WA judge temporarily blocks Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship
A lawsuit from Washington State has blocked President Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship, at least for now.
Trump’s order withholds citizenship from children born in the U.S. to parents who are neither citizens nor permanent legal residents.
In Thursday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour called the order "unconstitutional, un-American, and cruel”
The states challenging the order argue the 14th Amendment and Supreme Court case law have cemented birthright citizenship.
The order was set to go into effect February 19th, but the ruling will block it nationally for two weeks.
"I was not surprised to see Judge Coughenour sort of dismiss the absurdity of the order and the absurdity of the president’s action," Washington attorney general Nick Brown, who led the legal challenge to Trump’s order, said.
An attorney for the U.S. Justice Department argued that the order is constitutional. He asked the court to take more time and not issue a “snap judgement.”
Washington’s suit was joined by Oregon, Arizona and Illinois – other legal challenges are also moving forward before the order takes effect February 19. Further hearings are expected in the coming days.
Police staffing grant program advances in WA Senate
A Washington state Senate committee has approved a bill that could help local police agencies hire new officers.
The bill approved by the Law and Justice Committee directs the state Criminal Justice Training Commission to create a grant program. It also asks budget writers to fund the grants with up to $100 million over the next two years.
During a public hearing this week, Spokane Valley City Councilman Rod Higgins endorsed the bill.
“This proposed grant program is a great start to help our communities such as ours address critical public safety needs,” Higgins said. “However, we ask the legislature to also please consider ways to help cities sustain reliable law enforcement funding so we’re not faced with service cuts or layoffs over the long term.”
The bill would allow the state to pay for up to 75% of new officers’ salaries for their first three years. Host agencies would match the rest.
The legislation’s lead sponsor is Spokane Republican Jeff Holy. It has several sponsors from both parties and the support of Democratic Governor Bob Ferguson.
Community Library Network plans to segregate books with ‘adult’ themes at Post Falls branch
The library system that serves Shoshone County and parts of Kootenai is establishing a “mature content collection” section at its library in Post Falls.
An Idaho law passed last year allows children or their parents to file a legal claim against a school or public library if they obtain materials deemed harmful to minors.
At a recent meeting, Theresa Birkett, the president of the Library Alliance of North Idaho, told Community Library Network trustees creating a separate room could stigmatize people who want to explore the collection.
“If you walk over to a room that’s for adults only, what does that say about you? You know, it’s like going to the Adam and Eve store over here, you know, people are gonna go, ‘Oh, I know what they’re doing,’” she said.
Books that have been pulled for review include coming-of-age novels, featuring romance and relationships. And books with fantasy themes.
The library network’s book collection, services and purpose have been increasingly scrutinized since conservative critics gained a voting majority on the board in 2023.
Free-market think tank sues WA over climate data reports
A suit filed by the Washington Policy Center claims the state is breaking its own law, by not reporting its greenhouse gas emissions on schedule.
A 2008 state law sets a timeline for reducing greenhouse gas emissions – and for timely reporting of that data. Washington Policy Center’s Todd Myers filed suit in Thurston County Superior Court. He’s suing the Departments of Ecology and Commerce, because he says the most recent data reported is from 2021, two years behind schedule.
“That's simply unacceptable. It's illegal. If we're going to make a good climate policy and achieve our goals, we have to have updated data, and we simply don't have it,” Myers told KNKX public radio.
Joel Creswell with the state Department of Ecology said the agency is complying with the law. Currently Washington, like most states, relies on federal data. The specific dataset the state needs has a longer lag time.
“As new data become available, new data sources, we use those, and we update the inventory accordingly,” Creswell said.
The state legislature recently funded four new positions at the Department of Ecology. They’re creating new state models to speed up the required reporting, similar to a practice already used in California.
Raises for ID legislators seem likely to move ahead despite GOP in-fighting
Pay hikes for Idaho lawmakers appear to be on a glide path to taking effect next week.
Every two years, a citizens’ committee proposes potential pay raises for state legislators. Their current salaries are around $19,000. Late last year, the committee voted to bump lawmakers’ pay to $25,000.
For a new class of conservative legislators who want to tank the raises, the House passed a resolution Thursday telling them to donate their pay hike to the tax relief fund.
Republican Rep. Kent Marmon said the resolution is quote “playing word games.”
"You’re still increasing spending by over half a million dollars with this," Marmon said. "And half a million here, half a million there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money."
Supporters of the pay bumps say lawmakers don’t make enough given how much time they put into the job — even outside of the legislative session.
"I cannot in my time here find anybody that I have found overpaid — even those who don’t do much work," Ninth-term Republican Rep. John Vander Woude said.
The raises will become permanent unless both the House and Senate reject them by Jan. 30.
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Reporting was contributed by Amy Radil, Doug Nadvornick, Lauren Paterson, Bellamy Pailthorp and James Dawson.