish her for her position on transgender athletes.

Staudt says she asked Principal Zach Suderman and Athletic Director Jordan Magrath to remove the male player or stop the game. However, Suderman noted that the state’s governing body for sports, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, has rules allowing students to participate under their chosen gender. Staudt also says that Rooks “brutalized” her teammates on the court during the game, and she offered a video to prove her point.

After stating her position, Tumwater school officials launched an investigation into the girl, accusing her of “harassment,” “bullying,” and “misgendering” against the visiting transgender student.

The Staudt family has countered by accusing Suderman of ridiculing the girl over her ideals. The family also says that school officials threatened Staudt’s brother for taking video of the game.

The Staudts also allege that school officials harassed them after they posted about the issue on their personal social media accounts. At one point, Rook’s father allegedly sent threatening text messages to the Staudt family, demanding that they remove the posts.

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Female HS basketball player refuses to play against boy; gets investigated for ‘harassment’

A 15-year-old girl at a Washington State high school is under investigation for “bullying” and “harassment” for allegedly “misgendering” a male player on an opposing girls basketball team.

According to a complaint from the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism, earlier this month Tumwater High School player Frances Staudt noticed during pre-game warm-ups that her team’s opponent had a biological male on its roster.

Tumwater Principal Zach Suderman and Athletic Director Jordan Magrath confirmed this was the case as Washington Interscholastic Activities Association policy allows students to “play on the team that aligns with their ‘gender identity.’”

In addition, state officials have voiced objections to President Trump’s executive order barring biological men from competing on women’s sports teams.

The attorney general’s office said “we are repulsed by the president’s dehumanization of the trans community,” and Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal called the EO “discrimination against trans female athletes.”

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Washington State Democrats Accidentally Leak Their ‘Radical’ Tax Plan

Washington State Democrats accidentally leaked their radical tax plan to the entire upper chamber in Olympia on Thursday.

According to Seattle-based radio host Jason Rantz, Washington state Democrats accidentally emailed their radical tax plan to the entire senate.

The tax plan, which includes major property tax hikes and a new 11% tax on firearms, directly contradicts the state Democrats’ campaign promises, Jason Rantz said.

Fox News reported:

Washington state Democrats appeared to have accidentally emailed their sweeping revenue plans and internal talking points on tax hikes to the entirety of the upper chamber’s members in Olympia, Fox News has learned.

Property tax hikes and a new double-digit tax on firearms are among proposals Washington state Democrats are considering, according to materials originally disseminated to all members by Washington Senate Deputy Floor Leader Noel Frame, D-Seattle, in late December and later obtained by Fox News Digital.

A document titled “2025 Revenue Options” and a PowerPoint presentation describing how to talk to constituents in defense of the plan were included in the messages.

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2 Oregon Men Die From Exposure in Forest After They Went Out to Look for Sasquatch

Two Oregon men were found dead in a Washington state forest after they failed to return from a trip to look for Sasquatch, authorities said Saturday.

The 59-year-old and 37-year-old appear to have died from exposure, the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office said via Facebook. The weather and the men’s lack of preparedness led the office to draw that conclusion, it said.

Sasquatch is a folkloric beast thought by some to roam the forests, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

The two men were found in a heavily wooded area of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which is about 150 miles northeast of Portland.

A family member reported them missing at around 1 a.m. on Christmas Day after they failed to return from a Christmas Eve outing.

Sixty volunteer search-and-rescue personnel helped in the three-day search, including canine, drone and ground teams. The Coast Guard used infrared technology to search from the air.

Authorities used camera recordings to locate the vehicle used by the pair off Oklahoma Road near Willard, which is on the southern border of the national forest.

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Woman housed in cell with trans-identifying male pedophile sues Washington state prisons over sexual assault

A former inmate at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) filed a lawsuit against the state’s Department of Corrections on Friday, claiming she was subjected to alleged sexual abuse and harassment in 2022 after being housed with a trans-identifying biological male pedophile while incarcerated.

In the lawsuit, plaintiff Mozzy Clark-Sanchez alleged that WCCW staff placed her in a cell with a male inmate who was transferred from a men’s prison after he “claimed to identify as a woman.” That male, the lawsuit contends, is 35-year-old Christopher Williams, a 6’4 convicted pedophile serving a 28.5-year prison sentence for brutally assaulting his former girlfriend, court records show. He was previously convicted of child rape and is alleged to have subjected Clark-Sanchez to repeated harassment and sexual abuse. Clark-Sanchez is a survivor of child rape and previously said she was “raped by my uncle, and my mom used to sell me to pay for drugs.”

Clark-Sanchez alleged that Williams would frequently and graphically describe sexual acts he wanted to do to her and would fondle her as she slept. The plaintiff said in the suit that she would wake up to find Williams’ hands on her genitals, breasts, and legs. On at least one occasion, a prison guard caught Williams in the act and rather than remove him from the cell, ordered Williams back to his bunk. Clark-Sanchez said that on one occassion Williams brought a strap-on dildo into the cell and asked her to use it on him. Williams is also accused of repeatedly leering at female inmates while they showered.

Prison officials ignored her concerns, Clark-Sanchez said, and tried to convince her not to file official complaints. She said that they cautioned her about potential retaliation from Williams, Kiro 7 News reported. The suit claims that DOC officials were cognizant of William’s previous behavior, including sexual misconduct with another female cellmate, but they neglected to take the necessary measures to safeguard Clark-Sanchez.

The lawsuit also alleges that WCCW and DOC policies of housing biologically male prisoners who have known histories of violence and sexual offenses in women’s facilities violate the constitutional rights of female inmates.

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National Guard troops on standby in Washington state, Oregon and Nevada as a precaution for ‘potential’ election unrest

Ahead of potential civil unrest due to Tuesday’s presidential election, the National Guard is on standby as a precaution in several states, including Washington state and Oregon, where hundreds of ballots were damaged or destroyed after at least three ballot drop boxes were recently set on fire, officials say.

Almost all the ballots set ablaze on Monday were in a drop box in Vancouver, Washington, while most ballots in a drop box in Portland, Oregon, survived a fire set the same day, election officials said. The incidents are believed to be connected to a third fire on October 8, also in Vancouver. Portland police released a physical description of a suspect but said they’ve not identified him.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee addressed the ballot box fires in a news release Friday announcing the National Guard being placed on standby, saying, “The southwest region of Washington state has already experienced specific instances of election-related unrest.”

Inslee did not disclose how many troops would be activated on Tuesday, but said they will be available to support law enforcement from Monday to Thursday, according to the news release.

The US Department of Homeland Security has warned that threats to “election infrastructure” remain high, Inslee added.

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Washington Sued for ‘Racially Conscious’ Homeownership Program

The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) submitted a complaint on Tuesday against the Washington State Housing Finance Commission (WSHFC) for its Covenant Homeownership Program, which explicitly bars certain applicants from eligibility on the basis of race. The commission cites the 2024 Covenant Homeownership Program Study as empirically justifying its “race-conscious” special purpose credit program, but it’s unlikely to pass strict scrutiny.

The Washington State Legislature passed the Covenant Homeownership Act in May 2023 to remedy “past and ongoing discrimination and its impacts on access to credit and homeownership for black, indigenous, and people of color.” Past discrimination includes 50,000 clauses in home deeds and homeowners associations that were used “between the 1920’s and 1960’s throughout Washington state to restrict housing based on race, religion, and ethnicity,” according to the commission. The Covenant Homeownership’s special purpose credit program offers certain first-time homebuyers a zero-interest rate loan for downpayment and closing cost assistance to address discrimination and reduce the racial disparity in homeownership.

The program raises its revenue by collecting a $100 document recording assessment for real estate transactions, which the commission projected will “generate between $75 million and $100 million each year.” The program is restricted to those Washingtonians whose ancestors (or themselves) were subjected to state-based racial discrimination in housing contracts before the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968.

Further qualifications for the program include earning the area’s median income or less, being a first-time homebuyer, and either being or having an ancestor who was Hispanic, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, other Pacific Islander, Korean, or Asian Indian and lived in the state before April 1968. Limiting access to the program’s special purpose credit program in this way “facially discriminates on the basis of race,” according to the complaint.

WSHFC acknowledges the program’s racial requirements, describing it as going “beyond ‘colorblind’ or ‘race-neutral’ assistance” to allow Washington “to directly remedy the harm caused by its discriminatory policies.” Although the commission insists the program “does not represent a formal reparations effort,” the United Nations, whose definition the commission cites, disagrees. One of the U.N.’s four reparations measures is “compensation…provided for any economically assessable damage, loss of earnings, loss of property, loss of economic opportunities, [or] moral damages.”

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What to Know About the Suspect Behind Ballot Box Fires in the Northwest

The man suspected of setting fires in ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington state is an experienced metalworker and may be planning additional attacks, authorities said Wednesday.

Investigators believe the man who set the incendiary devices at ballot boxes in Portland, Oregon, and nearby Vancouver, Washington, had a “wealth of experience” in metal fabrication and welding, said Portland Police Bureau spokesperson Mike Benner.

The way the devices were constructed and the way they were attached to the metal drop boxes showed that expertise, Benner said.

Authorities described the suspect as a white man, age 30 to 40, who is balding or has very short hair.

Police previously said surveillance video showed the man driving a black or dark-colored 2001 to 2004 Volvo S-60. The vehicle did not have a front license plate, but it did have a rear plate with unknown letters or numbers.

The incendiary devices were marked with the message “Free Gaza,” according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.

A third device placed at a different drop box in Vancouver earlier this month also carried the words “Free Palestine” in addition to “Free Gaza,” the official said.

Investigators are trying to identify the person responsible and the motive for the suspected arson attacks, which destroyed or damaged hundreds of ballots at the drop box in Vancouver on Monday when the box’s fire suppression system didn’t work as intended. Authorities are trying to figure out whether the suspect actually had pro-Palestinian views or used the message to try to create confusion, the official said.

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Washington Woman Shocked to Find 16 Ballots for Different Names Sent to Her New Apartment

A Washington woman was stunned to discover 16 unopened ballots addressed to different names, flooding her mailbox just days before the critical Election Day.

Jami Visaya, who moved into her new Bellevue apartment in early October, received the ballots that raised immediate red flags about the reliability of Washington’s mail-in voting system.

“I was in complete shock,” Visaya told KING 5. Moving in with her son only four weeks ago, she never anticipated the heap of ballots, all with unfamiliar names, being sent to her new address.

The issue emerged with the first wave of nine ballots, which Visaya attempted to return to the USPS for proper handling.

“There were about nine voter registration ballots that were not mine. They were addressed to other people, and so I thought that was strange, so I ended up returning them to the post office here.”

“[I] said, ‘Can you please make sure that these get to who they’re going to?’ And he just said he had a process that the post office follows,” she said.

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