Morning Fizz
Outspoken and Undocumented
1. Thousands of demonstrators filled Occidental Park on Saturday for a major immigration reform rally. Watch our video coverage here . It includes an interview with U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA, 7) who spoke at the rally and with an outspoken and undocumented high school senior, who emigrated from Mexico when he was two-years-old and is now the president of his student government.
2. On Saturday, the state House passed the $800 million compromise revenue package that the governor the Senate and the House came up with last week.
Highlights: It includes a hiked up soft drink tax, beer tax, gum and candy tax, and B&O tax.
It does not include a general sales tax increase (the Senate had been pushing for a sales tax increase all session). It also doesn't include a tax on big banks, out-of-state shoppers, and custom software designers—taxes the House had been pushing for.
Also missing: A tax on Microsoft's out-of-state sales tax dodge, worth about $100 million, which has a whole blog dedicated to exposing it.
And MIA for environmentalists, the increase in the hazardous substance tax to pay for storm water clean up that had been in play all session and a plan to float $861 million in bonds to pay for a green retrofit of public shcools.
Next up: The Senate needs to pass the revenue package and both houses need to pass the budget (ie, what they're spending the money on). All of this is expected to happen today.
Both houses passed budgets during the special session, but the new $800 million line changes the equation. Today's question: Will any of the things that had been restored, like children's day care, senior health care, and environmental programs, get cut again.
3. The Lusty Lady, the famous peepshow club on 1rst with the endlessly entertaining marquee, is closing. Brendan Kiley at the Stranger had the scoop .
4. The U.S. Senate is holding hearings on the Washington Mutual collapse this week. The Seattle Times has a primer, but for an on-the-ground report, watch for this week's Puget Sound Business Journal , which scraped together the budget to send a reporter to D.C. to exclusively cover the WaMu hearings. A scrappy intern also talked her way into going.
