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We Ran the Rent Numbers on Portland’s 7 Newly Legal Home Options
After a seven-year campaign, Portland on Sunday formally lifted a series of 97-year-old bans on seven different types of homes. Becoming legal today on the vast majority of residential lots in Portland: a duplex, a triplex, a fourplex, a mixed-income or below-market sixplex, a large group co-living home, a double ADU, and a tiny backyard home on wheels. Sunday, August 1, is the effective date for a series of reforms...Read more » -
Washington State Leads the Nation on Climate Action
Eight years into Jay Inslee’s tenure, he finally signed a bill capping statewide climate pollution. The Climate Commitment Act (CCA), or SB-5126, passed the Senate by a 27-22 vote with one day left in the legislative session. The bill implements the most aggressive statewide cap and invest system in the nation, and will be a critical tool to meet Washington’s recently updated emissions reduction targets. Many variations of pollution caps...Read more » -
You’ve Heard of the 300+ Bills to Limit Voting Rights, but Have You Heard of the 700+ Bills Expanding Rights?
State lawmakers have had mixed reaction to the record-high voter turnout in 2020. Some Republicans, egged on by Donald Trump’s Big Lie, have panicked at the specter of millions of Americans voting and introduced bills aimed at throttling those voters back. Other state lawmakers, mostly Democrats but with a few Republicans joining in, are attempting to keep voters engaged by implementing best practice for protecting voting rights. Georgia has become...Read more » -
Nobody Should Have to File Taxes to Get Cash for their Kid
If you don’t enjoy filing your taxes each year, please imagine trying to get around to it while dealing with an eviction. Or trying to document your income from five different gigs, two of which were paid in cash and three of which ended months ago. Or trying to do it from jail. And let’s add that in each of these scenarios, you’re a single parent. Scenarios like those are...Read more » -
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The United States Can Become a Democracy After All! Let’s Start with A Simple Fix for the Electoral College
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Permanent Child Payments Would Deal a Historic Blow to Poverty
Like a tree twisted by a shadow above it, everything about anti-poverty policy in the United States has been shaped by one unusual decision: not to give poor people cash. Want housing, but can’t afford it? Join a voucher waitlist. (Oh, and also sign up separately to 17 other waitlists for particular buildings or organizations.) Launched a small business and need to eat while it grows? Sorry, your state might...Read more » -
YIMBYism Means Legalizing Very Cheap Homes, Too
The recipe for solving a housing crisis has various ingredients. But one essential ingredient is simple: Housing has to be legal. The modern urban pro-housing movement—the YIMBY movement, as it’s sometimes known—spends a lot of effort trying to lift our cities’ widespread bans on mid-cost homes like fourplexes, backyard cottages, and apartments. This movement is increasingly successful, which is great. Legalizing homes of all shapes and sizes in all neighborhoods...Read more » -
Citizens of Washington Take Up Climate Change Solutions
Washingtonians are worried about climate change. Elected officials and advocates have tried to answer their call with statewide climate action. Governor Jay Inslee pushed for the Carbon Pollution Accountability Act that would have limited pollution and reinvested auction revenue in the state, but lawmakers shot it down. Grassroots activists put Initiative 732 on the ballot in 2016 to tax climate pollution and return the revenues to people and businesses, but...Read more » -
A Timeline of Oil Train Derailments In Pictures
The Northwest dodged a bullet December 22, 2020, when yet another oil train derailed and caught fire. By the end of the disaster in Custer, Washington, the derailment spilled 29,000 gallons of crude oil from North Dakota, much of which burned in the ensuing blaze that lasted a full eight hours. Cleanup crews did the best they could, but as much as 8,000 gallons of crude oil will continue to...Read more »