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Town Hall Meeting March 16
Join Rep. Ross Hunter with his colleagues, Rep. Cyrus Habib and Sen. Rodney Tom, for the next 48th Legislative District town hall meeting. We’ll cover lots of material and look forward to seeing you. Date: Saturday, March 16, 2013 Time: 10 a.m – noon Place: Redmond City Hall, Council Chamber (15670 NE 85th St Redmond,…
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Legislative “Progress” – Early March
Each Legislative session has a rythym all its own. This one is waiting expectantly for something to happen. I think you’ll see a flurry of activity towards the end of the month as budgets start to get released. At the beginning of the session I said we had three priorities this year: balancing the budget…
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Helping Foster Kids Launch
Investigate West published awesome investigative journalism on what happens to foster children when they “age out” of our system at age 18. As a parent I’m quite proud of my kids who are both in the 19-21 age group. They are in the process of separating from their parental units and require less and less…
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A Good Deal for Washington
One of the three key items that need to be resolved this year is the Medicaid expansion that is part of the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) or “Obamacare. (The other two are the overall budget and education funding increase as a result of the McCleary decision.) The policy choices are getting clearer and clearer…
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A Day in the Legislature – Potato Day!
Today was “Potato Day.” The Potato Farmers of Washington hand out baked potatoes larded with condiments. The line stretches down the stairs of the rotunda and almost out the door. I passed on this opportunity and had a sandwich in my office. I’ll stand in line for the BBQ beef sandwich on “beef day” but…
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Crosscut Event with Ross
CROSSCUT IN OLYMPIA Whet your whistle at the first member event in the capital Please join us for a glass of wine and conversation. Meet Rep. Ross Hunter, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, along with Crosscut’s team of editors and Olympia correspondents, and other state leaders. Crosscut is following this year’s legislative session closely…
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Standardized Tax Rates for all Marijuana
Rep. Reuven Carlyle and I introduced legislation today to standardize state tax rates across medical and non-medical marijuana. The medical market would now look like the setup initiative 502 put in place for recreational use. The press release we issued is below. My concern is that if we have an identical product being sold with…
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Legislative Update
We’ve gone through the first week. The governor and the state-wide officials have all been inaugurated, I fit into the same tuxedo I got married in 23 years ago for the inaugural ball, the Senate is in uproar about Senator Tom’s defection and the consequent change in partisan control, the sun came out (briefly) in…
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Improving Gun Safety in Washington State
I’ve held off commenting on gun safety because I wanted to think about it for a while after the Sandy Hook incident. Writing new policy in knee-jerk response to a single incident typically is a bad idea. However, there have been enough incidents that I think we need to respond and create a safer place…
