Investigations, analysis, and editorial connecting findings to policy.
Washington's #1 political contributor for the last decade isn't Microsoft, Amazon, or Boeing. It's a home care workers' union, and it's not even close. How SEIU 775 deploys ~$30 million in net political spending, funds 175 candidates per cycle, and places two key legislators at the controls of its full legislative pipeline.
A state payroll tax, a workforce, an automatic dues stream, and a $13 million campaign to defend the whole arrangement. How WA Cares funds its own political defense.
Seattle's JumpStart payroll tax was enacted in 2020 as dedicated revenue for housing, climate, equity, and small business. Six years and $1.5 billion later, the dedications have been converted to suggestions and most of the money is filling the general fund.
Seattle voters have approved property tax levies that will collect $570 million in 2026, more than four times what they collected in 2014. The library levy on the August ballot pushes the city toward a state-mandated cap.
Moody's revised Washington's outlook from stable to negative. The diagnosis is structural: spending outpacing revenue, reserves nearly depleted, and a tax the legislature is budgeting around while it sits in court.
Two funding windfalls, one institutional pattern: how Washington school districts converted temporary money into permanent obligations.
A forensic audit found $533.9 million in public funds passed through the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. The deeper finding is that the agency could not reliably trace any of it.