Today's headlines:
- Washington’s governor is proposing a new graduation requirement for high school seniors.
- Legalized abortion will be on the ballot in Idaho in November.
- We have two pieces of legal news, one involving the start of a trial against the Albertson’s grocery store chain and the other involving a major entertainment merger.
- We’ll talk with one of the three candidates running for Spokane County auditor, Callie Gee.
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Washington Governor Bob Ferguson is proposing a new graduation requirement for high school seniors.
In order to get a diploma, he believes students should have to complete the federal financial aid form — FAFSA — or the Washington state equivalent.
Ferguson says many students don’t pursue post-high school education programs because they assume they will be too expensive.
University of Washington Tacoma student Heba Qatrani, the president of the Washington Student Association, says that was true for some of her friends. She says requiring students to read and fill out the form may lead them to new opportunities.
"For some students, seeing the amount of aid they qualify for may be the very thing that changes their understanding of what's possible. For me, as for many other students, the FAFSA made it possible to pursue my bachelor's degree," she said.
Ferguson says plenty of financial aid money is available through state and federal programs, but students must first apply for it.
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Statewide initiatives are rare in Idaho, but the Secretary of State’s office has confirmed that voters in November will get the chance to decide one.
The question is whether abortion should be made legal again in the Gem State, as it was before the U.S. Supreme Court nullified Roe v Wade. The initiative would allow abortion until a fetus is viable or in case of emergency. It also spells out a woman’s rights to reproductive health, including access to birth control and IVF.
The Idaho Capital Sun reports the group Idahoans United for Women and Families submitted 110,000 signatures, more than needed to quality the measure for the ballot. The Idaho Freedom Foundation has vowed to run a campaign to defeat the initiative.
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The civil trial over grocery store giant Albertsons’ role in the opioid epidemic across Washington state is underway this week.
State attorneys accuse the company of flooding the state with dangerous pills. KNKX’s Mitch Borden has the story.
Lawyers made their opening arguments on Monday in a King County court over whether, or not, Albertsons should be held accountable for contributing to the opioid crisis.
Dan Alberstone is with the Washington Attorney General’s Office. He pointed to an example, where a single customer was able to get over 5,000 oxycodone pills from a store in one month.
“Here as you can see Albertsons provided no oversight at its pharmacy window. The evidence shows the pharmacy allowed this customer to treat this store as a vending machine.”
An Albertsons spokesperson says the company is committed to “responsible pharmacy practices and patient safety.”
This trial comes after Albertsons announced earlier this year a $774 million settlement to address opioid claims across the country, but, according to the spokesperson, Washington state chose not to be part of that agreement.
I’m Mitch Borden reporting.
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Twelve states, including Washington, Oregon and California, sued to block Paramount’s merger with Warner Brothers. Oregon Public Broadcasting's Conrad Wilson reports.
The state’s want to block the $81 billion merger saying it violates a long standing federal law aimed at protecting competition.
Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown warned in a statement that if the merger goes through it will raise prices and cost Americans jobs.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield says his office began its own investigation into Paramount’s lobbying efforts to secure approval from the Trump administration.
Rayfield: “Under Trump, the federal administration has also stepped way back from investigating and enforcing our antitrust laws here in this country, and this is why states have had to step up.”
Just last month, lawmakers approved 16 new positions to beef up this kind of antitrust enforcement at the Oregon Department of Justice.
In a statement Paramount called the lawsuit QUOTE “wrong on both the facts and the law” and vowed to defend the deal.
I'm Conrad Wilson in Portland
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Two of the three candidates in the race for Spokane County auditor have financial backgrounds. We’ll talk with one today and one tomorrow.
Callie Gee is a tax accountant at the public accounting firm Baker Tilly in Spokane.
Callie Gee: I've always been very much a numbers person.
I grew up working in my family's small business. We have a coffee roaster here in Spokane for the last 25, 30 years, and so I grew up working in that. I started a private label branch of our family's coffee business and really learned my passion for business and for just the way that all of the moving parts work together, and then working at this public accounting firm, helping serve my clients and help them figure out the best way forward for their business and their goals, and that's been really a great experience the last couple years.
DN: So what's the allure of the auditor's job for you?
CG: Yeah, well, it's obviously a very important job, not an office that a lot of people think of often unless they wake up needing a marriage license or some election information or it's actually election season. That's when people are really thinking about it.
But when I saw that our current auditor was retiring and there was a spot open, I was doing a lot of research on the job. I sat down with Vicki and got a tour of the office and really learning about the responsibilities of the role, and I found they really aligned with who I am and what I've spent my career learning and practicing and working on.
I found that it aligned a lot with what I feel like I can do to help my community more in a better way than helping just corporations and high net worth individuals pay less at the bottom line. I want to use my education and experience in a way that means more for my community, and the auditor's office, it seems like the place for me to do that.
DN: Tell me about an elected official that you particularly admire and why.
CG: Amber Waldref, the county commissioner, she's just an incredible woman, an incredible leader. I really look up to her in the way that she cares so much about our county and is working so hard to ensure equity and working for families in Spokane, working towards better health care. And, you know, she's just an incredible person, and she has endorsed my campaign, and I'm really grateful for her guidance and leadership in this.
DN: So as you try to educate voters about this job, how do you think they should evaluate what the county auditor should be and pick the right candidate?
CG: Yeah, I think that it really comes down to the person's professional experience. In order to lead this office, this is one of the few elected offices where a person's real professional education and experience can actually affect how our government works day to day and so I think that Spokane County residents should evaluate our options and pick who they feel has the qualifications in order to run this office well, as well as the passion and energy to push Spokane County to be better.
I believe that, like I said, our auditor's office has done an incredible job over the last decade, 28 years, keeping our elections secure and our county government honest. I think that doesn't mean that there's not room for change and improvement, and I'm always a person who's very forward-thinking, looking for ways to make things more efficient and work better.
And so me as a young person, I'm looking at the next 50 years of this county that I was born and raised in and grew up in and love so
much.
So I'm, number one, qualified. I have the education and experience working in public accounting to do this job well. I also really have the mindset and the passion for it. So I think that that's what residents should look for in all elected leaders.
That’s Callie Gee, a Spokane tax accountant who is the one Democrat is a three-person race for Spokane County auditor. We talked yesterday with Michael Cathcart, one of her Republican opponents. Tomorrow we’ll talk with Dale Whitaker, her other Republican challenger.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting was contributed by Kyrsten Weber, Mitch Borden, Conrad Wilson and Doug Nadvornick.
Doug Nadvornick hosts and produces the show.
