Oh hey! Remember last week when I was called an elitist in the comments of a post where I said that Seattle isn’t the overspending hellhole that many in the state legislature imagine, because I turned the arguments against Seattle on one of those legislators? It turns out what elitist means now is that Seattle has a paid sick leave and safe leave law. Because that’s the I-Hate-Seattle group’s latest target in the legislature.
Senate Bill 5728 would take Seattle’s law off the books by declaring that the Legislature has the sole responsibility for sick-leave requirements. Senate Bill 5726 would scale back Seattle’s law by prohibiting cities from requiring sick leave for employers based outside the city.
Both bills were introduced Tuesday by Centralia Republican John Braun and are supported by Senate Majority [sic] Leader [sic] Rodney Tom, D [sic]-Medina.
No Seattle senators have signed on.
FYI, the Seattle law applies to people who work in Seattle. So if a Bellevue (or out of state???) company has a Seattle branch, they won’t count under the first bill. Both bills are clearly just to punish Seattle for being decent to people who work here. When this — or the parking rate hikes or the head tax or, or, or — pass, local governments in the rest of the state say how they’re going to poach jobs. Now Senators from the rest of the state are putting the lie to that.
But buried in the hatred of Seattle there is a good idea. I’m all for the state getting into the sick leave and safe leave business. If there was a companion bill to make the Seattle requirements statewide, then that would be awesome! But now they’re saying people working in Medina or Centralia who have to work sick or after an case of domestic violence won’t even be able to petition their local governments.
To be clear, while the Seattle Times piece doesn’t mention it, the bill also preempts Seattle’s paid safe leave. According to Seattle’s FAQ on the law (bold in the text):
An employee can use safe leave for the following reasons:
- An employee’s place of business has been closed by order of a public official to limit exposure to an infectious agent, biological toxin or hazardous material.
- An employee needs to care for a child whose school or place of care has been closed by order of a public health official to limit exposure to an infectious agent, biological toxin or hazardous material.
- For reasons related to domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking that affect the employee or the employee’s family member.
Rodney Tom, John Braun, and the rest of the GOP Senate should be demanding those employee protections for the whole state. Instead they’re trying to take it away from people who have been sexual assaulted or stalked who work in Seattle. I get that they hate Seattle, but this is too far.
You can find Tom and Braun at the link (if you want to contact them, the form is kind of a hassle, and you have to make up an address if they don’t represent you so FYI, it’s firstname.lastname@leg.wa.gov). And you can find your legislator here.
Actually, elitist was adjective in what you were called:
http://horsesass.org/?p=49024#comment-1213358
I’m sure it was meant in the nicest of ways, though.
@1
He’s right, elitist was the descriptor, butthole was the noun.
A good way to describe John Braun would be to use meddling as the descriptor and butthole as the noun.
I’m also having giggling fits over member of the WSRP suddenly thinking that Olympia knows best and that local control is a bad thing.
this wont pass through the Democratic house and governor anyway though, or if even one member of the MCC votes no in the senate.
Now that Republicans have stolen what they couldn’t win at the ballot box, i.e. control of the state senate, they’re doing what we’ve seen Republicans do in other state legislatures: Trying to ram through a radical anti-worker agenda that would reduce America to a third world country and push most Americans into poverty. Why should we, or the Democrats we elected, go along with that? Just tell Tom, Braun, ad nauseum, to go to hell.
What’s hilarious is that the Republcans don’t even bother to realize that their rhetoric doesn’t match their actions. They claim to be in favor of “self government”, unless the self-government works against their corporate interests. Their tactics are so anti-democratic (small “d”) that it’s amazing.
Republican Tactics over the past 14 years:
1. Prevent people from voting, unless they are voting Republican, by voter intimidation, mis-information about voting locations, requiring I.D. cards to vote, dis-enfranchising voters (including veterans) by purging voting lists without notice or recourse by the voters, re-arranging voting machines so that Republican-leaning precincts have plenty of machines with no wait-time but Democratic-leaning precincts have so few machines that voters have to spend hours in line, etc.
2. Replace reliable, but old, voting machines with ones that have no paper audit trail and suspicioiusly turn democratic votes into Republican votes (which the Republicans pass of as “voter error”.
3. When Democrates win anyway, they seek to void the results by bribing legislaturs to switch sides – after the election – in return for plum jobs like the Speaker’s gig.
4. When they lose a local election, they seek to void the election results in either the state legislature, initiatives in off-year elections, or federal action.
5. When all else fails, rely upon a Supreme Court with a majority controlled by Republican-nominated justices to overturn decades of precedent in order to declare corporate donations to political campaigns legal, and regulation of guns by states and municipalities illegal.
Now, Eyman is trying to make it illegal for anyone to question his signature gatherers, or to even try to argue why they shouldn’t sign his petitions as “interfering” with his signature-gathering-for-profit efforts.
@ 6
3. When Democrates win anyway, they seek to void the results by bribing legislaturs to switch sides – after the election – in return for plum jobs like the Speaker’s gig.
You make this statement as if Dems haven’t benefitted from party-switching. How did Tom Daschle become Senate Majority Leader in 2001? Google Jim Jeffords to find the answer.
Would Obamacare/ACA have passed had Arlen Specter not switched parties? (Granted, he could have remained GOP and still voted for the bill, but…..)
Both parties use tactics that vary between mildly distasteful and downright dishonest. At least be adult enough to stop making it seem like Democrat shit doesn’t stink as well.
#7: False equivilency – especially when you cherry pick one item from the entire list.
In light of the Republican’s freguent rhetoric about “self-government”, and resisting intrusion by state and federal government upon local entities, it just goes to show that their actions don’t match their rhetoric.
@ 8
especially when you cherry pick one item from the entire list.
I’m not RR. I don’t have the time to address each item individually. What I wrote would only be a false equivalency if you had directed your comments at WA state GOP, which you did not do.
Further, I do not necessarily disagree with everything you wrote.
Go Elizabeth Warren!
http://www.upworthy.com/elizab.....f-bank?g=3
@ 10
Better as one voice in a hundred than as the person at the top of that bureau.
@7 Wingnut Manual Tactic #4a: When someone points out how odious Republicans are, reply that “Democrats do it, too.” No, they don’t; Republicans are in a low-life category all their own.
Laugh Of The Day
@9 “I don’t have the time to address each item individually”
The final proof that you’re being paid to post here by the word, not by the hour!
@9 (continued) Damn right you’re not me. And thank the Great Mother Rabbit Spirit you’re not! Honor would require me to disembowel myself.
We’d rather you just disembowel that guy who pretends to practice medicine while spending his time at a keyboard.
I’m tired of scrolling.