Podcasts about state steve hobbs

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs is very upset that Meta won’t be fact checking on its platforms anymore. A very scary situation at a Seattle school. $1000 in medical expenses is too much for most Americans. Why unlimited PTO isn’t actually unlimited. // The ATF is trying to get around Trump’s order to end DEI in the federal government. Donald Trump has a new hilarious insult of Adam Schiff. Trump revoked security for Anthony Fauci and John Bolton. // GUEST: Chris Sullivan on a new fake-study saying WA is bad for drivers and a new law forcing trucks to cover their rig’s loads.

An interview with newly re-elected Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, and an exit interview with outgoing Department of Social and Health Services Secretary Jilma Meneses.

URSULA'S TOP STORIES: We made it to Election Night! //  Centralia restaurant refuses to cater lesbian wedding // SeaTac will be getting worse soon // GUEST: WA Secretary of State Steve Hobbs // WE NEED TO TALK. . . Jason Kelce's phone incident

The government-sanctioned murder of a man's pet squirrel and raccoon isn't just sad, it's what this election is all about. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs joins us to discuss ballot chain of custody concerns. Governor Inslee puts the National Guard on standby. GOP texts target Hispanic voters with message about extreme gender ideology. 

Washington state election observer escorted out of auditor's office by police after refusing to wear a mask. Secretary of State Steve Hobbs says he has “complete confidence” in elections after ballot arsons. Republicans work to reach Asian American voters. Government contract for laser hair removal. Jeff Bezos drops some cold, hard truths.

In this month's podcast I spoke with fellow gamer, Washington State Secretary of State, Steve Hobbs! Steve and I spoke about his love of gaming, his time serving in the army in both Kosovo and Iraq, his work as a politician here in Washington State, and how gaming has intersected with all of those parts of his life and career. Steve shared some fascinating stuff about Washington's table top gaming industry and how he's worked with that industry on trade missions to Japan and state legislation that affects gamers, game stores, and even therapeutic roleplaying games for prisoners. We wrapped up with some discussion of how wargamers reinvent small unit tactics and finally the BWU gives its first ever political endorsement!Check out Steve's campaign page here and learn more about the Tabletop Game Alliance now.As usual, this podcast was exclusive to Brush Wielders Union members for a few days before being released to general audiences.brushwieldersunion.com

The WAGOP, led by Chairman Jim Walsh, has filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, challenging the removal of Washington's 30-day voter registration waiting period. The lawsuit claims this was an intentional move to undermine election integrity. Read more at https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/news/wagop-files-election-integrity-lawsuit-in-franklin-county/ on www.ClarkCountyToday.com. #electionintegrity #WAGOP #ClarkCountyWa #localnews

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs answers members questions and brings us up to date on where, when and how to vote in the upcoming election, in a live teletown hall hosted by our AARP Washington Advocacy Director Cathy MacCaul. Learn more about voting in WA at aarp.org/wavotes

Semi Bird admits to defrauding the U.S. Army – but continues to play the victim. Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz is out. Secretary of State Steve Hobbs claims AG Bob Ferguson swore at him while pushing him to break the law. Brian Heywood on push to qualify I-2066. 

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Editor of The Stranger and noted poet, Rich Smith! Crystal and Rich discuss the significance of the Stranger endorsing “Uncommitted Delegates” in the March 12th Presidential Primary. They then celebrate the legislature's passage of the Strippers' Bill of Rights and mourn the deaths of rent stabilization and even-year elections at the hands of the Senate Ways & Means Committee. Finally, they cover Seattle City Council's inexcusable silencing of protesters with arrest. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Rich Smith at @richsssmith.   Resources Check out our audiograms about proposed Seattle surveillance technologies and get your public comments in by the NEW deadline, March 22nd!   Vote Uncommitted WA   “The Stranger Endorses Uncommitted Delegates for the March 12, 2024 Presidential Primary Election” from The Stranger Election Control Board   “Donald Trump has a massive lead over Nikki Haley in Washington's 2024 Republican presidential primary, NPI poll finds” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate   “Washington Passes Strippers' Bill of Rights” by Rich Smith from The Stranger   “Senate Democrats Stiff Renters for the Third or Fourth Time, It's Honestly Difficult to Keep Track” by Rich Smith from The Stranger   “Conservative Senate Democrats Stiff Renters Yet Again” by Rich Smith from The Stranger   “Ways & Means declines to take up NPI's even year elections bill, ending its 2024 run” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate   “Police Arrest Six of Sara Nelson's Political Enemies After She Refuses to Hear Concerns of Asylum-Seekers” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “6 protesters arrested during council meeting at Seattle City Hall” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times   “King County, Tukwila announce new investments to help asylum-seekers” by Anna Patrick from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. An update from last week's Tuesday topical show - public comment on bringing three surveillance technologies to Seattle has been extended from the original February 29th deadline to March 22nd. Check out our audiograms from this week and get your comment in now. Today we are continuing our Friday week-in-review shows, where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Editor of The Stranger and noted poet, Rich Smith. [00:01:20] Rich Smith: Hey, Crystal - how you doing? [00:01:22] Crystal Fincher: Doing? I mean - I'm doing. All things considered, I'm all right. All things considered is doing heavy lifting in that statement, but here we are. But hey, we have a presidential primary going on. We have ballots now, and there is a movement that The Stranger has endorsed for Uncommitted Delegates - for those who identify as Democrats - in the March 12th presidential primary. What is that? And why has The Stranger decided to endorse that? [00:01:55] Rich Smith: Great questions. Yeah - well, you've got your primary ballot. You've got some options there. They include Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson - who dropped out, and Uncommitted Delegates. Uncommitted Delegates is just a delegate that will, if that bubble gets more than 15% of the vote share after the primary, go to the national convention - which is scheduled for August of this year in Chicago. And in the first round of balloting, when voting on the nominee, they just aren't pledged to vote for any particular candidate unlike the pledge delegates, which Joe Biden will almost certainly win the vast majority of at the conclusion of the primary. So functionally, that's what it means - uncommitted delegate is someone who can decide who they want to vote for at the convention rather than just doing it ahead of time. And The Stranger endorsed it for a number of reasons. Chiefly, we do not like Joe Biden's response to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. We do not like his hard right turn to the right. We do not like a number of other things that he did or did not do during the course of his four years in office. And this is the only time - the Democratic primary - where we get to raise an objection, make our voices heard in a language that he can hear, which is the language of delegates at the convention. The thinking is - if we send some uncommitted delegates, if the movement gets big enough, then during that first round of voting, the delegates can make a little noise if the war crimes are still going on. [00:03:39] Crystal Fincher: Now, one important note in this effort, because a lot of people were saying - We're going to write-in "Ceasefire," we're going to write-in a different candidate. That is, in Washington state - because of state law - a suboptimal option because officials only tally write-in votes from candidates who file "timely declarations" of a write-in candidacy and who also exceed the number of votes earned by the second place candidate. So that "Ceasefire" vote, that write-in is not going to be tallied or reported. It'll get lumped in with people who write-in some random name of a friend or someone who they wish would be president there. So the actual most organized and impactful way to register that vote is Uncommitted Delegates. There also have - heard some people who typically vote for Democrats say - Well, I want to cross over and vote for Nikki Haley instead of Donald Trump because I find Donald Trump offensive and don't want that. I don't know how much of an impact that is going to have here in Washington state. One, ultimately, most of the votes will wind up going to a Democrat - we're a blue state, that's not controversial. But two, even on the Republican side, NPI just came out with a poll this week showing Donald Trump holds a commanding lead in the Republican primary among Republicans - about 75% of Republicans saying that they planned to vote for Donald Trump in that poll. So what's the hope - to get Nikki Haley from 20% to 25%, 25% to 30%? I don't know how much of an impact that is. Obviously, people are free to choose however they do want to vote, but very important that you do make your voice heard, that you are aware of what the options are, what the ballot looks like. And again, for the Uncommitted Delegates option, that's actually a bubble that you can fill in - you don't have to write-in anything, and that's how that would be registered. Also, a reminder that the presidential election ballots are due by March 12th, 2024. Don't forget to sign the outside of your ballot. In presidential primaries, we have to declare the party on the outside of the ballot - without those things happening, your ballot can't be counted. So make sure that you - one, participate and vote your conscience. There is a very effective way to do that right now. [00:06:10] Rich Smith: Yeah, we need as many people to do it as possible so we can send as many delegates as possible and show Biden that his behavior on foreign policy matters and on immigration - two domains over which the executive branch has almost exclusive control. I know that Congress has the purse or whatever, but as we've seen with the sending of weapons to Israel in December - Joe Biden, if there is an emergency, the executive branch can skirt Congress and send the money anyway. And the way that the national security apparatus is set up, especially with the continued authorization of use of military force, Biden can bomb the Houthis without talking to Congress much. He's got a lot of power and it's just so rare to get the opportunity to speak directly to a president about foreign policy. We don't have a draft, people aren't really talking about foreign policy when they vote - foreign policy isn't at the top of their list of things that they vote on. And so, presidents don't feel like they have to respond to Democratic pressure because there's not a lot of Democratic pulleys that give us power over him, basically, on those policies - on immigration and on foreign policy. So we rarely, rarely get this opportunity - it's certainly worth doing for that reason. [00:07:28] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And I've talked about this a lot of times before, but primaries are your opportunity to truly vote your conscience. There's a lot of pressure in a lot of different directions in general elections. And it's not just a referendum on one person - sometimes we are in the position of picking the lesser of the two evils. But when that is ultimately the choice, it is on us to do all we can - in the meantime and around that - to lessen the evil overall. And so it is the time to be able to vote your conscience. There are lots of people who are having lots of discussions about voting in November, about Biden versus Trump. But this isn't that time. This is a Democratic primary where you can vote your conscience and you can send a message in a way that is stronger than just about anything we can do, especially as Washington state residents. So I certainly will be taking advantage of this option and want to make sure that lots of other people know that this is an option for them too. [00:08:35] Rich Smith: Hear, hear. [00:08:37] Crystal Fincher: Also want to talk about the legislature this week. There was a positive thing - a positive, I mean, maybe there are more positive things - but there was a positive thing that happened that's worth talking about. A Strippers' Bill of Rights passed. What did this bill do and why is it important? [00:08:55] Rich Smith: The bill did a lot. The bill established and added a bunch of labor protections for strippers in Washington state who have been needing them for far too long. It repealed the lewd conduct codes - the WAC, as they call them, Washington Administrative Codes - which were used and cited to raid gay bars in Seattle in January. And in doing so, it creates a pathway for strip clubs to apply for liquor licenses, so they can help offset the cost of some of the labor protections the state will now force them to implement - having panic buttons in certain areas, more safety training, lowering the house fees or the rental fees that strippers have to pay to clubs before they go on stage for the night so that they start the night indebted. And if the fees are too high - sometimes they're as high as $150, $200 a night - they will work a whole shift and just give all that money to the club owner and go home empty-handed. So this bill capped those fees to help strippers make money and express themselves sexually without the burdensome fees. What does it do? It frees the nipple and the jockstrap in queer bars so that the police don't have a reason to barge in as they did in January with their flashlights and their photographs - taking pictures of people in jockstrap in the clubs. It will more or less revolutionize the strip club industry in Seattle and give the workers the protections that they've long needed. I don't know if you've been to a strip club recently in Seattle, but it's kind of sad in there. It's not really a social atmosphere. People are there to sort of drink Dr. Pepper, and watch people dance, and then go get loaded in the parking lot, and then come back in. And that creates a kind of menacing atmosphere. And so the hope is - and that's supported by a state report released in 2020 - that having a more social atmosphere, having stuff to do there that's not just watch dancers and mull a lap dance will create a safer and funner environment for everybody and liberate sexual expression. But before this, with the lewd conduct laws - everything that a stripper did on stage was criminalized. They technically couldn't walk off stage with too sheer a bra or they would be having a threat of arrest. They couldn't take tips while they were dancing on stage without actual threat of arrest. There was a bunch of proximity rules in the codes that would have made lap dances illegal, basically. And so it decriminalizes stripping, essentially, in Washington and makes us the last state in the union to allow alcohol sales - in a kind of roundabout way. Basically, the repeal of the code means there's no enforcement of alcohol sales in clubs and it allows them to apply for the state's other liquor licenses - so that's the kind of roundabout way they're doing it. But it's incredible. It takes the boot of the state off the neck of marginalized communities and is a real win. [00:11:58] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this is a marginalized community of workers. Workers that have been denied rights, been at risk of criminalization and penalties and everything that comes with that. Workers deserve protection - starts just as fundamentally and as simply as that. And every employer owes safety and fair compensation to their employees or to contractors working on their behalf. And so, this certainly brings us in-line with the modern world in many ways. And so just pleased to see that the legislature took action to protect workers in this way. Now, the legislature failed to take action, unfortunately, in some other very key areas - in areas that Democrats, certainly the House of Representatives, defined as priorities, defined as very important. Starting with the failure to pass rent stabilization, which would have, among other things, capped rent increases at 7% annually - which is still a healthy increase. But right now there is still continuing virtually unlimited rent increases across the state. I have talked about before - my neighbors received a 45% rent increase annually - in one year - from previous year. And this is contributing to housing insecurity. This is contributing to our homelessness problem. This is contributing to income inequality. And it's contributing to rising house prices across the state overall. This, in particular, really does fail to help our problem of displacement here in our communities - was just so disappointed to see this. Why did this happen? [00:13:48] Rich Smith: Yeah, it was a little bit - the short answer is that two men with somewhat adorable electoral ambition decided to quietly strangle the bill in the Senate's Ways and Means Committee, after a State senator representing Southwest Washington - Annette Cleveland - strangled the bill in a kind of clumsy and public way in the Senate's Housing Committee. And they don't offer many reasons for doing so, and the reasons they do offer are not good and unsupported by evidence. So in the Ways and Means Committee, you could only lose two Democratic votes, basically, to get anything through. The Ways and Means Committee is stacked with conservative Democrats, certainly fiscally conservative Democrats. And so Mark Mullet is on the Ways and Means Committee - he represents Issaquah, and he's just a true believer. He thinks that a rent stabilization package at 7% will decrease construction of new housing in the medium to long-term. And so it is not worth protecting the 40% of households in Washington who rent now from astronomically high rent increases that push them out of their communities - that's too great a risk - a potential medium to long-term decrease of indeterminate size in the number of housing units constructed in Washington. This is the kind of information that they're providing. Van De Wege did not give a reason. Rep Strom Petersen, who had talked to Van De Wege, asked him if he needed any amendments on the bill - they were willing to negotiate cap size, they were willing to negotiate all manner of exceptions. And Van De Wege shrugged and said, No. So not even giving a full-throated principled reason for quietly doing this to millions of Washington renters. And Annette Cleveland beforehand strangled the bill in her committee, saying that - it was spreading, basically, misinformation as far as I'm concerned. She said that the rent cap of 15%, which was the one that she was considering at the time - extremely high, almost comically high rent cap - would only catch the most egregious abusers because landlords would, as a matter of course, raise rates 15% every year. Because if they can't raise it however much they want, then they'll raise it to the cap every single time. This is silly. Everyone will tell you, even the f**ing landlords will tell you that a 3% to 5% rent increase on an annual basis is the kind of norm. That's what the developers and lenders are both agreeing on when they sign their contracts. That's the stuff that they're counting on when they're figuring out their returns on investment. So a 7% rent cap is more than genuous, especially with the exceptions in the bill. In any event, aside from that, she also cited a bunch of old papers talking about first-generation rent control, which is much more strict than the rent stabilization measures that the legislature was discussing. Those arguments are also - in recent review from academics - a little bit suspect, a little bit rosier, actually, for rent stabilization, and we could have a whole show on that. But anyway, she cited those disingenuous anti-rent control arguments to justify her support of killing rent stabilization measure, which is a completely different policy. And she insulted her colleagues while she was at it by citing the Urban Institute report that was actually less critical of rent stabilization than she made it out to be. But showing that she was concerned with the bill's impact on Black and brown people - doesn't want to raise the rents on those communities - and so decided to kill a bill that would make sure that they wouldn't face high rent gouging prices that have been pushing them out of their communities for the last two decades. I know I'm ranting here, but I can't underline this enough. This bill is too late, but must pass. We really could have used rent stabilization at the beginning of 2010 when rents started shooting up, and would shoot up over 92% over that decade. Rents have been sort of flat in aggregate for the last couple of years, but that doesn't mean, as you say, that landlords aren't jacking up rents on people to economically evict them because they can. That sort of stuff needs to stop - that bill would have prevented it - the Senate Democrats didn't let it happen this year. [00:18:08] Crystal Fincher: Didn't let it happen. And it should be noted that two people who were critical to killing this bill - Mark Mullet and Senator Van De Wege - are also running for statewide office. Mark Mullet is running for governor as a Democrat. Kevin Van De Wege is running for lands commissioner. Really interesting choices to refuse to help 40% of the state's population. [00:18:35] Rich Smith: Just a number of coalition partners - the Members of Color Caucus in both chambers prioritized this bill. The LGBT community came out, especially in Seattle, to do a big rally in support of this bill. Hundreds of people descended on the Capitol steps in Olympia during this session to support a bill from every part of the state - east, west, north, south. Every renter has been feeling this pressure, and the state legislature on some bulls**t about potential long-term costs to the housing supply - which they cannot quantify or have not quantified, I haven't seen the number. If so, please send it over to me - I can't wait to have that discussion. And the only salvo that they're giving us - and I'll stop talking after this - is, Well, next year, Mullet won't be there because he's giving up his seat to run for governor. Van De Wege won't be there because he's giving up his seat to run for land commissioner. A couple of other senators are going to announce their retirement - Sam Hunt has announced his retirement, we've got maybe a couple more. So those places on Ways and Means will be replaced by politicians who don't have the same politics as these conservatives. So next year, it'll be a whole new legislature. The complexion will change and yada, yada, yada. And in the meantime, renters are going to face massive rent increases. So that's the consolation. [00:19:58] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And we really don't know if the next legislature - if the Senate is going to be constructed differently. We don't know who's going to be elected to those open seats. And so what I will say is moving forward this year, it's important to get people who are running on the record, to talk about how important this is. As local party organizations are going through their endorsement processes, this be a question that's going to impact whether you decide to endorse or not. Those are the types of decisions that should be being talked about now and decided now, so as we move forward we have a better idea of who stands where and what we can expect from this legislature. The last thing I would say is - as people are running, it's so clear how much more power chairs of committees and leadership have. So it's great to be elected as a senator, as a representative. But as we've seen, chairs of committees can just flat out refuse to hear a bill that has wide popular support, that would pass on the floor if it got there. They can prevent it from getting to the floor. So who do these senators expect to support, or will they rule out supporting people for chair and leadership positions? This matters and this is very impactful for the type of policy that we're able to pass here in Washington state. Those are very important things that usually get less attention that need to be getting a whole lot more. [00:21:32] Rich Smith: That's right. [00:21:32] Crystal Fincher: I also want to talk about another bill that died. Even-year elections, which we have talked about, certainly in our conversation with Andrew Villeneuve from the Northwest Progressive Institute. They were instrumental in helping to write and shape that. Representative Mia Gregerson from the 33rd LD sponsored that in the House. It passed the House, got to the Senate. And what unfortunately happens to so many bills in the Senate, it died. What happened here? [00:22:03] Rich Smith: Well, based on the reporting from NPI, the bill was sent not to the Senate Governance Committee, but to the Ways and Means Committee where it quietly died. So another way that a bill can quietly die - because people can take executive action on it and vote on it, and it can die that way, certainly. But they can also just decide not to take it up in the committee and then die that way - then no one has to go on the record with who doesn't want more democracy, who doesn't want to give cities the opportunity to have more democratic elections in Washington. So yeah, that's my understanding - the Ways and Means Committee strikes again. They killed the bill by not taking it up in time. And now cities don't have the option to move their local elections to even years, which studies show and King County proves increases turnout. It's a loss for democracy. It's inexcusable. And Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and a number of power players came out against it - saying that it was going to be costly and there's other complications that election officials were going to encounter. But the state's Office of Financial Management - when sending it to the Ways and Means Committee - said that the bill had an indeterminate fiscal impact. In short, the state doesn't know what the fiscal impact would be. And I struggle to understand how holding fewer elections costs more money than holding an election every year does. But maybe initially with changing stuff around, maybe you have to buy more software or whatever. But yeah, I don't understand that math - haven't seen that math. But that was the political dynamic that killed the bill. [00:23:39] Crystal Fincher: An opportunity to improve our small-D democracy. Has failed to take advantage of the opportunity and basically assurance - we see what even-year elections versus odd-year election turnout is. Even-year elections routinely have turnout 20-plus percentage points higher than odd-year elections. It's always better to have more people weighing in on who represents them and how their community should be shaped. So again, disappointed to see this. And hopefully we can take this time, as we have elections throughout the state at the legislative level, that we press candidates on this, and see where they stand, and try and set this up for success next session. [00:24:26] Rich Smith: Yeah, it was interesting that they decided to send it to the Ways and Means Committee. So Jamie Pedersen - Seattle senator - is the Floor Leader. He decides which committees bills go to. So one question would be - why didn't this bill go to the Governance Committee, which is chaired by Sam Hunt, who's retiring this year? And then another question would be - what was the conversation in Ways about why they wouldn't pass the bill? And those would be two people to ask, in case you're interested in contacting your representative about why the bill died or you want to add your support. [00:24:55] Crystal Fincher: Yep, absolutely. Now we will turn to local politics and policy in the City of Seattle. This week, we saw a different approach from the Seattle City Council in dealing with protests. And coverage, even in The Seattle Times, noted that protest has been a normal, consistent part of public meetings in Seattle for most of the last decade, for decades before that, and beyond. Seattle, as a city, has such a long and storied history of protests in favor of change - and successfully creating change also, by the way. And this is happening while other councils across the state, from Spokane to Tacoma, are dealing with largely the same things - have managed to de-escalate these situations, have managed to listen to people in their community who are passionately advocating for issues - many of which are crisis levels within communities. But in the city of Seattle, we saw insults from the Council perspective and calls for arrest, which did result in several people getting arrested for protesting. What happened? [00:26:18] Rich Smith: Yeah, so the council met to pass a resolution to rename a street after George Fleming, who was a Black state senator. Sidebar, nerd thing - not a big deal, but worth noting. The resolution called George Fleming the first Black person elected to the State Senate, but he was actually the second or third, kind of depending on how you want to slice it. The first Black person was bi-racial - William Owen Bush was elected to the House of Representatives in 1889. He wasn't a senator - okay, fine. But the first Black senator was elected in 1921 - that's John H. Ryan, out of Tacoma. And so George Fleming would be the second Black senator. Minor note. But they basically framed the protesters as interrupting this resolution that was supposed to honor a Black pioneer in Washington politics, but not getting his achievement correct is not particularly honoring him either. So I see it as a little bit disingenuous. But in terms of the facts of what happened, they were going to do this resolution. 20 people showed up during public comment to advocate for the refugees who are in crisis now in Tukwila - in a church parking lot, basically - they don't have anywhere to sleep. The shelter is unstable. And they wanted to say that maybe spending a little bit less money on police would give us more money to help these disadvantaged communities. That was the people's agenda that day, even if it was slightly different than the City Council's agenda. So knowing that, Sara Nelson, Council President, decided to comment by 20 minutes rather than giving them an hour to say their piece. And the people continued to want to talk after 20 minutes and so decided that they were going to stay right there and protest until she made public comment longer. She did not. They called for security. They told people to leave. Some people left. Six people did not leave. The six people who stayed were arrested for trespass and sent to jail. And the people who left were banging on the window outside of the chambers and chanting - Shame, shame, shame. At which point, Seattle City Councilmember Cathy Moore, who's a former judge, said that she felt as if her life was threatened and demanded the police to arrest those people outside of the chamber who were banging on windows. Everybody made a big stink. And I think another councilmember - I can't remember which one - also said that she felt threatened by the mob out there who was interrupting this moment of democracy. As you said, protests in City Hall - that's the job. We tried to tell people that this slate of City councilmembers did not know what they were talking about, had very little understanding of the normal workings of City politics, and of the City in general. And this is just another way to show that they didn't read the job description. You gotta listen to the people when they talk. First of all, because they will stop talking and chanting when they feel like they've said their piece. And so it's just better for democracy to hear their voice. You all ran on listening to community. And one of your first major operations as a council is to sic the police on the community who is voicing their dissent in Council chambers where we have voiced our dissent forever? That's not listening to community. That's saying you listen to some community and you'll use state violence to shut down other members of the community. So that's what happened. And it was inexcusable and dumb - at the same time. [00:30:05] Crystal Fincher: Strategically, it does not seem like that was a wise decision. This isn't even a progressive versus conservative issue on why this was just really poor decision making. That's why you see councils across the state - and country, really, but certainly across the state - not resorting to arresting people for protesting. All that does is escalate issues and create more passion around issues that is going to manifest itself during your meetings. I will say a lot of councils have been struggling with how to better deal with and manage dissent. The reason why I am more familiar with what councils are doing across the state is because of that reason - it's something that a number of people are looking to figure out and respond to, particularly because there have been actual threats of violence - actual threats made during meetings, people carrying guns into meetings - that is happening as well as not even commenting on stuff. Insults, threats coming to people in meetings. Racist, sexist attacks we've seen across the state. So there have been efforts from a variety of councils to implement rules to be able to get through their agendas while enabling people to express their First Amendment rights and make their voices heard to their public representatives. That has not included calling for arrest. That has not included saying that people chanting - maybe in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable or that you disagree with - is threatening to your safety. And that particular thing sounds real familiar to a lot of people in my position and a lot of different positions - and if you know, you know - that conflation of, I am uncomfortable, I don't agree with this, to - I am being physically threatened, my safety is in danger. Those are two very different things, and the conflation of them is something that is a very cynical and harmful thing to resort to that I hope we don't see much more of. I hope they take this opportunity to really explore what it does mean to hear from people who do and don't disagree with you. And I hope they do that quickly because they are going to put the City in a position where they're going to face legal scrutiny, where there are going to be lawsuits that are going to cost the City a lot of money if they continue down this path. So we'll see how this materializes, but certainly this is not the best start to this council that they could have. [00:32:43] Rich Smith: Hear, Hear. There was a moment when Abolish ICE protests were particularly salient and the Council was having a meeting. Abolish ICE protests came in - disrupted the meeting. Immediately, Kshama Sawant stands up with her fist in the air. Teresa Mosqueda starts clapping from her seat. Other progressive members of the council are nodding and listening. Bruce Harrell was the Council President at that time - immediately calls for security to get people out of there. And eventually - they chanted, they stayed a little bit, and eventually they left, and the meeting got brought to order. This is a normal course of events in City Council chambers. And them making a big stink of this is them being politically opportunistic - trying to gain civility politics points with their base. And as you said, it may open them up to liability and it's just unwise. And I agree - I hope they take this opportunity to do a little research on the positions that they have, and on the history of those positions, and how to de-escalate and manage dissent. [00:33:51] Crystal Fincher: Just a side note on that - those protesters were protesting in support of asylum seekers who are trying to secure a place to healthily stay. The county is taking action - it was announced this morning that the county actually authorized grants to organizations that will be assisting the asylum seekers, as well as funding that should secure a stay through June with an enhanced heated tent - better amenities, I guess, than they have now, or just better basic shelter than they have now. It certainly is a conundrum. That is a short-term solution, there needs to be a medium and long-term solution put together. It does look like the governor and the legislature have included allocations to help both migrants and asylum seekers overall, and specifically those in Tukwila - with it looks like $5 million to $8 million allocations is what is proposed. We will see what that turns out to be by the end of session next week. But it's a challenge. Interesting to see the differences in how the different jurisdictions have handled it. People do ask - Well, why would Seattle even be taking that up anyway? Because this is a regional problem and that's why they involved themselves in it before. So these were people returning to the body that had itself involved themselves in it - I think it was a month ago that they decided to take action to help extend stays in some hotels throughout cities in the county. [00:35:23] Rich Smith: By the way, it's the right thing to do. We should be bending over backwards to help these people seeking asylum in our sanctuary city. They want to work. They want to be members of society. And we should be doing everything we can to help ease that transition and help them. It's going to pay off in the long run, and it's morally indefensible not to help them in the short term. I don't know why they're throwing up their hands and saying - Oh gosh, go talk to the county, go talk to the state. We can't really do anything here. That's not particularly welcome in this Portal to the Pacific. And it speaks volumes about how they feel about immigrants, how they feel about people coming into the city, and who they think they're serving. [00:36:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and this feeds into the larger problem that we're having with not having enough housing or shelter for people overall. These are people who don't have it and what we have to contend with - people are like, Well, these are migrants. Other people just want to be homeless. They had the opportunity to get off the street. They could take advantage of shelter if they wanted to. The fact is, there are thousands fewer shelter and housing spaces available than there are people out on the street. We cannot offer housing or shelter to people currently on the street. There is nowhere near enough. Even if we offer shelter to three people, there are eight more standing next to them where it's just not possible. Until we build more, we're going to have this problem. It's going to get worse. It is on us as a society to fix that problem, so that we can move people off of the streets. It's not acceptable to anyone to have people languishing outside - it's unsafe, it's undesirable. These conversations about offers to do stuff are really irrelevant until there is enough space for everyone. Then you can talk about - Well, they decided not to. And then a conversation about penalties could potentially be appropriate then. But before that - how is it valid to talk about criminalization of being outside if there aren't enough spaces to bring people inside? This is what has always perplexed me. [00:37:36] Rich Smith: Yeah, the only way you can believe that is if you believe two things. One, every homeless person is a drug addict and a criminal on purpose because they like it. Two, we have enough space in the jails for all of these drug-addled criminals who just want to steal TVs all day. Neither thing is true. Most people on the street develop drug addictions as a way to cope with being on the street. It is not drug addictions that send them there to the first place, at least not the majority. And the jail - we do not have big jails. And when they go in there, we don't have enough staffing for the jails. And people think that people get treatment in the jails - they do not get adequate treatment in the jails. Staffing issues prevent them from getting the treatment they need. The treatment they need does not meet their needs because they get buprenorphine in lower doses - if you're on fentanyl, bup is not going to be enough to help you or to treat you in jail. And when you get out, you're going to have a higher risk of overdosing and dying. So people's misunderstanding of the criminal justice system leads them to believe these silly things. And I really wish they would read three articles before talking. [00:38:46] Crystal Fincher: And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, March 1st, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is editor of The Stranger and noted poet, Rich Smith. You can find Rich on Twitter, @richsssmith, with three S's in the middle. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me on all platforms - and soon, Hacks & Wonks on all platforms and a few new things going on - at officialhacksandwonks.com. If you like us, please leave a review - that is a very helpful thing. And be sure to subscribe for the full versions of our Friday week-in-review and the Tuesday topical show. You can always get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

A discussion about the upcoming 2024 election with Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and ballot security concerns.

A discussion about the upcoming 2024 election with Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and ballot security concerns.

A discussion about the upcoming 2024 election with Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and ballot security concerns.

A discussion about the upcoming 2024 election with Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and ballot security concerns.

Secretary of State Steve Hobbs sent official notification to the Legislature Monday that six initiatives to the Legislature have been granted provisional certification while signatures are verified. http://tinyurl.com/yztbrxrf #SecretaryOfStateSteveHobbs #OfficialNotification #WashingtonStateLegislature #2024LegislativeSession #SixInitiatives #GrantedProvisionalCertification #SignaturesAreVerified #Initiative2081 #Initiative2109 #Initiative2111 #Initiative2113 #Initiative2117 #Initiative2124 #LetsGoWashington #WashingtonState #VancouverWa #ClarkCountyWa #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday

"This state is a little different from Maine and Colorado, and all the other states. We have a different process here.” – WA Secretary of State Steve Hobbs

What’s Trending: Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs had some comments on the Colorado ruling on Donald Trump's eligibility to be on the 2024 Presidential ballot. With a crime wave that is still high, like in Seattle, why are cops not pulling people over? Some laws and policies have prevented officers from chasing criminals and allowing minor traffic infractions to continue. Jill Biden's press secretary was ousted from the White House after there were attempts to have dates on the same floor in the hotel floor the President was staying on. The verdict is in for the trail of the death of Manny Ellis: not guilty on all counts for the three officers involved  // GUEST: King County Republican party chairman Mathew Patrick Thomas talks about the local impact of the Colorado supreme court’s ruling to ban Trump from the ballot, momentum behind the Let’s Go Washington initiatives and gives a preview for the upcoming legislative session. // Boeing is pushing for their employees to come back to the office full-time for a 5-day work week. There is a new co-working space to entice more employees to come back to the office and keep moral up in the office. Southern California is on pace to open the first AI operated restaurant 

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs is facing a complaint filed with the Washington State Executive Ethics Board. https://tinyurl.com/py65dcfw #TheCenterSquareWashington #WashingtonSecretaryofStateSteveHobbs #complaintfiled #WashingtonStateExecutiveEthicsBoard #internationalcybersecurityfirm #monitoringprivatecitizens #communicationsonsocialmedia #ChairJimWalsh #WAGOP #WashingtonStateRepublicanParty #VancouverWa #ClarkCountyWa #Washingtonstate #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday

In this week's podcast, we cover: The Clark County Republican Party's quarterly meeting celebrated victories in endorsed candidate races, with a focus on successful candidate Gary Wilson and the renewal of the censure of Kathy McDonald. The party is gearing up for precinct caucuses in January in preparation for the 2024 election season. The Angus Lee Law Firm is representing Republican candidate John Ley, who is facing voter registration charges. The attorney argues that the charges are politically motivated, raising questions about the intersection of law and politics in the region. Let's Go Washington submitted signatures for Initiative 2117, seeking to repeal provisions of the 2021 Washington Climate Commitment Act. State Rep. Jim Walsh criticized the act, emphasizing its impact on the cost of living. Readers are encouraged to participate in the conversation and vote on the related poll on ClarkCountyToday.com. The Washington State Republican Party filed a complaint against Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, alleging misuse of taxpayers' funds. Privacy and constitutional rights concerns are highlighted, and updates on this story can be found on ClarkCountyToday.com. A heartwarming story unfolded as Clark County residents collaborated to rescue a non-verbal, autistic child, emphasizing the strength of community bonds. Vancouver Police are investigating a drive-by shooting that left a 25-year-old male with life-threatening injuries. The Major Crimes Unit and Crime Reduction Unit are actively involved in the ongoing investigation. Evergreen High School students gained hands-on experience in the construction industry during Dig Day, aiming to inspire future careers in construction. Tee Anderson, a Titan great, returned to Union as the head coach of the Columbia River girls' basketball program, with a focus on building a new culture and traditions. An opinion piece reflected on Seton Catholic's loss in the state semifinals, drawing parallels to Hockinson's past success. Despite the defeat, the piece highlighted the potential for growth and future success for Seton Catholic's football program. For more in-depth coverage and updates, listeners are encouraged to visit ClarkCountyToday.com and join the conversation on the website. Thanks for tuning in, and see you next week! #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyWa www.ClarkCountyToday.com https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/ #ClarkCountyRepublicanParty #EndorsedCandidateRaces #CommitteeFocus #CandidateVetting #VolunteerManagement #Censure #PCOViolation #AngusLeeLawFirm #JohnLey #VoterRegistrationCase #Initiative2117 #ClimateCommitmentActRepeal #WAGOP #EthicsComplaint #WASecretaryofState #SteveHobbs #TaxpayersFunds #CCSO #SafeReturn #NonVerbalAutisticChild #VancouverWaPolice #DriveByShooting #EvergreenHighSchool #DigDay #TeeAnderson #UnionTitans #HighSchoolBasketball #Coaching #SetonCatholic #HighSchoolFootball #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday

The Washington State Republican Party has filed a complaint with the Washington State Executive Ethics Board against Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs for using taxpayers' money to surveil critics. https://tinyurl.com/2n4rae5x #WashingtonStateRepublicanParty #complaintfiled #WAGOP #WashingtonStateEthicsBoard #WashingtonSecretaryofStateSteveHobbs #taxpayersmoney #suppressingdissent #surveillingcritics #ChairmanJimWalsh #WashingtonState #VancouverWa #ClarkCountyWa #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday

In honor of U.S. Constitution Week, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs will host a public showing of the original 1889 Washington Constitution Thu., Sept. 14, in the Legislative Building in Olympia. https://tinyurl.com/mr3n5bfr #USConstitutionWeek #SecretaryOfStateSteveHobbs #PublicShowing #Original1889WashingtonConstitution #LegislativeBuildingInOlympia #OfficeOfTheSecretaryOfState #WashingtonState #VancouverWa #ClarkCountyWa #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday

As required by state law, the political party declarations that voters must sign when participating in the 2024 Presidential Primary were certified Tuesday morning by Secretary of State Steve Hobbs. https://tinyurl.com/3bytbvzs #WashingtonSecretaryOfState #2024PresidentialPrimary #SecretaryOfStateSteveHobbs #RepublicanParty #DemocraticParty #WashingtonVoters #PartyDeclarationsCertified #MembersOfPoliticalParty #PartyOfPreference #WashingtonState #VancouverWa #ClarkCountyWa #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday

While efforts to ban books in other states have gotten nationwide attention, many of us may not be aware of similar attempts right here in Washington to censor books in our schools and public libraries. Secretary of State Steve Hobbs oversees Washington's public libraries, and he joins us to talk about what's being done to counter this threat, and also to bring us up to date on what's being done to protect our elections going into 2024.

As election officials continue to verify signatures, process ballots, and post updated vote totals through Nov. 28, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs encouraged voters to remain patient. Washington's 21-day certification window prioritizes accuracy to ensure that every valid ballot from the Nov. 8 General Election will be counted. https://bit.ly/3NZYZG0 #WashingtonState #Nov8GeneralElection #SecretaryOfState #SteveHobbs #Elections #Voting #VerifySignatures #ProcessBallots #UpdatedVoteTotals #VancouverWa #ClarkCountyWa #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday

In advance of this year's election, we're going to be replaying interviews with candidates in some of the most crucial races here in Washington this year, starting with Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, our first Democrat to hold the position in nearly 60 years. The Secretary of State is responsible for Election & Cyber Security, Open Records, Archives, the State Library, and Corporations & Charities. But what comes most to mind these days is the focus on cybersecurity. We'll talk about how Secretary Hobbs' background in cyber security and excellent state relationships is increasing the security of our state records, including elections.

This week, Crystal is joined by Pierce County Council Chair, Derek Young! Looking at Washington's Secretary of State race between Democratic incumbent Steve Hobbs and nonpartisan challenger Julie Anderson, Derek talks about his views on Anderson, who's tenure as Pierce County's County Auditor has given him insight into her values and priorities. Anderson's been taking criticisms from some Democrats while others Dems have stood up to defend her and her record. Hobbs has been running on his experience in the role since assuming the position last year, and has stayed out of the mud-slinging in this race. He has his own previous reputation as a moderate Dem that is coloring some voters' opinions of him.  26th LD Representative Jesse Young's behavior and extreme political views have become the subject of news again as his race against State Senator Emily Randall for the State Senate seat continues. Young has a history of aggression against staffers, to the point that he has been banned from having legislative staff, has co-sponored legislation to limit abortion rights, and has supported local Republicans who have been involved in domestic terrorism.  In other troubling news out of this race, a PAC, Concerned Taxpayers of Washington State, sent a mailer that made a derogatory reference to Emily Randall's sexual identity. It's another disturbing example of anti-LGBTQIA rhetoric and sentiment  in mainstream political circles.  Derek recommends Pierce County listeners pay attention to the race between Robyn Denson and Paula Lonergan, who are running for Derek's seat on the City Council now that he's hit his term limit. He also points to the race between Councilmember Marty Campbell and challenger Nancy Slotnick. Finally, a Pierce County project to build a homeless housing project has hit a major road bump in the form of zoning conflicts. Derek provides insight into the specifics of the project, its goals, and what its future looks like after this setback. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Derek Young, on Twitter at @DerekMYoung. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Don't forget to vote! Visit votewa.gov for voting resources.   Institute for a Democratic Future 2023 applications are live! The initial deadline is November 2nd, and the final deadline is November 13th.   Learn more about how to get involved in Seattle's budget season at this link.   Student debt relief sign-ups are live! Visit this link to enroll.   “Democrats split over nonpartisan secretary of state candidate” by Melissa Santos from Axios   Hacks & Wonks' Interview with Secretary of State candidate Julie Anderson   Hacks & Wonks' Interview with Secretary of State candidate Steve Hobbs   “New ad highlights Washington candidate's past behavior against staffers” by Shauna Sowersby from The News Tribune   Emily Randall's response to the homophobic mailer against her - watch on TikTok here   Sign up to volunteer for Emily Randall's campaign here on her website.    Hacks & Wonks' Interview with Robyn Denson.    “Pierce County prefers this site for a big homeless housing project. Why it might not work” by Shea Johnson from The News Tribune   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show, today's co-host: Pierce County Council Chair, Derek Young. Welcome. [00:00:52] Councilmember Derek Young: Thank you for having me. [00:00:53] Crystal Fincher: Excited to have you here again, especially - to get to focus on Pierce County and talk about Pierce County. There's a lot going on. I guess starting off - we're in election season, ballots are in people's hands - remember to get those ballots turned in. Vote by November 8th, but even better, just vote as soon as possible - get that in and done. There are some close and exciting races in Pierce County and with some Pierce County angles. I think we'll start off talking about the Secretary of State's race, which is a statewide race, but with current Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, who was a former State Senator and then after Kim Wyman moved to Washington [D.C.] and left the job, Steve Hobbs was appointed by Governor Inslee, and a challenger, Julie Anderson, who is a county auditor and now running for the statewide Secretary of State race. What have you seen in this race lately? [00:01:56] Councilmember Derek Young: I will say this. The race has not gone as I assumed it would, which would be more a debate between Anderson and Hobbs that was about the office and the ideas. And has now evolved into something where we have this strange situation where we have a lot of Pierce County Democrats, like myself, who are defending Julie from attacks from our State Party Chair. And that's been strange - I think it's particularly difficult for those of us that have been around and know Julie well to see the attacks turn into "she's some sort of secret MAGA Trump Republican that" - she's been around a long time and so with those of us that know her, that's a very strange experience to have. So rather than focusing on the office, we found ourselves in a defense mode trying to say - Hey, that's not the Julie that we know, support Steve all you want - that's all fine, I get it. He's running as a Democrat and she's running as a Nonpartisan, which makes things way more difficult. The race has turned into something - the election itself is almost a sideshow of the controversy that has developed around it. [00:03:30] Crystal Fincher: Some controversy, definitely. I wonder how visible it is to the general public. Certainly people - politicos, the hacks and wonks who are around - are very caught up in this just because it's a different dynamic than we normally have. This has been a partisan office. It's been the only statewide office that Republicans held recently. It was previously held by Republican Kim Wyman - has been a partisan office -when she left and this race came up, people generally assumed - okay, there's going to be a Democrat and a Republican. A Democrat, a Republican, and a Nonpartisan ended up running and Julie Anderson ended up edging out the Republican candidate in the primary, so this is a general election that a lot of people did not anticipate. And the dynamic between a Democrat and a Nonpartisan - and Julie has said that she prefers the term Nonpartisan instead of Independent - is certainly different than - a lot of people - hey, you're familiar with who a Democrat is, you're familiar with who a Republican is. And that has a lot to do with how you view those - that's a significant lens to view a candidate through, and most people see that as a significant driver of a decision and are more aligned with one party and/or tend to vote for the candidate of that party. In this situation with Julie Anderson being Nonpartisan, there has been a lot of questions. And from the Democratic Party and some opponents - have basically said, Hey, she's aligned with Republicans, she looks like she may be an undercover Republican. I should mention that Hacks & Wonks did interviews with both Steve Hobbs and with Julie Anderson. We actually talked very directly about this issue. Julie and Steve both offered their opinions and explanations on all of this, and so you can find those shows and we'll link those in the show notes. But it's that attack on Julie Anderson that has been controversial - that we saw an Axios article from Melissa Santos about this week, lots of online posting and opinions and takes about this, but hey, is it actually accurate that Julie Anderson is basically a closet Republican or has she worked well with all people, sincerely views herself as a Nonpartisan? Are her views consistent now after getting some Republican support than they were before? It appears that they are, and she has stood up afterwards and say - Hey, I still believe our elections are secure, and believe in how they've been, and for voter amendments and those kinds of things. But then other people are saying - hey, especially at a time when we have these battles between Republicans and Democrats, we can't risk having a Nonpartisan in there. We need to have a Democrat in this office. How do you weigh that decision and how do you think voters can view their decision in this race? [00:06:42] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah, it's a fair question and I'll be honest - it would have been so much easier if she was running as a Democrat because you have the backing of the Party and all the resources that brings with it. Obviously, in this case, that wouldn't have been the way it went down because we have an incumbent who was appointed last year. But - what's the saying about Ginger Rogers and having to do all the things that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels? That's the kind of obstacles that Julie, by choosing this, put in her way. I don't know how voters are going to react as a result. The one thing I do note is that she believes this in her bones. This is a genuine conviction that the position of auditor at the local level and Secretary of State at the state level should be Nonpartisan because you can't assume that everyone will look at election and have faith in it if they view the person administering it as aligned with one of the teams. I actually think I agree with that sentiment, particularly in these times, and I kind of understand where people are coming from when - at a time when so many Republicans are calling into question the veracity of our elections, can we have someone that's on the sidelines, so to speak, that isn't actively pushing back on that from the Democratic point of view? I tend to agree with Julie more in that the way you build trust and faith in the system is by having someone who is fulfilling a more ministerial role and calling balls and strikes not aligned with one of the parties. And I've seen how that works firsthand in Pierce County. One of my jobs as Chair of the Council is I sit on the Canvassing Board and so each election, there's a group of folks who are election observers from each party and independents that come in - and every time, these very partisan folks have nothing but praise for Julie and her team and the transparent and accountable system that she's built. This is also a woman who literally tried to get rid of her office. She proposed to me, and I agreed, that the role of auditor should be an appointed position because it is administrative and ministerial. Electing the position is actually not a great idea - similar for the offices of sheriff and assessor. So I had charter amendments to propose for each of those. But being Julie, she wrote an editorial saying - you should get rid of the job I just completed. And I just have nothing but admiration for someone who's not only learned the role, but determined that - if she designed the ideal world, this position would not even be elected. But if you're going to have an elected person in it, you should have someone that is not beholden to one of the parties. The last thing I'll just say is that prior to her time as auditor in the county, she was on the Tacoma City Council. While city council races are also nonpartisan, you get a sense for people's values. Julie Anderson is a very progressive person. And I think there's - so for those of us that are from Pierce County, this has been this just very strange experience to watch. And how that plays out in the rest of state, I just don't know. But I have to imagine that the tension drawn to it by the Party has probably actually been good for her to get that message out there. I don't know that the rest of the non-very-online, very-hooked-in crowd is paying that much attention to the race, so we'll see how it goes. [00:11:14] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we'll see how it goes - this seems to be a race, I think I commented earlier, I know other people have - where this is not a race that seems to be attracting much attention. People are kind of looking at those party cues. Hey, if I'm a Democrat, I see a Democrat, I'm voting for the Democrat. And that seems to be how things are going with people who don't really pay attention to local party politics, all of the stories, the ins and outs of the campaigns to the degree that people who work in politics or policy or heavily involved in advocacy do. But for those who are, this has been one of the toughest decisions and have been some of the toughest conversations that people have had in a bit - because there is this tension. And I think another dimension of this is that we're talking about Senator Steve Hobbs, who has been known as a moderate and has certainly provoked a lot of emotion over the years. He has taken different stances than a lot of other people in the Party on transportation policy and different things. And so I think for people who have been involved in politics for a long time, they have this view of him in their head as a moderate. And that's a positive thing for some people - some people may feel that that's pragmatic. For others, they feel that that's obstruction. But for people who do have an impression of Steve Hobbs, whether positive or negative, I think that colors how they're coming into the opinions of this race and that conversation. And also just the recognition that that's a very small slice of people who are paying attention to that degree. So I don't know how much this makes it out into the world of people who take the time to vote and who care about it, but who don't really follow politics closely. It'll be interesting to see how this continues to play out and how the information continues to flow over the next two weeks. [00:13:19] Councilmember Derek Young: Steve has also - to his credit - is not behind a lot of the nastiness that has come up in this race. In fact, I have not heard anything bad about the way he's conducted himself in the office. And so my feelings - and they're personal feelings in the race, I think for a lot of others - it's actually less about Steve Hobbs and more about our feelings for Julie. I will also say, for those of us from South Sound, there's a little bit of folks from other parts of the state telling us what we should think about this. And so you have a little bit of good old-fashioned Tacoma getting its back up about one of our own. And I think there's some of that going on as well. So I just wanted to be clear that I think the candidates themselves are conducting an admirable race. [00:14:15] Crystal Fincher: I think that's fair. There's another race where I don't think one of the candidates is conducting an admirable race, and that's an extremely partisan race in your neck of the woods - in the 26th Legislative District - between Democrat Emily Randall and very extreme Republican Jesse Young. Now you have been down there and observing the ins and outs of Jesse Young, who's now running for State Senate, but was a State Representative, is a State Representative before this. Man, this man has issues - and this week there was a news story that that talked about his very problematic treatment and harassment of staff. What did he do? [00:15:02] Councilmember Derek Young: There's a pattern of abusive behavior to not only staff, but other legislators. For example, his Republican seatmate, Michelle Caldier - they're not supposed to be in the same room together without at least one other person because they got in an argument that was so loud that security had to show up. So this is someone from his own party and his seatmate in his district. And I will just say that it fits a pattern for him. And he would not be the first politician that has had difficulties with staff, but when he was found to have done these things and was instructed to go to some anger management counseling, he refused to do so. And so as a result, to this day, he's not allowed to have legislative staff. And some of the reports were pretty awful - calling a woman by a particularly vulgar name and screaming fits - and to the point where at one point the staffer referred to their weekly meetings as "the weekly beatings." So his behavior is obviously a problem and makes him particularly ineffective because how someone does the job of legislator without staff is kind of beyond me. All that said, it's not just his behavior that's problematic. He has rather extreme political positions. This was a man who was close allies with and stuck by Matt Shea - many of your listeners will remember as the radical Eastern Washington Republican who literally organized the militia takeover of the Malheur. [00:17:02] Crystal Fincher: Yeah - he was involved in domestic terrorism. [00:17:04] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah, he put tracking devices on sheriff vehicles to monitor people, he planned insurrection, runs a training camp for militia activities. And this is someone who - when he was under fire for these behaviors and Republicans were trying to figure out what to do - leadership in their caucus removed him immediately from the caucus. Well, maybe not immediately, but got to it pretty quickly. He stood by him the entire time and organized opposition to Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox's actions that removed him from the caucus and expedited his eventual departure from the Legislature. So, his positions on abortion are for criminalization. Just really strange out of the mainstream type of behavior, and I'll leave you with this one other more recent anecdote that I am more personally knowledgeable of. During the aftermath of George Floyd's death, some teenagers in Gig Harbor decided that they were going to organize protests and showed up at this one corner that's particularly - I don't know, for whatever reason, it's become our protest area - I think it's because it's got a lot of traffic. And so hundreds of kids and some adults showed up there to protest and demand reforms for law enforcement. And Jesse showed up with a group of men carrying long guns because they claimed that these were Antifa and they were going to burn the shopping mall next to it to the ground. He stuck by this ridiculous story for so long, he even claimed that the local police chief, who happens to be a friend, had covered up the story and that he witnessed the chief grabbing gas cans that were planted ahead of time to burn the strip mall down. When in reality, what the police chief had seen was a gas can that had fallen on the roadway from someone with a landscaping truck and he was just picking it up to get it out of the road. He continued to lie about this on conservative talk radio for weeks. And this is our police chief - he's a known, trusted person that's been on our force and lived in our community for decades. And Jesse's out there lying about him because he wanted to justify his appearance there with a group of men and long guns to a protest organized by teens. [00:19:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and that was a scary time. This was in 2020 - we were working with organizers on the ground, canvassers on the ground in the district at the time in another effort. And it was a really scary thing even detached from it - hearing, hey, there are reports with men driving around with guns, men arriving at this place with guns, some of these assault rifles, right? And just not knowing what's going to happen, hearing the extremist rhetoric, knowing the history of some of those - especially in the context of his palling around with domestic terrorists, Matt Shea - did not know what direction this was going to go in, but he clearly felt really entitled to do that and to intimidate everyone in that area, everyone in those neighborhoods. And that's just really fundamentally not okay. The treatment of staff is just really fundamentally not okay. And there are some people who sometimes view these things as partisan attacks. And Republicans certainly have their own record on what they've permitted within the ranks of their party. But I think in this state, especially among Democrats - we had a conversation, had many conversations about Insurance Commissioner, Mike Kreidler - that treatment - so many people have called on him to resign and continue to, finding that's not acceptable. He's not going to find support when he - it would be really unwise to choose to run for re-election - but if he would, he's not going to find support there. There have been other people whose resignations have been called for in the wake of treatment like this. This is something that is not partisan. This is something that Democrats have been not hesitant to call out people in their own ranks. And this also applies to Republicans. He has not had a legislative assistant since, what was it, 2016? [00:21:59] Councilmember Derek Young: Something like that, yeah. [00:22:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, for quite some time. And as you said, how do you get any work done? The people in the 26th have had hobbled representation. And if people found any fault with what's happening, you kind of have to ask - how is Jesse Young able to show up and do his job? Other legislators have beyond full schedules - needing a legislative assistant to juggle all of that, juggle all their communications, schedule meetings, coordinate with their constituents. And so that's just not possible to do and to fully do your job. And to have the reason for that being that you can't be trusted to be around subordinates is really just an indictment on the fitness for office. And there's a clear choice in terms of the issue of abortion rights in this race. You have Emily Randall, who is a staunch supporter of personal freedom and privacy and reproductive choice. You have Jesse Young, who has taken really extreme stands on abortion - and hey, it shouldn't just be a ban, there should be criminal penalties involved in this - just really troubling. And the election conspiracy denial - he went to Arizona, with the denialists in Arizona, to a Cyber Ninja audit that they called it. And it was just really a gathering of these conspiracy theorists. Why are we entertaining a conversation of electing a guy who is doing this kind of stuff? This is just beyond me and really beyond the conversations of how do we even get to policy? How do we even get to what you're going to do in the job when you're doing things that prevent your ability to even do the job? How are we debating about issues when he can't adequately legislate? He can't adequately hear from, meet with, represent constituents. He can't adequately conduct himself in public and not intimidate people with guns - teenagers - with guns in public. We can't even get to the conversation of legislating. This guy is just fundamentally unfit. It's a challenge. And I imagine you're sitting there looking at this race and going - oh my goodness, I wish more people really knew who this guy was and what's at stake. [00:24:34] Councilmember Derek Young: It is hard because it is my community. We are the - 26th district for those that aren't familiar - it's basically the Kitsap Peninsula, so half of it's in Pierce County in the Key Peninsula and Gig Harbor area and then Kitsap going up to Bremerton. And it's a swing district. Even calling it a swing district might be generous to the Democratic side. They've been pretty successful here for the last decade or so. And things didn't change that much with redistricting. But yeah, even setting that aside, I get that at least half of our district prefers the Republican side and that's fine. But in this case, you have someone who is so clearly a great representative for us, or a senator for us, and is very effective - almost shockingly so. As a first-term Senator, Emily Randall really was a standout amongst that group in terms of being effective, being thoughtful, doing the hard work. I know within my association, because I've been for a number of years leading our legislative efforts, very often bringing her up as someone to champion things that we're working on because we know her as a worker and fair-minded and well-respected. And then you have the opposite of that challenging her and really just having some basic integrity challenges in addition to his volatility, so I don't get it. This shouldn't be close. I understand why some of the other races are the way they are - we actually had a surprise with Adison Richards doing exceptionally well in the primary of one of the House seats, against a fine candidate on the Republican side who I know pretty well - Spencer Hutchins, who was formerly on the Gig Harbor Council. So those are the races where I understand everyone's got a choice and it's harder to understand why the Senate race is this close. [00:27:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's worrisome, but this is definitely a race. We've talked before about - there's a lot of people in the Seattle area who listen to this race and a lot of the races that they're going to be considering are Democrat versus Democrat legislative races, some of them are uncontested at all. And so it presents an opportunity to say, okay, we know your seat is going to be in Democratic hands and certainly stay active and involved where you're at, but make a point to adopt a race somewhere externally, whether it's a district like the 26th Legislative District down in South Sound, whether it's the 47th Legislative District down in the Kent, Auburn, Covington area. Or up north in the 10th or 47th or 42nd districts. Pick one of these districts where we know that races there are consistently close and competitive, that it's always within a hair of which candidate wins, and help put the Democratic candidate in this situation, but help put the candidates that align with your values over the top. [00:28:19] Councilmember Derek Young: And do it - if for no other reason - to help out me personally. We're two guys from Gig Harbor named Young and working in politics, so lots of people confuse it. And I think in particular, my dad takes exception because people think his son is Jesse. [00:28:36] Crystal Fincher: Oh, yikes. Yikes and yikes. Yeah, I do not envy you as being another Young in politics there, but hopefully this is something that won't be an issue for you that much longer. So as if all of the other stuff wasn't enough, there was a mailer that arrived this week that was really troubling and obviously intentional. The background here is that Emily Randall is a queer woman - has been open about that, wonderful about that. And a mailer arrived and you talked about this, so I'll let you describe it. [00:29:22] Councilmember Derek Young: Basically - and I hadn't noticed the mailer, I don't know that I was the target audience - but Emily posted a video where she shared it because she received it. And the message says, Let's set the record straight. Now, that term is one we're all familiar with in political context and journalism and such. The problem was that they put a special emphasis - underlined and red-bolded the "straight" part. That is a winking notation of her sexual identity and a pretty ugly one, I think. It's a - we are in a divided district, so we know that there is some people who will be uncomfortable with LGBTQ rights and Emily's never hidden from it. But the IE that ran this - I think there's no question they knew exactly what they were doing, and it's really worthy of calling out. And I'm glad that Emily did herself, because she's her own best advocate and I think that's important. But I think it's also important for all of us to say - We know what you were doing. And this isn't some PAC that just popped up for a single purpose to hide identities. This is a - what is it - Concerned Taxpayers? I forget their exact name, but it's a mainstream PAC that's very active in a lot of races. Their major donors are Master Builders and Realtors. And so this is a group that should know better and did something - [00:31:17] Crystal Fincher: That does know better and decided not to do it. That is - this isn't a fringe group - this is a major mainstream regular supporter of the party, closely aligned interests of the party. They're allies of the party and they're consistently there for those interests. And it clearly was intentional. I mean, as - you have worked on political communications certainly, as have I. And I think sometimes political operatives do the thing where we know exactly what we do. And I'm saying, I do not do this and try very hard not to do this - but I've seen Republicans and I've sometimes seen Democrats do this - but rely on the public not realizing what our work actually is and how we actually do it, to just excuse it. And what you see in political communications, what you see on mail is very intentional. The words are poured over. There are several levels of approval, certainly on - if you're working with a good team, as you are anywhere, you want to make sure that you're conveying the message that you want to and that you are not conveying any message that you don't want to. So anything that can be borderline - I don't really want to say that - then you don't say, then you change something to make sure that it doesn't give that impression, that it doesn't say something - especially something that is harmful or offensive. And at a time when we have a very conservative Supreme Court who is tearing down rights, who has basically put the right of marriage equality on notice. And the Dobbs decision - it didn't just strike down Roe vs Wade - it also laid the path that a number of them want to take moving forward, which is striking down protections for contraception, privacy, marriage equality - type thing. So we know this is on deck. We've heard several Republicans in the state and across the country say that they believe that - just marriage between only a man and a woman should be legally valid, others should be illegal again - who want to roll back the rights that were won. And this was an ad targeted at a conservative audience. It is not a secret that when you have "straight" in big, bold, red letters that are then underlined - and that's the only word on the page that it's treated like that - you're sending a message. And it's unacceptable. And I am glad she called it out. And to your point, I'm very glad that everyone has the opportunity to say - No, this is unacceptable, and this is a preview of the type of harmful hate that is coming if we allow more of this. I mean, it just is another one of those - before we get into conversations about policy, we're dealing with some really fundamental human decency - really ability to adequately and peacefully participate in society and allow other people to participate in that same society to the same degree. It is just egregious, received news coverage for being egregious. And it's just what we're contending with. It is not at all rare to see these dirty hits come out during this time where ballots are out and mailers are flying. And I don't know what else they have planned, but if this is what they're doing early, I shudder to think what they think they can say when they feel that there isn't the type of penalty or time for scrutiny attached to it. So it's just - get involved in this race, get involved in this race. [00:35:27] Councilmember Derek Young: And I think it's worth saying that - it's not just gross from a political standpoint. Given the trajectory of rhetoric around LGBTQ rights and life in this country, it's dangerous in the literal sense. That's why, I think it's important to - often there's this, especially amongst Democrats, this tendency to worry about should we call attention to an attack or is that making something more visible to the public. And I think there are these cases where - whether it's around election validity, people's basic rights, and just decency - we have to have some ground truth, some shared reality that we all exist on that's beneath where the politics of the situation is going. Let's get back to the point where we can have these fierce debates over policy. But right now we have to have some common cause for just existing in the same society, I think. And saying that these things are out of bounds and there will be a price that you pay for doing it, I think is important. [00:37:02] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I completely agree. And that hesitance to - should we bring it up, should we talk about it? Yeah, we have to, because the other side is. How many times in the past week have we heard hateful comments about the trans community, hateful anti-Semitic comments, hateful white supremacist comments. And I'm just thinking about this week, right? This is unfortunately creeping into mainstream society. These are not limited to rarely visited corners of the internet that hardly anyone visits. These are some of the biggest celebrities, some of the richest people, and some of the most powerful party members. These are - we're hearing this from elected officials now and party leadership. We have to take a stand and say this is unacceptable because the silence is enabling this. It is going to take an effort of everyone confronting this when they're seeing it and rejecting it - rejecting it in their communities and their conversations with friends - and yes, family - and on the ballot. I mean, rejecting it on the ballot is the easy part - that should be an automatic. We have more work to do to confront this in our everyday lives, in our societies, and the people who we interact with. So I again, just urge people to get involved and to call this stuff out whenever and wherever you see it. That is the most powerful thing that we can do, especially when it's with people you know - it makes a difference. Certainly encourage everyone listening - we'll put information in the show notes - do a phone bank, do a canvass session. If you absolutely can't do those things, donate, but sometimes we talk about money in these races and money certainly helps buy resources and the things to make those happen. But really the time that you can spend - to put in to talk to other voters in that district and to help educate those voters and tell them why you're supportive and why you're taking your time to do this - is really impactful to a lot of people and encourage people to get involved that way. So thank you for that. Are there any other races in Pierce County that you think people should be tuned into, thinking about, looking at? [00:39:34] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah, we have a couple of council races that are - I think headed in the right direction - but important to keeping the council majority that we managed to get in Democratic hands. One being replacement for me, as I'm term limited and leaving office at the end of the year. And her name is Robyn Denson. Her opponent is a Republican named Paula Lonergan - for folks in Pierce County that name may sound familiar because her husband is the Assessor-Treasurer and used to be a Tacoma City Council member. But that race - things are going fairly well - she's running a pretty traditional Republican campaign. And Robyn is - in fact, you may - I believe you actually did have her on. [00:40:21] Crystal Fincher: Yep, we interviewed her. We'll also link that in the show notes. [00:40:24] Councilmember Derek Young: And she certainly fits the model of wonk. She's a former nonpartisan policy staff down in Olympia, specializing in housing in particular, which is obviously something that's super critical throughout our region, but especially right here in Pierce County. And is just a really thoughtful person. She's currently on the Gig Harbor City Council, and I think the world of her and really recruited her hard to run for my seat, to make sure we kept this in Democratic hands. Because until I ran, we hadn't won this seat really before, so it was important to me to find a suitable replacement. The other is Marty Campbell, who's an incumbent council member. His opponent, Nancy Slotnick, is a Republican. And while that race hasn't been as hot - I think it's flying a little bit under the radar - and Marty's district changed the most out of the council districts during redistricting. And so he's had to introduce himself to a large group of voters who may not be as familiar with him, and so that's presented some challenges, I think. And unfortunately, his partner also has some health issues at the moment that they've been public about - I'm not sharing any inside information - so he's juggling a lot right now trying to be my Vice Chair, which is a challenge even in itself. So we're hoping to push Marty over the line as well. [00:42:00] Crystal Fincher: All right. Sounds good. We will be paying attention to those and seeing how those turn out. In non-political news this week, there was some news in Pierce County about zoning restrictions getting in the way of a planned homeless housing project. This is something that is definitely needed, but it looks like it may have run into a snag. What's happening? [00:42:25] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah. So this was - I will say, even though it wasn't my fault - as someone in Pierce County government, it's embarrassing. So we have this concept that we are essentially stealing from Austin that - they have a wildly successful program called Community First! Village that's for folks that are unhoused and chronically unhoused. This is the population of homeless folks that have the most barriers - typically will have some disabilities or been homeless for a very long time, may have some behavioral health challenges, you name it - there's something in their way that's keeping them from becoming housed and so they're living on the streets. This model starts with the physical infrastructure - it's essentially micro homes or tiny houses, however you want to refer to it. Their units tend to be very nice by comparison to - sometimes when we talk about tiny houses, we think of some of the garden sheds basically that you see popping up in some communities. These - it looks more like a trailer park - is the way I would describe it. But the secret sauce in this is not just getting people housed - that's the big barrier. The second is that they deliver really intentional services to these folks that are all onsite. They even have volunteers that live onsite. And there's a strong effort to build community, which is something that I think is missed from a lot of permanent supportive housing models you see elsewhere. And I was skeptical at first, but when it clicked - I was talking with someone who has worked in homelessness for a long time. And he said, we typically buy an apartment complex or maybe a hotel and turn that into permanent supportive housing. But think about - because he knew I lived in an apartment - how many of your neighbors do you know? And embarrassingly, I know probably half my neighbors - I know their names and their families. But otherwise, once you get home, you're closing the door and you're not really interacting with them that much. This is the opposite - it's intended to help rebuild those social connections. There's onsite work that can be done. They actually do pay rent - it's heavily subsidized. But the idea is to rebuild those social skills. For some people, they will always live there, and that's fine. But for others, they can then take those steps to getting back to a life that maybe doesn't require as much support. So we're all very excited about this model, and we think it's going to be a hit. One of the first questions I had last year was - okay, we'll appropriate this money, but why don't you tell us if you can find any properties that are available that will have suitable zoning? Somehow that didn't happen. And so the site that they got under contract before approaching the council, it turned out that the zoning, because it's surrounded by wetlands, is Residential Resource, which doesn't allow for this much density. So we were set to approve and they wanted to close on the property by the end of the year - that's just not going to happen. What this looks like going forward, I don't know. But the trick here is that this is a new idea - not only for us, but really for the region. And as a result, we cannot fail. This has to work. Because if we're going to replicate it elsewhere in Pierce County and around the region, we have to get it right. If we fail, people will look at it and go - well, that didn't work - and that's not something we want to have happen. So like I said, it's embarrassing, but it is what it is and we have to figure out a solution. [00:46:46] Crystal Fincher: What's on deck for solutions? [00:46:48] Councilmember Derek Young: I don't know yet, because we just found out. And so the executive still believes that we can go through with this property and just do a rezone. I will say that just doing a rezone is never a simple thing, particularly when what you have planned for the site is now very public. The other possibility is start looking for other locations. The problem is that - this was always my concern - is that the sites that are affordable for a project like this are also going to be challenged. In this development environment, if it's zoned for density, it's going to be pretty valuable. The other challenge that we had with this site was that it doesn't have sewer adjacent to it. This is kind of on the outskirts of our urban growth area, so while there's urban development around it - and it's right off what was going to be the Cross-Base Highway - it still lacks some basic infrastructure. So all that's why we were getting it for a song and why other developers had looked at it for housing projects and couldn't make it work. But I think we're back to square one in terms of site selection, and we need to start looking around. But it's possible we'll have a proposal here that's fairly straightforward. The most annoying part about this is that we literally had - because this concept is so new - we didn't really have a use allowed for this in our zoning code. So we actually passed a bill two months ago to change zoning code in order to allow for this. We still somehow came up with a site that it doesn't work for. [00:48:37] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's a challenge. And this is new, so I'm asking you questions - I understand you may not have the answer yet. This was reported in The News Tribune day before yesterday, I think, on October 26th. And there did seem to be a little bit of - I don't know if I'd call it tension - but difference in opinion on moving forward about the ease or feasibility of that zoning change option. The Pierce County Executive did make it seem like it's something that is definitely doable, even if it's not - hey, we'll take care of it next meeting - in the near future, certainly had the impression that it could be resolved with that. What challenges would prevent that from - from being able to pass a zoning change soon? [00:49:28] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah, I'm unclear what he's referring to because there was a quote in the newspaper and I called him about this after seeing it that said that we think this may be a 15 or 30-day delay. I don't know what he's talking about. This would require not only a zoning map change, but we believe a comprehensive plan change. So for those that aren't aware of local land use policy, it's - a comp plan change - you're only allowed to touch your comp plan once per year. We've already started our process and so we couldn't add it to this. The next time you could do something is literally over a year from now because you can only make adjustments once per year. If it's just a zoning change, that's what's referred to as an Official Control under our planning rules. And so we have to notify the Department of Commerce with a 60-day comment period. That's just the minimum - maybe nothing comes up and they don't care - but it's still a 60-day period. And then after that, you need to be going to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission has their own process. And then it finally comes to the council. Our charter requires at least three weeks just to run a bill and that's under ideal conditions. So yeah, I'm not sure what he's talking about there, but this is not a simple change by any means. All that said, I don't think there would necessarily be opposition coming from the council. We were certainly comfortable with the idea before finding the problem, so it's just a matter of the rules that we all have to follow. And what was kind of frustrating about it is hearing him trying to figure out ways around them when he vetoed an emergency ordinance that we passed for Safe Parking a few months ago. And one of the reasons he vetoed it, even though the emergency ordinance is temporary and involves no construction - if you decide you're not going to do it there, you can move the cars - so there's no permanent problem. And yet he used that as one of the objections to the emergency bill. And in this case, we're literally going to spend millions and millions of dollars building a permanent housing development. And we're going to skip the process? I don't see that working. So the council's of one mind on this - the sponsors all pulled their signatures so that we didn't have to - we didn't want to vote to turn it down, that just is a bad look. So everyone's on the same page on the council that this has to be done right. [00:52:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Well, that little nugget sounds encouraging - that you decided to move forward with it, and so it is rules that have to be followed. So could it be potentially - no, this is not a three-week endeavor, but it may be a few months of diligent work and following through the steps and the ability to accommodate the necessary changes then. If it does take a few months or however long that that takes, does that impact the project? Does that impact the cost or anything with that? [00:53:01] Councilmember Derek Young: It will have some impact. It's hard to quantify because everything in the economy is so weird these days, so we will see. But so one thing we had to do, for example, is at the end of the year, our proviso expires, allowing the appropriation that we budgeted for - it's supposed to go back to other homeless services - because at the time we were pretty skeptical that this could work. I see no objection from my colleagues to changing that proviso so that we will stay committed to this. And again, we know we have a problem, like everyone. So we've got this innovative solution. It seems to work really well. The performance in Austin is exceptional compared to other programs. So, the more I've learned about it, the more eager I become. I just think in this instance, it's possible the executive and his staff were a little too eager and didn't do some kind of basic homework. [00:54:09] Crystal Fincher: Well, hopefully you will be there to help him finish that assignment. [00:54:15] Councilmember Derek Young: Unfortunately, I think my successor may need to finish this up for me, but - [00:54:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. So it doesn't look like there's a chance by the end of the year, I guess. I guess that looks unlikely. But hopefully the newly composed council is as dedicated to this as the other one was. And with bipartisan support - this was not something that was necessarily squeaked through. [00:54:39] Councilmember Derek Young: No, in fact - it's noteworthy that this was really coming from the Republicans. This was their conception. And so I think that's really good - because to have bipartisan comity on an issue like homelessness is not - it's not common. So I think it's important for us to try to stick together on an issue like this. [00:55:07] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and to your point - to get going with a model that could be an example for other cities to follow - I think that's a very important thing. And especially for local government - one of the things that I really like about local government and policy - is that everyone has to live in these conditions, everyone has to see. There's more pressure to get away from rhetoric and to actually do something that's addressing the issues that people are seeing with their own eyes and that you're seeing with your own eyes. So there is more of, I think, a motivation to act, especially outside of - sometimes big city politics can get super politicized, but other entities don't always get bogged down by the spectacle of it all. And you're working towards some solution and there's - Hey, there's evidence that this model is working elsewhere, let's give it a go. We certainly need to figure out something that works, other things haven't like they've needed to. So sometimes challenges happen, and sounds like there's cause for optimism that this can be worked through, even if it's with the newly composed council and hopefully we get this up and running. If you work through all this - who knows if it alters the timeline - what was the original timeline for this being built and operational? [00:56:43] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah, I think the schedule was construction next year and have the first units available at the beginning of 2024, if I'm not mistaken. I may have that a little bit wrong, but by the time you do site development - depending on the season, it can get tough. But that was the hope - is that it would be - the first phase of the project would be fairly soon. And that it is a phased project. So eventually would house 257 units, give or take. Obviously, there may be some site development challenges. And the hope is that everyone sees that this works and then we'll want to throw money at this as an - because that's what's happened in Harris County, Texas, where Austin is. They essentially have the private sector throwing money at them to do more. And they've got a couple thousand of these units that are housing people, and their success rate in terms of rehousing folks in traditional housing is in the 60% - I mean, that's just unheard of in this space. [00:57:59] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I hope - I hope that we still see this coming online in 2024. Seems like that could be doable, but we'll stay tuned and keep people updated on what's happening. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this friday, October 28th, 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. Our assistant producer is Shannon Cheng, and our Production Coordinator is Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today is Pierce County Council Chair Derek Young. You can find Derek on Twitter - and he's a good Twitter follow - @DerekMYoung. That's D-E-R-E-K-M Young. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii - it's two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of all of our shows and our Friday almost-live show to your feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you can. And you can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at OfficialHacksandWonks.com and in our episode notes. Thanks for tuning in and we will talk to you next time.

On this midweek show, Crystal chats with current Secretary of State Steve Hobbs about his campaign for Washington Secretary of State - why he decided to run for re-election, the threat of misinformation campaigns and cyber attacks on Washington's elections, how partisanship affects the office, and whether partisan attacks on his opponent are warranted. On the topic of elections, they discuss how he builds trust in the system in an environment of disinformation, addressing issues with disproportionate rates of signature rejection across the electorate, his plans to increase voter turnout, and his stance and approach to local jurisdictions potentially adopting alternative systems such as ranked choice voting. The conversation continues with the experience Secretary Hobbs brings to manage other components that fall under the Secretary of State's large umbrella and his vision to create greater accessibility for experiencing the state archives' historical records, resources for corporate and charity filings, and requesting governmental documents via public disclosure requests. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Secretary Steve Hobbs at @electhobbs.   Resources Campaign Website - Steve Hobbs   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.   Today, I'm thrilled to be welcoming a candidate and the current officeholder for one of the most important roles that we have in our state - Secretary of State. Welcome, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs. [00:00:51] Secretary Hobbs: Thank you. And thank you for saying it's very important. Thank you - I appreciate that. [00:00:56] Crystal Fincher: It is extremely important. And I think a lot of people are recognizing just how important it is now perhaps. Many more people are recognizing that than they have before because of how much talk we've had over the past couple of years about how important elections and election integrity are. But also, in addition to elections, all of the other things that the Secretary of State is responsible for like archives and records management and all those different things. And we're seeing an increasing amount of news stories and coverage in issues and challenges in those areas. So with all of that, what made you decide that - one, you wanted to take this on in the first place, and two, that you want to run for a new term? [00:01:41] Secretary Hobbs: Well, first of all, I've always dedicated myself to public service - starting at the age of 17 when I enlisted in the Army Reserves - then, and then going on to active duty shortly after that. So this was a nice transition from serving in the State Senate, which I did for 15 years, into this role because it's a nice little Venn diagram - you know how you have the two circles there? So one is defending democracy in my role in the military and the other is serving in the State Senate. And this is a great overlap because right now, as and your listeners would know, our elections have been under attack. Our democracy has been under attack. [00:02:30] Crystal Fincher: Sure has. [00:02:31] Secretary Hobbs: And so having that background that I have in the military - serving in the National Security Agency, being a Public Affairs Officer - having been in that role and defending elections in both Kosovo and Iraq, this is a great fit for me. And I enjoy it, I love it - but it of course has its challenges, which we have had several this year with three misinformation campaigns and a cyber threat that has occurred already just this year alone. [00:03:04] Crystal Fincher: So how do you defend against those? And what is the plan to combat all of this misinformation and the targeted attacks? [00:03:12] Secretary Hobbs: Well, it first started when I got into the office and there was an outbriefing by former Secretary Kim Wyman, who is now working for the Biden administration. And in that outbrief, she had told me there were several thousand - thousands - of attacks, cyber attacks, on elections and 180 instances of misinformation and disinformation. We all know about what happened in January 6 in our nation's capital, but some of you may not know or remember - there was an attack on our own State capital. We had to deploy the National Guard there. In fact, several of my soldiers had to go on that mission to defend our capital. And so I started by looking at the budget that was submitted by Kim Wyman and pulled it back and resubmitted it. And what I did was expanded the cyber security team. So we had a cyber team of four, now we've gone to eight. We're strengthening our relationships with the Air National Guard that we call upon for cyber security when we are overwhelmed. We are looking into doing exercises - one step up from a tabletop exercise, but actually a full-blown exercise in 2023, where we'll be having folks who are trying to penetrate our system through cyber and through misinformation, disinformation - a closed system there where we can react to it. We have created a team that would combat misinformation and do voter outreach and education, because some of the vulnerabilities that we have of people not having trust in our elections is because they simply don't know how we do elections here in Washington State. So we've got to do a little more education of that. And then creating a team of outreach to our disenfranchised and underserved and underrepresented communities that we're doing. Sorry, I went on, but there's a lot to do. And there's a lot that we have done so far in trying to push back on some of the misinformation campaigns that happen and the cyber threat that happened this year. [00:05:23] Crystal Fincher: Well, and it's really important - there is a lot going on. And I guess one of the more fundamental questions that people are asking themselves is - with the nature of the office and because this is a little bit different this year in that you're running against someone who identifies as an Independent, not as a Democrat or a Republican, what is the role of partisanship in this office? Is this an office that should be a partisan office? Is there any advantage or disadvantage to being a partisan in this office? How do you view that? [00:05:53] Secretary Hobbs: Well, in my personal view, I can operate in this office if the Legislature deems that it should be a nonpartisan office. Now, in order for that to happen, you have to pass a bill to do that. I doubt that will make it out of the Legislature since the Legislature is controlled by Republicans and Democrats and I don't see that happening any time soon. I think what you have to do is look at the individual who's occupying this office. How do I say this? Well, I go back to a motto - when I'm serving an infantry battalion, all infantry battalions have mottos and mine was, or ours was - "Deeds, not words." So look at what I've done, not what I say. And you'll see that I'm a person that works across the aisle. You'll see that I'm a person that can get things done. And you look at the list of endorsements that I have - I have Republican endorsements, Democratic endorsements. I have the endorsement of the Association of Washington Business and the Washington State Labor Council. And having a label on there - it doesn't do anything if you're going to be a bad person. So the last three Secretaries of State were partisan - Sam Reed, Kim Wyman, and Ralph Munro - and they were trusted with the public and they got the job done. I will say - in this day and age, though, people tend to trust Democrats running the elections, because they know where they're coming from. And I'm not going to back away from the fact that I am a Democrat. I'm proud that I'm pro-choice. I'm proud that I'm pro-labor. I'm proud that I support the environment. I don't think those are bad things at all. Whatever the Legislature decides - if they want to make this a partisan office - or nonpartisan office - that's fine. But I can operate in any environment. And I don't think it really matters anyway, at this particular time, but I'm not going to back away who I am. I'm a Democrat. [00:08:05] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. No secret here. I think the values that you listed are very good. And that the people, in this day and age - given the harboring of anti, disproven, disinformation about elections and campaigns that they see coming from the Republican Party are comfortable - more comfortable - with the Democratic Party in this position. But with that said, there have been - I don't know that any of this has come directly from your campaign. But the State Party and the leader of the State Party has attacked the other candidate, your opponent Julie Anderson, for her associations with some Republicans, or the Republican Party. Given that - you just talked about, hey, it's about who you are, it's about what you do - do you think those attacks are warranted or fair? [00:08:57] Secretary Hobbs: Crystal, you did bring up a couple of points that have been brought up recently in this campaign. And all I can say is - to the listeners out there, look into it, right? So she did show up at the fundraiser of the minority party in the House who wants to take control of the House - that's JT Wilcox, Representative Wilcox. If you're calling yourself nonpartisan, I'm not sure why you would go to that fundraiser, representing a party and some folks out there that want to put these elections back to poll voting and eliminate vote by mail. And the same group of folks that fan the flames of misinformation and disinformation. She does have a political consultant that's Republican, and a communications team that's Republican, and a treasurer that's Republican. But I'm not here to bash on her. I'm just saying to the listeners out there - do your own research on it. But yeah, that's true that there are, she's - has some ties there. [00:10:07] Crystal Fincher: You mentioned your willingness to work across the aisle. Could that just be her attempting to do the same types of things that you were talking about in reaching out? To that, it does look like she has also, in the past - I don't know if she has in this general election - but met with Democrats and Democratic organizations. Do you put that under the same umbrella? Or is that different than just trying to work in a bipartisan manner? [00:10:33] Secretary Hobbs: I think it's an attempt to look at this race and go - okay, well, Steve's got the Democrats, so maybe I'll go get the Republicans. Because there are Republicans out there that simply just don't want a Democrat in office - and doesn't matter if that person's a good Democrat or not - they just can't stand the fact that there's a Democrat occupying that office. And so - she's going to reach out to those folks, it's just a campaign strategy. But again, I stress to the listeners - look at the backgrounds and see the deeds of the person and see what they can bring to the office. Again, I've been in the office so far for almost a year. And you got to ask yourself - is anything wrong with what's going on? And if not, why change horses at this particular moment in time? Crystal, I mentioned the three misinformation campaigns and the cyber threat - these are real things. These are real threats to democracy - I would say that you'd want someone who understands how to counter those threats. There was a story in NPR All Things Considered about a recent misinformation campaign that we pushed back on. And that happened in February - and it had to deal with one of the cybersecurity devices known as an Albert sensor that Homeland Security asks every government agency to have on their system network so that they can be warned when there's a suspicious IP address that data is coming from and to - because that's what an Albert sensor does - it tells you where the data is coming from and to. And you're not going to believe this, but the misinformation campaign directed at the Albert sensors was trying to tie the Albert sensor to George Soros. I'm not making this up. [00:12:30] Crystal Fincher: Well, unfortunately, I do believe it, but it is wild. That is - the attempt to tie everything - my goodness. [00:12:39] Secretary Hobbs: Yeah, yeah. [00:12:40] Crystal Fincher: I'm sure lots of people are shocked to hear that what they've been working on is somehow masterminded by that person. But yeah, there have been wild and malicious attacks and just an outright denial of what has happened in elections. And I actually think you raise an excellent point that we don't talk about a lot - in that you brought up even - we see this stuff happening on the national level and even January 6th on a national level. But that we did experience that in our own state at that time - both in-person and the attacks on our voting system. And so I guess one of the questions I have is given that we're in this environment of not just misinformation, but malicious disinformation, and people with an agenda to erode and degrade trust - how do you build trust in our electoral system? Because although there are absolutely people who are intentionally misleading people, there's a lot of people who sincerely believe we have issues within our system - and for a variety of different reasons and from different perspectives - this is not just Republicans, it can be a variety of people. In an environment where there is so much disinformation, how do you build trust and credibility with voters in this state? [00:13:58] Secretary Hobbs: Oh, it's a long-term campaign that you have to start right away and not only be aggressive on, but consistent on. So for example, the misinformation campaign on the Albert sensor, you have to - we brought together all the county auditors and we brought, we invited county commissioners, and we brought in Kim Wyman, Homeland Security and FBI to inform the county auditors - hey, don't believe this misinformation. It's not true. The Albert sensor is simply a device that protects you, not a George Soros machine. Unfortunately, one county removed that system and now we're still working with that. But we are right now launching a major voter information campaign called "Vote with Confidence" - we launched it yesterday. It'll be out on TV and probably when you're pumping gas - sometimes you see those video screens that are up that's showing commercials - and on social media platforms. And basically we're going to do more than just remind people to vote because we've done a great job of reminding people to vote. Myself and the county auditors have have all done that, but what we haven't done a good job of is letting you all know what happens to your vote and how it is secure, transparent, and accessible. You may know this here, Crystal, because you're familiar with politics - that you can go to your county auditor and witness the process. You can see these ballots come in, you can see them get counted, you can see every signature being checked. But the average person doesn't know that and that's what we need to start doing. We need to start telling people - even things that are somewhat technical - that this state is part of the ERIC system, the Elections Registration Information Center, where our state is connected to other states and different databases so that if you were to move to another state and register there and fail to cancel your registration here - guess what? We're going to know about it. Don't try to vote multiple times in the same election by trying to register in different counties because guess what? We're going to catch you and we have caught people doing that. This whole myth about dead people voting - that's just not true and when it does happen on very rare occasions, it's because a spouse votes for a recently deceased loved one and maybe that spouse, before they died, said who they were going to vote for and they voted for them and they signed their ballot and guess what? We catch that. We find that out, but we have to do more though - we have to let people know what happens with their ballot and we haven't been doing that. [00:16:49] Crystal Fincher: Well, and one question I have - we have seen, and there have been reported on, inconsistencies in how rigorous people are in either checking signatures or even potentially malfeasance in checking signatures. And we saw in a report on a county in our state where people with Latino surnames had signatures that were rejected at a much higher rate than those with other names, even though it appears they were valid voters, that everything else was in order - but they seemed to be disqualified visually with the commonality that they did have a Latino surname. And questions about whether racism was at play and bias within our electoral system - what role can you as the Secretary of State play to make sure that we're implementing process and executing processes across the state, throughout all of the counties, in a consistent way? And how do you hold counties accountable to that? [00:17:48] Secretary Hobbs: Yeah, thank you for that. That was a study that came out of the State Auditor. And she had - it's very shocking - Blacks were four times as much rejected, Hispanics three times as much, Asians twice as much. Young men were actually rejected at a slightly higher rate. And our role on that one is we're taking action on it. So already we're working with the Legislature. Now we know about this data, now we got to find out why that is - and so we're doing another study with the Evans School at the University of Washington. But we're not going to stand idly by and wait for the study. There's some actions that we can take already to try to mitigate that. And one of the things that we are doing, though it won't come online for probably another - probably not 'til next year - and that is text messaging the voter the moment their ballot is rejected. Because the main reason why ballots are rejected - it actually has to do with not signing the ballot. A lot of folks just fail to sign it because they - maybe they didn't see the signature block. Or, especially those where English is not their first language, they just didn't read it because it was in English. And so you have ballot rejections happening because people fail to sign. And right now the current system is we send you mail, which - not very efficient. Counties might call you. But what we're thinking about doing and what we'd like to do is - hey, send a text message out to them right away so that they know their ballot is rejected and so they can do something about it before, and sometimes even before the Election Day. Because right now most people get their ballots cured - and the term cured is used when your signatures don't match, or you failed to sign your signature - is there's a close election and a bunch of people go into a particular Legislative District or jurisdiction and they're curing ballots because there's a campaign - the campaign is trying to get their candidate across the finish line. [00:20:12] Crystal Fincher: So now - with that, and you're trying to get voters there, you're trying to make sure every vote counts. Do you also see one of your core roles as getting more people to vote - increasing turnout and participation? And if that is, how do you plan to do that? [00:20:30] Secretary Hobbs: Oh, absolutely. I think it's very important. I think we have to constantly try to do that. It's a struggle because sometimes voters just - oh, this election is not important, so I'm not going to vote. Well, we have to constantly remind folks that, hey, elections are important, it's part of the democratic process. That's why I'm happy that the Legislature gave me the funding to not only do this voter information campaign letting people know how their ballots process, but also reminding them again - hey, don't forget you got to vote, there's an election coming up. One thing that we are trying to do to increase voter turnout and increasing the amount of people getting registered - because there's a lot of people out there who are eligible to be voters but haven't done it yet - is getting at young people before they even turn a voting age. And so we're looking at, and this is theoretical this moment, but we're going to try to really push it in the next - if given the opportunity to serve out the rest of the term - a mobile gaming app targeted at young people. Maybe it is where they vote in a fantasy setting, they vote for imaginary folks - we throw on some civics questions, and maybe they get points, and they level up - to get them jazzed up, if you will, about voting and participating in our democracy. And looking at our curriculum, because we do provide curriculum to the elementary, middle school, and high school about elections - and so maybe there's a way we can make that more exciting, maybe we team up with our local tabletop game companies here in the State of Washington and send out - in a form of a game. The other thing we need to do is reach out to our underserved communities out there. And so taking a great idea from King County, the trusted messenger program - hiring folks that come from a particular community - knowing the language, knowing the community, knowing the culture. They go out there and do the outreach necessary to get people registered to vote, and teaching them and informing them about the process of voting. I can't hire enough people to do that, so we're already looking at - well, maybe we also contract out to different organizations that do that already. I was talking to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce a couple weeks ago - maybe that's an opportunity there out in the Tri-Cities - I'm going to go visit them again on the 18th of October. But we just have to do more. I was very excited - we started because COVID is slowly getting manageable - we were able to go to the July 4th naturalization ceremony in Seattle and we registered about 300 new citizens. And that is exciting - we're going to be at those events as well. [00:23:41] Crystal Fincher: So in a debate early in this race, you shared your view that we shouldn't change our electoral process to ranked choice voting, which is on the ballot in a handful of jurisdictions in our state, or approval voting - because you had concerns that some people already have issues with trust in our system and making changes might make that problem even worse. Is not making changes because of a fear of misinformation a valid reason not to explore changes? Or should we be investing in things that help make the process more clear to people, especially if it's going to update them on a voting system that should increase turnout? How did you come to that decision? [00:24:19] Secretary Hobbs: Well, Crystal, it basically - it comes to the fact that I've been in this job for a while, I've seen the amount of disinformation that's going out there. There's a King 5 poll that showed 35% of Washingtonians didn't trust the 2020 election - that's Washingtonians. And looking at the voter turnout - right now our system is pretty easy - you vote for the person that you like and it's one vote. Under ranked choice voting, you have an algorithm, you rank people. And at this particular moment in time, when you have this amount of disinformation going on and you have the situation in our own - US capital and or state capital - really now is not the time to do something like that. But one thing that I get very concerned about, and this is my own personal connection to this, is that you're asking people to vote in a foreign way, something completely different. And that we have a huge population of people where English is not their first language. And so now you are going to disenfranchise a group of people. And that's something we certainly do not want to happen. I think about my own mother who naturalized to this country - English is not her first language - and I can't imagine if you go back in time and all of a sudden you said - hey, vote ranked choice voting, and you didn't have a voter's guide or any explanation to her in her language, it'd be very difficult. I also think about my son. I have a - my middle son, Truman, who's got a cognitive disability. It's very easy for him to vote because I show him the ballot and I show him the voter's guide and I go - hey, Truman, all you do is you color in the bubble to the person that you like. And for Truman, a lot of it's visual - he's going to look at the picture, he's not going to do a lot of reading. And by the way, he has every right to vote. If you have a disability, that shouldn't prevent you from voting. [00:26:29] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. [00:26:30] Secretary Hobbs: He is going to have a hard time doing ranked choice voting. It's just not possible for him. And so I know the advocates out there pushing the ranked choice voting, but let's not disenfranchise a whole group of people out there. They may not be the majority, but they're out there and we shouldn't disenfranchise them. Also, I don't know what this is solving. I really don't. We have the most diverse legislative body right now under the current system of voting, a very diverse city council if you live in the City of Seattle. I'm not quite sure what this is trying to solve. But I will say this because I know that there has been - people say, oh, well, he's not going to help us out when we do ranked choice voting. That's not true. My job as Secretary of State is to support the elections in the state and local municipalities. And that is exactly what I'll do if a municipality or county chooses to do ranked choice voting. But I am telling you and I am asking the citizens, please pause and think about it before you choose ranked choice voting, because there are other people out there that may not get it. It may be difficult to understand. Let's not leave them out in the cold and let's think about our democracy right now with the amount of misinformation that's out there. [00:27:59] Crystal Fincher: Well, and I guess I should ask a clarifying question because ranked choice voting is certainly one reform or change that is on the ballot. There's also another change currently on the ballot in a jurisdiction this year - approval voting. We see different methods of voting - one, just in our neighbor to the south in Portland - there they have a different type of voting on the ballot for their city this year. We're seeing a number of different types. So is your opposition strictly to ranked choice voting or to any of the kinds of changes, whether it's ranked choice or approval voting or any kind of change that would be made? [00:28:36] Secretary Hobbs: It's right now - this particular moment in time - is any kind of change, unless you can find a way where you're going to get the word out to those individuals where English is not their first language, where they've got cognitive disabilities, and the fact - hey, is this vulnerable to a misinformation? Because right now, if there's a close election, you just count out the votes and whoever has the most votes wins. That's how it's done, right - in close races. But let's say it's ranked choice voting or preferred voting - it gets slightly complicated. In ranked choice voting, you're basing it upon an algorithm. And so now, what's going to happen? Well, what's going to happen is you're going to have a group of individuals who didn't get their way, and they're going to say, oh, this algorithm got hacked, which is not true. This algorithm, written by George Soros, and again, not true. But that's what's going to happen. [00:29:36] Crystal Fincher: Well, I don't know that I would call it an algorithm, but a different method of tabulation and rounds of tabulation. [00:29:42] Secretary Hobbs: Well, that's what we call it - it doesn't make it a bad thing. It just - that's what it is. There's nothing wrong with it. I'm just saying to you that you just leave yourself vulnerable to misinformation that could attack it. [00:29:59] Crystal Fincher: I got you - but I think the underlying, as you pointed out, related concern is they are on the ballot and those changes may be made in places. And so the role of - again, in the implementation of these things - certainly there can be a lot of challenges that are introduced with implementation - how well just the system itself is implemented, and how well residents are trained and informed and educated before it happens. Do you plan on playing a role in that and being an advocate for voting and participating in the system should one of those be implemented? [00:30:41] Secretary Hobbs: Well, we have to - that's the role. I can't not do that as Secretary of State. I have to make sure that these - if a local jurisdiction chooses this form of election, then of course, we're going to be there to support it. [00:30:59] Crystal Fincher: And so I do want to talk about - we've talked about elections - and that's, to most people, the most visible thing that you're involved with as Secretary of State. But my goodness, you have a lot more responsibilities than that - just going down the list, aside from dealing with elections and initiatives and referendums - producing and distributing the Voters' Pamphlet and any legal advertising; registering private corporations, limited partnerships and trademarks; registering individuals, organizations and commercial fundraisers involved in charitable solicitations; administering the State's address confidentiality program, which is really important for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking; collecting and preserving the historical records of the state and making those records available for research; coordinating implementation of the State's records management laws; affixing the State seal and attesting to commissions, pardons and other documents to which the signature of the governor is required; regulating use of the State seal, which came in handy in another state - there was a whole thing about - that is an important and relevant thing. Filing and attesting to official acts of the Legislature or governor and certifying to the Legislature all matters legally required to be certified. You're also frequently called upon to represent the State of Washington in international trade and cultural missions, and greet and confer with dignitaries and delegations visiting the State of Washington from other countries. This is a big, big job and my goodness, you have your hands full with just elections, but there are so many other things underneath the umbrella of your responsibility. How do you both focus on elections and all of the other stuff? And how has this gone so far? [00:32:47] Secretary Hobbs: Well, I've got a great staff and I got great people who manage these different divisions. Thank you for mentioning those other things because sometimes my employees that are in libraries and corporations and nonprofits and legacy - which is history of Washington State - not to mention our CFD, our Combined Fund Drive - sometimes they feel neglected. My Secretary of State's office is about nearly 300 people and 22 people occupy Elections. There's a lot more that we do than just elections and I love it. I actually love the other side. It's very therapeutic to me because there's not the controversy that's involved in those other aspects. Libraries are near and dear to my heart. In fact, we have libraries in every state institution - our state prisons and our state hospital. I'm proud to announce that we're actually going into our state juvenile detention facilities, which we haven't done, and I'm glad we're doing that. It's about time - they should be in there. What I'm going to do and what I'm starting to do is use our state libraries as a place for rehabilitation - getting folks who are incarcerated, giving them the skills necessary when they leave the prison. We really haven't done that in the past and I'm looking forward to doing that. I get it's not going to be a lot of people, but you know what? Let's not let that space go to waste. I'm also excited using libraries as a place where we can provide therapy for the incarcerated. I'm working with, or talking with, some of the tabletop gaming companies - the use of RPGs and gaming as a form of therapy is an opportunity for us - to have that in our state libraries, so I'm looking at that. We team up with rural libraries and community libraries out there in Washington State - we're looking at doing more of that - creating game libraries out in the rural communities. They do it in Vancouver and in Spokane - they actually have game libraries where you can go and play games and it's an opportunity to create a safe space for young people out there in rural communities where a library is the only place where they can go to. And of course, corporations, charities - you had mentioned that. We are on the verge of creating satellite offices so that you don't have to drive all the way to Olympia if you have a problem with your corporate filings and your nonprofit filings, so I'm looking forward to that. People shouldn't have to drive to Olympia if they're having major problems. And there's a lot of people out there just - it's hard for them to navigate the internet, especially those who are older. So we're doing a lot out there with the other agencies of my office, so thank you for bringing it up. [00:35:53] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And so there are a few things - so many things we could talk about - these are all things that have areas, they're crucially important, they require deep expertise. You are there, and as in many departments and in many areas, there are very professional, dedicated, experienced staff who keep this running between and across administrations who are crucial to the work. But there are conversations about how important having a leader with experience in these types of work is. And that's been one of the areas that your opponent, Julie Anderson, has talked about as an advantage that she has in this race - as an auditor who, in addition to dealing with elections, also deals with a broad portfolio of responsibilities - that she has experience with many of these things, in addition to elections. And decades of experience she talks about, and that it's important to have that kind of experience in elections and in these other areas in the office, and saying you don't have it. How do you respond to that? [00:37:06] Secretary Hobbs: Well, I would say that clearly she doesn't know my background. And again, I offer anyone to look at my background, but I've been in the military for 33 years. And I've had varying levels of experience in the military leadership - commanded recently a 750 joint task force dealing with COVID support operations in Western Washington. That is far more employees than I even have now as Secretary of State, far more than what Julie Anderson has in her office doing multiple tasks. And that's just not just one thing - commanding companies and commanding battalion-level units - multiple people in a unit. Also, the the fact that I'm doing it right now. I've been running the Secretary of State's office for almost a year, and no complaints - I really haven't heard any major complaints from anybody. And it's been a blast doing it, using my skills - not just in the military - but having a Master's in Public Administration, my service in the State Senate. It's not easy being Chair of Transportation and managing that very large budget and navigating legislation. So I have more than enough skill, right now, in this office. Again, I just invite you to look at the backgrounds of each of us. [00:38:41] Crystal Fincher: Which makes sense. And so within those, what are you doing to preserve historical records, which is one of the things within the state - especially as we see in some areas, there are people who are much less interested in the preservation of historical records. And sometimes challenging that and attacking that at the federal level, bleeding down to other levels. And how do you make those records more readily available to the public than they are today? [00:39:09] Secretary Hobbs: Ah, yes. Well, so one of the things that we're doing - and it's challenging, because we just have so much paper records right now - digitizing all those records. So we're trying to provide more, hiring more people to do that, hiring better equipment. Just as I got into office, I traveled all - most, pretty much all the state archives buildings, except for one - talking to rank and file there. When I went to Bellingham, I talked to the archives folks there. And they were telling me, Hey, we need a large scanner to be more efficient, because right now we got to take - so you got to scan sometimes larger maps and stuff, you got to send it all the way to Olympia. It's well, let's see if we can purchase and get you a scanner so that you can do it there to make things more efficient. So those are the things I've been looking at. And of course, being able to have access to that online is very important to me. And digitizing our records is just one small part in keeping our records, but also telling the story about our state. As the state archives, I have the - we have the State Constitution, we have these old documents, and they shouldn't be behind a vault, a dark vault. People should see this, so I'm again, this is theoretical, and hopefully I have to get the Legislature's funding approval on this. But I'd like to bring these artifacts out, this history out, and travel the state and show people, show young people - visit, maybe, the high schools and elementary schools - hey, this is the history of our state. We're building a new library, and we're going to put a lot of info - not just our archives in there and books, but the state's history and the state's culture - let's tell the story about, especially in my community - I'm an Asian American, there's the Japanese that were put into camps. Let's talk about that story. Let's talk about Native, our Native peoples in this state - how we took their land and how they were struggling, and now they've become a political power in this state and how great that is, and how they have educated us on the environment - saving salmon. We need to tell these stories, and I've been looking at using our archives and our libraries to develop - not competition with you, of course - but doing a podcast. [00:41:35] Crystal Fincher: I'm all for it. I'm all for it. [00:41:38] Secretary Hobbs: Yeah, and talk and do it in the style of YouTube and Twitch, so there's interaction there at the same time. And I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here, because I forgot to mention this, but - the listeners out there, if you're really into podcasts, there's one called Ear Hustle, which is a podcast ran by those incarcerated in the California penal system. And I want to do that here in the State of Washington. I want the prisoners to do their own podcasts to talk about how they got there, and how is life behind bars, and how they're changing themselves for the better. No, I really want to bring to life, light, what is going on in Washington State. [00:42:26] Crystal Fincher: So is it fair to say that you would want to - we have our physical libraries, we have our archives across and around the state - that you want to also create a digital library that is accessible to researchers, to the public - to see these artifacts. I was on a different site reading treaties, actually, that are incredibly interesting - to see what was promised and agreed to, and what actually wound up being delivered - which are in most cases, two very different things. But is that what you're looking to do - to be able to have people access, have access to these things - to view, to see - virtually as well as in-person? [00:43:08] Secretary Hobbs: Oh, yes, absolutely. You can do some of that already. But man, we have so much - so much archives. I was up in, again, the Bellingham one, and I pulled out this old, dusty, large leatherbound book. And I opened it up - a lot of the pages were empty. I just kept on turning the page, turning the page, and finally a page came up, and there was this story. It was very funny - it was nice handwriting - it basically said something like, Laura Smith marries David Hamilton, and two chickens, a cow, and some land was exchanged, or something like that. That, I don't know, I geek out over that. I think that's totally cool. It was a story of, obviously, a wedding, because we counties always record marriages, and that was recorded before the days of statehood in our territorial days. So all that needs to be preserved, that needs to be digitized, and we all need to see it. I think that's fantastic. [00:44:09] Crystal Fincher: All right - so we have heard from several municipalities, several reporters in municipalities about challenges with record management. And this is another part of your portfolio - records management across the state, which is also really related to the ability to deliver on public records requests, public disclosure requests - the ability to do that. And how many challenges there are within the system - hearing from municipalities and from reporters across the state that wait times for documents, for discovering whether something exists or doesn't exist, for records that should have been retained that have been deleted - creating lots of challenges for - really the goal of retaining a record is so you can be able to access the information. And so people who are entitled to that information, including the public, can access their information. We are seeing so many challenges with that right now - in the length of time it takes to fulfill requests, in the consistency of how records are retained and managed. What can you do to improve that? [00:45:15] Secretary Hobbs: Well, just like I said last time, I just got to get more people to do the digitization of our records and better equipment - especially the older documents - to have that scanned in. But the other thing that we've been noticing, Crystal, and maybe your listeners out there might know this - is the weaponization of the public records requests, where you have somebody making an outrageous request of a government agency to simply overwhelm them. And we have seen the rise of that as well, which is unfortunate, because that is not what the public records laws were meant to do. It was meant for transparency, not to overwhelm a local government with a frivolous request. Which is unfortunate - local governments and our own state government are struggling to try to keep up, but we have to be transparent, and that's what we constantly are trying to do. [00:46:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and even that area is a big challenge. For the person making the request, it's always interesting, but I think there have been some instances - certainly that I can recall - where someone who disagrees with the nature of the request, or maybe it's from some political - people who disagree with decisions that they've made before, or reporters who are simply investigating what is going on - being characterized as malicious, but seemingly making some standard requests. Now, there are certainly bad actors out there, but that is not the entirety of the issue. And so for - looking at implementing records management processes across the state, assisting municipalities with that - is there anything that can be done? Is it a situation where truly - sure, we have these retention policies, we have to save this, but if we don't have the staff, then that's just it. And ultimately, then the public does not get access to information that they're entitled to. Are we really relying on allocations of funding from the Legislature and from other levels of government to be able to deliver upon this really basic entitlement that the public has? [00:47:32] Secretary Hobbs: Well, there's certainly attempts and technology changes to make this easier, but it does come down sometimes to people. And so that is a struggle. But we've done a really good job of meeting the public records requests ourselves in our own - we're a separately elected agency - but some of these small towns and cities are, they're having some challenges out there. [00:48:02] Crystal Fincher: Well, as we get close to wrapping up our time here, as voters are considering who they're going to choose in this election and trying to weigh - okay, I'm hearing arguments on one side, I'm hearing arguments from the opponent. Why should I choose you, and what am I going to see that's different, or what will I not see that's different - if they vote for you? What do you say to voters who are undecided as they consider this decision? [00:48:33] Secretary Hobbs: What I would say to them is the Office of Secretary of State has changed. It has changed across the United States and those offices as well. It's not one that it just simply works with the counties to manage, oversee, and support elections. It is now one where you have to protect democracy, you have to protect elections from threats of misinformation and cyber threats. And I am the only candidate that has the background to do that - with my background in the military, having served in the NSA, with my background of being a Public Affairs Officer, being a graduate of Department of Defense Information School, knowing how to combat misinformation and combat cyber threats. Also, the fact that I can work across the aisle and have done so in my 15 years in the State Senate - it's the one of the reasons why I have Republican endorsements and why I've been endorsed by organizations that typically oppose each other, like the Association of Washington Business and the Washington State Labor Council. Also, we need to have somebody that understands and can speak for those communities that are underserved and underrepresented. I'm a son of an Asian immigrant. I am the first API member that's ever been Secretary of State, and I'm the only statewide official who's a person of color. We need to have somebody that represents them as well. And lastly, I ask you this - because in all these elections, when you're trying to get rid of someone, is that person just not working for you? Are they not doing a good job? I've been in this office for almost a year. Are there any complaints? If the horse is getting you to the place where you need to go to, and the horse is a good horse and strong and improving, why change horses? We've done, like I said, we've handled three fairly large misinformation campaigns that - reported in NPR and NBC News. We've had two special elections in a statewide primary, and those have gone smoothly. And then you've heard in this episode here about what I want to do with other aspects of the office, such as libraries and corporations and legacy. So if you're happy with those things, there's really no need to change. And so I'm hoping that you will give me a chance to do the full term. And just to think of the improvements that I can do in the next two years. And of course, I'm always going to be there to defend democracy, defend elections, because I did it for real in Kosovo and Iraq, and I'm doing it now as your Secretary of State. [00:51:34] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much for joining us today, for having this conversation, and for letting the voters get to know you a little bit more. Much appreciated. Thank you so much. [00:51:42] Secretary Hobbs: Thank you. [00:51:43] Crystal Fincher: Thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. Our assistant producer is Shannon Cheng, and our post-production assistant is Bryce Cannatelli. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks, and you can follow me @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered right to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Seattleites may feel safe in their neighborhoods but they tend to avoid going downtown due to crime and homelessness, according to a new poll. The survey sent a clear message to City Hall that voters have become frustrated with the lack of progress cleaning up the downtown core. Pollster and political strategist Ron Dotzauer helps us break down the numbers. PLUS: The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the US Capitol held what could be its final hearing, and it unveiled some shocking new video before issuing a subpoena to the former president. AND: Is the White House creating a 'Biden Doctrine' of foreign policy? Guests include Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, political strategist Ron Dotzauer, as well as ABC's Faith Abubey and Andy Field. The Northwest Politicast with Jeff Pohjola: From this Washington to that one, Jeff Pohjola will explore the issues and politics of the week. Frequent guests and top analysts break down the news to get to the heart of what matters most. Subscribe at nwnewsradio.com or on your favorite podcast app.

Incumbent Secretary of State Steve Hobbs joins the Citizen Tacoma podcast to talk about his run to retain his seat. We discuss election administration, the challenges of election disinformation, ranked choice voting, and the other duties of the office. Give it a listen! Links Elect Steve Hobbs Channel 253 membership

1pm - The Fastest 15 // Murray/Smiley debate update // Patty Murray goes to a little coffee shop on Cap Hill and calls it safe // Biden on gas prices // GUEST:  Secretary of State Steve Hobbs on Washington election integrity // Kamala vs VEEP // College name change controversySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

THE THESIS: It was never about Alex Jones. It was about you. The Party is tired of being questioned, they demand we obey. Since that has proven difficult to achieve, they are doing that against which George Orwell warned: they are disappearing not just questioners, but the knowledge required to be an informed skeptic: how can we debate Covid policy when people have been conned into believing we don't have immune systems? Can Americans have an honest debate about race when “whiteness” and its inherent, “original pseudo-sin”  is government policy? Not only is this a tyrannical act of mental abuse, it is distinctly ungodly.   THE SCRIPTURE & SCRIPTURAL RESOURCES:  The Bible is filled with people questioning and even trying to debate God. Notice that neither God, The Father or the second member of The Trinity, Jesus Chist banned debate or went around punishing questioners. I found the references in the article helpful.  Is it Wrong to Question God?; God loves every questioner regardless of our motives in the question. Our questions to God should be asked with a respectful and humble attitude of faith. The ultimate answer to every life's question is found in Jesus Christ. THE NEWS & COMMENT: Just minutes after posting new footage of the NY Times good friend, Ray Epps yelling at people to go to the Capital, the Twitter account was deleted. I got the audio before Twitter zapped it. It's in the show, but I cannot link to it.  Oddly enough, I was planning to discuss how the government's social media publishers--remember: they are not platforms--are banning any promotion of a film about Alex Jones. This isn't a film by, Alex Jones, it's not a movie promoting Jones, nor does it attack him (or so I am led to believe). Still, all of The Party's social media publishers refused to let the producers advertise it . . . but, wait until the hilariously good news about that! [AUDIO] - Facebook, Google censor Alex Jones documentary; Flo Read spoke to director Alex Lee Moyer about the suppression of her film Alex Lee Moyer is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker whose films have appeared at Sundance and SWSX festivals. Her latest movie — made with independent production company Play Nice — is called Alex's War. It is an investigation of Alex Jones, but despite it only being on only out on pre-sale, she has already found that her attempts to market the film have been blocked by the social media giants because of the controversial subject matter. According to Play Nice, when the team first released the documentary trailer, they were blocked by Instagram from adding paid promotion of it. Even posts screenshotting a Washington Post article that mentioned Alex's War was rejected. They were informed they were being rejected to ‘protect our community.' Three times this week, important, relevant news has broken while I was recording the show. This time, just as I was going through The Party's banning of the name Alex Jones, the German government was finally forced to admit what everyone in the Podcast family knows: huge numbers of people are being injured by the mRNA injections.  Of course, The Party has obviously banned all mention of that in America using threats against peoples's careers and medical licenses.  The German government admits hundreds of thousands of people have had severe side effects following mRNA shots; The risk-benefit of the Covid vaccines is getting worse and worse and worse We all know that only Democrats get to question election integrity (because Mitch McConnell and Kevin Mccarthy are moral cowards, afraid to even ask the obvious questions). Things are now reaching a truly funny level of desperation from The Party. In the separate Country of Washington, the new Secretary of State who replaced “Republican” Kym Wyman, who has joined the Biden regime, is giving a presentation where he will predict what lies we are going to tell about the election. From his email to the media:  “Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, the Office of the Secretary of State Elections Division, and the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, will be hosting an in-person roundtable to discuss likely false narratives surrounding the 2022 elections in Washington state.” The “Center for an Informed Public” still pretends the injections stop transmission and infection; they still pretend Washington's dictator, Jay Inslee hasn't been twice caught lying about Cobvid deaths. That will make it easier for them to pretend elections there are safe and secure. How could I utter such a conspiracy theory? Because of things like this: How a napkin can be counted as a vote in Washington, and why election officials say it's secure John Solomon has a write-up on election integrity worth bookmarking:  21 reasons to distrust the 2020 elections PS: good thing illegals won't get to vote . . .  House Republicans Demand Answers on Reports of Federal Resources Used to Transport Illegal Immigrant Minors to Get Abortions; “This outrageous use of federal resources to transport minors across state lines for abortions or otherwise providing or facilitating abortions in DHS or HHS custody is a heinous act and must be stopped.” All of these very obvious acts of censorship by The Party caused me to ponder just how much has been disappeared from us. In the show, I go into great depth about how The Party has stolen from 90% of Americans any real understanding of the spiritual battle, which makes articles like this scary for people to read. And, it connect back to why my show is not allowed to advertise on Facebook: we talk about the things that are never to be discussed and ask questions not to be asked. I have severe disagreements with Alex Jones, buy seeing the mere mention of his name banned has caused me to decide I need to spend time listening to him. Because, something tells me, while I will still have major disagreements with him given my personal history, I will hear a man who is often spot-on about The Party.  The Demonic Origins of Planned Parenthood, Part I: A Darwinian Sex Cult The Demonic Origins of Planned Parenthood, Part II: Channeling Dark Spirits, Sacrificing Children See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join Indivisibles across WA state to meet our Secretary of State, Steve Hobbs, our first Democrat to hold the position in nearly 60 years. The Secretary of State is responsible for Election & Cyber Security, Open Records, Archives, the State Library, and Corporations & Charities. But what comes most to mind these days is the focus on cybersecurity. We'll talk about how Secretary Hobbs' background in cyber security and excellent state relationships is increasing the security of our state records, including elections. Join us to learn all about this critical state office.

We talk about our elections with new WA Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and discuss election security, how to vote, important dates and more. Then UW professor Jevin West updates us on the misinformation and disinformation surrounding the 2022 elections. More info at aarp.org/wavotes.

Secretary of State Steve Hobbs discusses his plans to fight misinformation and what the failure to pass voting rights legislation means for Washington state.  Election security has been making a lot of headlines recently, but the integrity of the ballot has been an issue for more than five years now.  It has become a major course of national anxiety and, for some, Washington state is a kind of antidote. The state's mail-in voting system was viewed as a model during the 2020 election for states looking at ways to assure access and security for their voters.  As Washington's newly appointed secretary of state, Steve Hobbs is responsible for  maintaining that reputation while advancing efforts to bolster cybersecurity and fighting misinformation.  For this week's episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, Hobbs discusses his plans for the office, the threats Washington state faces and how the failure to pass voting rights legislation at the federal level impacts his work at the state level. This interview was recorded at 10am PST on January 18, 2022. --- Credits Host: Mark Baumgarten Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara Engineers: Seth Halleran, Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph