Morning Fizz
An Initiative to Legalize, Sell, and Tax Pot
1. After they'd already given early endorsements to Seattle City Council members Sally Clark, Jean Godden, Bruce Harrell, and Tom Rasmussen at last month's meeting, the 11th District Democrats (South Seattle, Burien, Renton, SeaTac) met again last night and added Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess to the list as well as two of the three Godden challengers, Maurice Classen and Bobby Forch.
A third candidate challenging Godden, Michael Taylor-Judd, failed to get the district's nod—after facing some resistance to his anti-tunnel position.
King County Council member Joe McDermott and his opponent Diana Toledo got a dual endorsement from the 11th District last night.
2. The Mainstream Republicans, the local moderate GOP group, denounced US Rep. (and likely gubernatorial candidate) Jay Inslee yesterday for taking money from former US Rep. Anthony Weiner, the Democrat who resigned after the appropriately-named Weinergate. [pullquote]In response, Inslee announced he was donating the money, $1,000, to Planned Parenthood.[/pullquote]
In response, Inslee announced he was donating the money, $1,000, to Planned Parenthood—a move the Republicans denounced in turn, arguing that Inslee should have given the money to the Red Cross or a food bank.
3. According to the latest campaign finance reports, earlier this week, homeless newspaper Real Change gave $3,000 to Protect Seattle Now, the anti-tunnel campaign. The same reports shows Stranger news editor Dominic Holden gave $100 to the alt-weekly's anti-tunnel cause, bringing his total contributions to $200.
Meanwhile, city council member Tim Burgess gave $1,500 to Let's Move Forward, the pro-tunnel campaign.
4. A troupe of local transit advocates—representatives from Futurewise, Transportation Choices Coalition, and Sound Transit—are at the Center for Transit Excellence conference in St. Louis (the topic is transit initiative campaigns).
They're tweeting all kinds of transit factoids (follow it here), such as, "Brookings: 70% of working-age Americans live w/in 3/4mi of transit stop. Mostly transit that won't bring them to their jobs tho."
So far, Fizz's favorite tweet: "Wowza. Came to St Louis to learn crazy fact re Tacoma: last 10 years, 90 % of development in T-town within 1mi of light rail."
5. New Approach Washington, a new pro-pot legalization group whose supporters include Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, former U.S. Attorney John McKay, State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-36, Ballard), travel writer Rick Steves, and ACLU of Washington drug policy director Alison Holcomb, is unveiling an initiative to the legislature today to legalize, sell (and tax) pot in private stores licensed and authorized by the liquor control board. (The stores would be separate from liquor stores.)
Rep. Dickerson sponsored a similar piece of legislation during the latest session, but it failed. Holcomb will be heading the campaign.
The initiative is for 2012. The campaign has until December to collect 241,000 signatures. Its first stop will be the 2012 legislative session in Olympia, where the legislature can simply pass it. If the legislature doesn't pass the measure, it goes to a vote of the people.
Another pro-pot group, Sensible Washington, is not part of this effort. Sensible Washington is currently trying to get a marijuana decriminalization (as opposed to legalization) measure on the ballot for 2011 that does not come with a specific regulatory or tax scheme.
Today's new proposal outlines a 25 percent excise tax at every level of the market—producer, processor, and retailer—along with the regular sales tax added on at the retail level. Dickerson's had estimated her legalization bill would have brought in $300 million a biennium for the state.
A third candidate challenging Godden, Michael Taylor-Judd, failed to get the district's nod—after facing some resistance to his anti-tunnel position.
King County Council member Joe McDermott and his opponent Diana Toledo got a dual endorsement from the 11th District last night.
2. The Mainstream Republicans, the local moderate GOP group, denounced US Rep. (and likely gubernatorial candidate) Jay Inslee yesterday for taking money from former US Rep. Anthony Weiner, the Democrat who resigned after the appropriately-named Weinergate. [pullquote]In response, Inslee announced he was donating the money, $1,000, to Planned Parenthood.[/pullquote]
In response, Inslee announced he was donating the money, $1,000, to Planned Parenthood—a move the Republicans denounced in turn, arguing that Inslee should have given the money to the Red Cross or a food bank.
3. According to the latest campaign finance reports, earlier this week, homeless newspaper Real Change gave $3,000 to Protect Seattle Now, the anti-tunnel campaign. The same reports shows Stranger news editor Dominic Holden gave $100 to the alt-weekly's anti-tunnel cause, bringing his total contributions to $200.
Meanwhile, city council member Tim Burgess gave $1,500 to Let's Move Forward, the pro-tunnel campaign.
4. A troupe of local transit advocates—representatives from Futurewise, Transportation Choices Coalition, and Sound Transit—are at the Center for Transit Excellence conference in St. Louis (the topic is transit initiative campaigns).
They're tweeting all kinds of transit factoids (follow it here), such as, "Brookings: 70% of working-age Americans live w/in 3/4mi of transit stop. Mostly transit that won't bring them to their jobs tho."
So far, Fizz's favorite tweet: "Wowza. Came to St Louis to learn crazy fact re Tacoma: last 10 years, 90 % of development in T-town within 1mi of light rail."
5. New Approach Washington, a new pro-pot legalization group whose supporters include Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, former U.S. Attorney John McKay, State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-36, Ballard), travel writer Rick Steves, and ACLU of Washington drug policy director Alison Holcomb, is unveiling an initiative to the legislature today to legalize, sell (and tax) pot in private stores licensed and authorized by the liquor control board. (The stores would be separate from liquor stores.)
Rep. Dickerson sponsored a similar piece of legislation during the latest session, but it failed. Holcomb will be heading the campaign.
The initiative is for 2012. The campaign has until December to collect 241,000 signatures. Its first stop will be the 2012 legislative session in Olympia, where the legislature can simply pass it. If the legislature doesn't pass the measure, it goes to a vote of the people.
Another pro-pot group, Sensible Washington, is not part of this effort. Sensible Washington is currently trying to get a marijuana decriminalization (as opposed to legalization) measure on the ballot for 2011 that does not come with a specific regulatory or tax scheme.
Today's new proposal outlines a 25 percent excise tax at every level of the market—producer, processor, and retailer—along with the regular sales tax added on at the retail level. Dickerson's had estimated her legalization bill would have brought in $300 million a biennium for the state.
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