Morning Fizz
The Ruling is Very Clear
1. The 46th District Democratic Precinct Committee Officers chose the district's official nominees last night. In the crowded field
to replace retiring state Rep. Phyllis Gutierrez Kenney, they nominated lefty activist Sarajane Siegfriedt with 61 percent of the vote. (Former Transportation Choices Coalition Executive Director Jessy Farrell came in distant second with 20 percent, followed by union plumber Dusty Hoerler at 11 percent, and consumer rights attorney Shelly Crocker at seven percent.)
Rep. Gerry Pollet, the incumbent in the other seat, won the nomination easily, getting 91 percent after challenger Sylvester Cann told the crowd he was supporting Pollet, conceding the official nomination (a weird moniker this year resulting from the state party's effort to build its legal challenge to the top-two primary system). Cann, a former aide to the late state senator from the 46th, Scott White, is not dropping his ultimate bid to win the seat.
In fact, this morning, Cann, an education analyst for the education policy group Community Center for Education Results, announced a big deal endorsement: King County Executive Dow Constantine.
2. Meanwhile in South Seattle's (and Renton and Tukwila's) 11th District: Supporters of Seattle Port Commissioner Rob Holland, who's running for Rep. Bob Hasegawa's open seat (Hasegawa's running for senate), have been distributing documents showing that one of his opponents, orthodontist Bobby Virk, was the subject of a complaint to the US Department of Labor involving one of Virk's former employees, Oshmi Dutta. Dutta, a former friend of Virk's, came from India on an H-1B visa to work for Virk. (H-1B visas are for skilled workers who do not have green cards.)
Dutta, who eventually became partners with Virk in his expanded dentistry practice, opening two clinics in Oregon, claimed that Virk owed him more than $300,000 in unpaid wages, among other violations. (The claim, though complicated, boiled down to the fact that Dutta had been paid disbursements---about $575,000 over four years, Virk's campaign says---as a partner in the business, but did not receive wages.)
Virk was ultimately required to pay about $40,000 in unpaid Social Security payments to the Department of Labor, but was not required to pay Dutta any back pay. However, he was stripped of his ability to hire H-1B immigrants for two years, and is now listed as a "willful violator" of US labor laws on the labor department's web site .
Virk said in a statement, "I was relieved the settlement clearly indicated that I owed money to the Department of Labor for FICA payments - my error in not employing him as a W-2 employee – not that I owed Dr. Datta over $300,000 in unpaid wages as he alleged. The settlement ruling is very clear on this."
3. To pile on to Erica's post yesterday about the federal highway bill (short version: transit isn't heavily subsidized; highways are), a reader points out another way we subsidize roads: Since 2008, Congress has authorized three transfers from the nation's general fund (that's the fund that pays for everything that isn't funded by other, earmarked funds like the highway trust fund) totaling more than $50 billion---a direct subsidy of highways, with non-highway money, by US taxpayers.
Rep. Gerry Pollet, the incumbent in the other seat, won the nomination easily, getting 91 percent after challenger Sylvester Cann told the crowd he was supporting Pollet, conceding the official nomination (a weird moniker this year resulting from the state party's effort to build its legal challenge to the top-two primary system). Cann, a former aide to the late state senator from the 46th, Scott White, is not dropping his ultimate bid to win the seat.
In fact, this morning, Cann, an education analyst for the education policy group Community Center for Education Results, announced a big deal endorsement: King County Executive Dow Constantine.
2. Meanwhile in South Seattle's (and Renton and Tukwila's) 11th District: Supporters of Seattle Port Commissioner Rob Holland, who's running for Rep. Bob Hasegawa's open seat (Hasegawa's running for senate), have been distributing documents showing that one of his opponents, orthodontist Bobby Virk, was the subject of a complaint to the US Department of Labor involving one of Virk's former employees, Oshmi Dutta. Dutta, a former friend of Virk's, came from India on an H-1B visa to work for Virk. (H-1B visas are for skilled workers who do not have green cards.)
Dutta, who eventually became partners with Virk in his expanded dentistry practice, opening two clinics in Oregon, claimed that Virk owed him more than $300,000 in unpaid wages, among other violations. (The claim, though complicated, boiled down to the fact that Dutta had been paid disbursements---about $575,000 over four years, Virk's campaign says---as a partner in the business, but did not receive wages.)
Virk was ultimately required to pay about $40,000 in unpaid Social Security payments to the Department of Labor, but was not required to pay Dutta any back pay. However, he was stripped of his ability to hire H-1B immigrants for two years, and is now listed as a "willful violator" of US labor laws on the labor department's web site .
Virk said in a statement, "I was relieved the settlement clearly indicated that I owed money to the Department of Labor for FICA payments - my error in not employing him as a W-2 employee – not that I owed Dr. Datta over $300,000 in unpaid wages as he alleged. The settlement ruling is very clear on this."
3. To pile on to Erica's post yesterday about the federal highway bill (short version: transit isn't heavily subsidized; highways are), a reader points out another way we subsidize roads: Since 2008, Congress has authorized three transfers from the nation's general fund (that's the fund that pays for everything that isn't funded by other, earmarked funds like the highway trust fund) totaling more than $50 billion---a direct subsidy of highways, with non-highway money, by US taxpayers.
