Week in Review: January 9, 2026 - with Robert Cruickshank

“Report: Federal immigration agents continued using Washington driver data through state-run system” by Sharon Yoo from King 5

“New Year, New City Hall: Progressives Take Office, City Council Reorganizes” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola

“SPD Chief Sent Email Overstating New Drug Diversion Policy, Sparking False Narrative in Right-Wing Media” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola

“Erika Evans Takes City Attorney Oath, SPOG Goes on Attack” by Amy Sundberg from The Urbanist

“Controversial Seattle police union leader Mike Solan to step down” by Scott Greenstone from KUOW

“Ferguson backs income tax on WA residents earning over $1M” by Jake Goldstein-Street from Washington State Standard

“Ferguson’s 2026 Budget Queues Steep Cuts, Pushes Millionaires Tax to 2029” by Amy Sundberg from The Urbanist

“WA schools Superintendent Reykdal criticizes Ferguson’s proposed cuts” by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times

“WA health care groups raise alarm over Ferguson budget” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times

“WA crisis centers are in jeopardy without more funding, officials warn” by Taylor Blatchford from The Seattle Times

“A budget ‘rat hole’? Political fight over WA climate money intensifies” by Conrad Swanson from The Seattle Times

“Ferguson Proposes ‘Unprecedented Sweep’ of Climate Dollars to Balance State Budget” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist

“Washington state’s climate-fighting claim is hot air, officials admit” by John Ryan from KUOW

“Liberal Oregon and Washington Vowed to Pioneer Green Energy. Almost Every Other State Is Beating Them.” by Tony Schick and Monica Samayoa from ProPublica

Find stories that Crystal is reading here

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[00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. 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.

Today we're 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: chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. Welcome back!

[00:00:47] Robert Cruickshank: Happy New Year and thanks for having me again, Crystal.

[00:00:49] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Happy New Year! Wishing everybody a Happy New Year. But this year is not off to the happiest of starts - my goodness, we are not. And so just - been a really busy news week - want to start off just by talking about news that Washington is still providing driver data to federal immigration authorities. And this is happening amidst a backdrop of the Minneapolis ICE murder that we saw just yesterday, and just a real jarring week and type of news. So what did we find out about this driver data that Washington is still providing to federal authorities?

[00:01:35] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, so ICE, Border Patrol, those agencies - when they go into a city, including here in Seattle, they're not just driving around at random grabbing people off the street. They're tracking people using data that they get from a number of different sources, one of which is state governments. And what has been happening for the last year is that they've been getting data from the state of Washington, particularly the Department of Licensing - driver's license data, car registration data, license plate data. And when this first came out into the news several months ago - Governor Ferguson said he was appalled, department heads of DOL and others said they were appalled, they wouldn't do it. But it turns out it kept happening. And through the fall, ICE was still getting this information from the state of Washington through different sources and using it to go grab people off the street. And again, the state DOL and others are saying, back in November - Oh, we've cut it off. They, ICE shouldn't be getting this from us anymore. But they still do. And it raises a ton of questions. Is this willful by someone going rogue in state government? Is this a case of Governor Ferguson and other leaders saying the right things in public, but not really doing much behind the scenes to crack down on it? It's unclear what's happening behind the scenes, but we see the impact very clearly - which is that this data, which is supposed to, by state law, stay out of the hands of ICE, is still getting into the hands of ICE and helping them go do the awful things they're doing in Seattle.

And, you know, what happened in Minneapolis this week is Renee Nicole Good and her wife were driving after dropping their six-year-old off at school. They saw ICE having used this type of information in Minneapolis to grab somebody. They pulled over and got their camera out to video what was going on. A ICE agent came to confront them and then opened fire, killing her. So this data that goes from the state of Washington to ICE creates these type of situations in which people are taken off the street, abducted, thrown into prison camps, deported, and the situation where ICE agents can open fire on civilians observing it.

[00:03:54] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And it feels like we're playing a game of whac-a-mole with data. Some of the reporting pointed out that - yes, they tightened up a couple of systems, but there are still several more that hand over the same data. And it really seems like the safeguards that authorities felt like they put in place, that we so often hear from city and local officials when they implement license plate readers, security cameras that are collecting information and they say - Oh, you know, we have safeguards around it. We aren't passing that along. Those just seem to be wholly insufficient. And this data lives in so many different places that it seems like it's inevitable that it gets caught up - that seems like what we've experienced so far.

[00:04:39] Robert Cruickshank: Well, that's exactly right. And it raises the question of - is enough being done by the governor and by our state's leaders to close those loopholes, to close those leaks, to ensure that that data stays out of ICE's hands as it is supposed to stay out of their hands?

[00:04:54] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And then asking the question - if we can't keep data secure that we're collecting, do we have the business to be collecting it in the first place? Should we be reexamining our local surveillance policies and infrastructure and say - Hey, we're having such a problem keeping this information secure and keeping it from being weaponized that it seems like the safest and most prudent action in some cases is just to stop the collection of the data if we can't keep it safe.

[00:05:22] Robert Cruickshank: Well, that's exactly right. And that goes back to debates that Seattle and other cities around Puget Sound have had over the course of 2025 about the Flock cameras, automated license plate readers, things like that. And governments will say - Oh, we're taking steps to ensure that it stays out of the wrong hands. Well, I'm sorry - it's not working. It's not staying out of the wrong hands. And so, the surveillance cameras and other information need to be not only better protected, but I think these types of surveillance cameras - the automated license plate readers, in particular - we're putting people at risk by using those.

[00:05:56] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, we're getting this news at the beginning of a legislative session. There is time and it seems like the responsibility and obligation to take action from the legislative perspective. Certainly Governor Ferguson and state officials are responsible for correcting this information and being accountable for this. This demands action. We need to see Washington residents being protected and that our officials are held to the words and assurances that they've provided us. Now, I want to talk about happier news this week. We had a number of new Seattle elected officials inaugurated over the past week. What did we see and what stood out to you through those inaugurations?

[00:06:41] Robert Cruickshank: Crystal, you and I were both there in City Hall last Friday for Katie Wilson's inauguration. I wasn't able to make Erika Evans' inauguration or that of Dionne Foster, Alexis Mercedes Rinck earlier this week. But just hearing from the people who were there, as well as what we experienced at Katie Wilson's inauguration, is hope. And I think that it is crucially important to have that hope, especially with all the awful things we're seeing in Minneapolis and in Washington DC and in Venezuela and everywhere else. What these new elected officials are showing us is what a better future looks like. Someday Trump will be gone, someday MAGA will be defeated. Hopefully that day comes very soon. And when it does, we're going to have to rebuild and reconstruct this country. And what we are now seeing in Seattle with our new mayor, with our new city attorney, with these new city councilmembers is what that can be - that promise.

And the part I think that stood out to most people is Katie Wilson, in her inaugural address, talking for a moment about the civic vision that she has. And she quoted from the "Bread and Roses" movement from the early 1900s. She said - We need to be a city where you can take time to just look at the clouds, to read a book, to spend time with your family. That it should not be all about the pursuit of wealth. We need bread, but we need roses too - is what she said. And that harks back to the phrase "Bread and Roses" used by the suffragist movement, women's rights advocates, the labor movement. There was a "Bread and Roses" strike in Massachusetts in 1911. And what it meant was - Yeah, we need bread. We need wages. We need healthcare. We need to be able to afford rent. But we need the roses too. We need to be able to enjoy our life. And it's harder to enjoy that life these days - not just because of the affordability, but because of all the awful things we're seeing happening. And what Katie Wilson was laying out as our mayor is that - yeah, she's absolutely laser focused on that bread piece - affordability, public safety, getting homeless folks out of tents and into shelter. But she's also recognizing there's a larger purpose to all of this - that we can live wonderful, happy lives in our city and in our country. And that - what she's done is given us hope and a goal, something that we should be working toward - not just the elimination of MAGA from our country, but that better future, that more hopeful future. And that's something that hopefully we can all hold in our minds and in our hearts as we're struggling through the awful things happening around the country and around the world right now.

[00:09:16] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. There's also, I think, a sense - it's so interesting - we, in the last administration, "One Seattle" was a term that we heard a lot. And it actually, Katie Wilson - I think I heard Amy Sundberg maybe make this point - painted a different vision, in that Seattle is many different people and many different stories. All of whom are valuable and all of whom are welcome. And that over - certainly locally and nationally, it's not isolated to Seattle - a lot of people felt like maybe Seattle wasn't a city that could include them anymore, whether it was because of affordability because of social hostilities. And really a concerted effort from Mayor Wilson to say this is a city for everyone. And backed up by the people who she had on the stage with her with an inauguration - Somali immigrants, transportation, transit activists, climate activists, long-time community members from neighborhoods and communities that have experienced incredible displacement over the past several years. And saying - Everyone here belongs and I'm going to work hard to make sure everyone has a place in Seattle.

So certainly, I think you nailed it with just that sense of hope. And I also wasn't able to make the other inaugurations, but just the sense of identity and community and folks. I think we're hearing to a much larger degree identifying with the average Seattleite who lives there today, whether it's people talking about being renters or being queer. And saying - I'm part of this community or these communities and feel a personal drive to make sure that our policies and communities reflect our values, that they include everyone, and that people can build a great life here in Seattle. So the hard work of governing is just starting. There's a lot to be done. There's a lot of challenges. But I really am eager to see how everyone gets out of the gate and what we're doing here.

Now, I also - we had big news this week that Joy Hollingsworth was elected Council President. What do you anticipate seeing with Joy Hollingsworth? Is it going to be similar or different to - our last Council President was Sara Nelson, who was just voted out and replaced with Dionne Foster - how do you expect Joy Hollingsworth to preside as Council President?

[00:11:54] Robert Cruickshank: Well, I think it'll be fundamentally different. Sara Nelson was very much an ideologue, very hard-charging, very much her way or the highway - alienated a lot of people, including her own Council colleagues. Whereas Joy Hollingsworth was essentially anointed this week - Dan Strauss and Bob Kettle had made some moves saying they might want the presidency, but they didn't push very hard because it became clear quickly that Hollingsworth had the votes and had the support. And that's partly because of how she conducts herself. Joy Hollingsworth was one of the more moderate centrist people elected to the City Council in 2023 and has been that way on the Council. But does try to position herself as a broker, as a dealmaker, as someone who can try to reach out to all sides. If you want to be a Council President, that's a good thing to do. If you're trying to get the right policies done for the city, maybe not as much. But I think what you're going to see from Joy Hollingsworth is a desire to try to manage the different factions on the Council in a way that produces some sort of consensus.

But also in a way that sort of tries to give herself a boost. She is probably well-aware - can read election results as well as anybody, and represents the most progressive district in the city, District 3. And has to know that her own re-election is up in the air in 2027, given that the electorate is swinging back in a much more progressive direction, that progressives themselves have figured out how to campaign in the 2020s and win. So I think Hollingsworth is hopefully trying to use this position to boost her own re-election chances. But we'll see what actually happens when the rubber meets the road on proposals to tax the rich, proposals to quickly build a lot of shelter, proposals to really turbocharge the construction of housing, renters' rights, tenant rights, labor rights. So, you can try to be a consensus builder council president, which is how I think Hollingsworth sees herself. But what voters are going to really care about is - what is she delivering? And she's going to have to work pretty closely with a mayor who comes in with a clear mandate to deliver on affordability. We'll see what happens.

[00:13:59] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, I think that's right. Now, I want to talk about a story this week that we saw with SPD, Seattle Police Department, Chief Shon Barnes releasing a memo that SPOG also used to essentially misstate a change in policy on arrests from Mayor Katie Wilson that caused a firestorm that seemed like it was not really about anything substantive. What happened here?

[00:14:29] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, this is the case where it's the old movie being replayed - SPD telling the public a story that is not entirely true to make a progressive mayor look bad. So what happened was Shon Barnes put out a memo saying that - They're going to change the way in which they do drug arrests. And SPOG took that and ran to right-wing media with it - like KOMO News and MyNorthwest, Jason Rantz, Brandi Kruse - and saying that this is Katie Wilson coming in and saying we're not going to do any drug arrests anymore. Which was not true. And the Wilson administration is put to an immediate test, right? This is their first Monday. And all of a sudden, this thing is blowing up on right-wing media. And they handled it really well by slapping it down hard, quickly, and saying - If there's a policy change, you will know it because we will tell you. We are not going to be hesitant to say when something's changed. We didn't change this.

And it turns out that it is a fundamental misinterpretation of directives coming from Erika Evans' office, the new City Attorney, saying that they are emphasizing LEAD, they are bringing back Community Court. They will, however, still do some arrests for drugs - for drug dealing and even public drug use in some cases. So nothing has fundamentally changed, but you saw SPOG really eager to find that thing that they can just jump all over the new mayor, jump all over the new city attorney. And that was a sort of baptism by fire for both the new city attorney and the new mayor - that this is how SPOG plays. SPOG plays dirty. And it's that old saying, you know - A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on. That is what SPOG deals in. SPOG understands this incredibly well. Their right-wing allies understand this very, very well. But kudos, I think, to Wilson and her team in particular and really slapping it down quickly and hard - that's what you have to do in these cases.

[00:16:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, there doesn't appear to have been any change in policy. I mean, I saw the really sensational headlines - Katie Wilson says, like, arrests for drugs are just going to end overall. And this is just going to be a lawless city and it's starting with this socialist communist mayor. And I'm going - Okay, what's the deal here? And as you said, this was really a misstatement of a memo that City Attorney Erika Evans sent, which simply said what was touted to be the policy before. Hey, if a drug arrest happens, make sure that it gets screened to determine if it is eligible for LEAD, the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, that has been popular with prosecutors, with law enforcement people, with people across the spectrum for achieving better outcomes - the things that ultimately we want to see and the things that make people safer, particularly in these types of offenses. The end goal is to have people stop the activity that is getting them caught up in the criminal legal system in the first place. LEAD has shown to be very effective at doing that - more effective than a traditional prosecution. But as you said, those traditional prosecutions are not ending. Nothing in this memo said that they were ending. Absolutely nothing directed anyone to stop any arrests, any prosecutions. It was simply - Hey, make sure that these are screened for eligibility under qualifications and guidelines that existed under the prior administration. So just a whole lot of nothing.

But I think, just like you said, really reinforces the playbook that this administration is going to be up against - that conservative playbook of take one little nugget, try and twist it, sensationalize it, push it out to media as soon as possible. And they're pretty effective at that - to be clear. But also, I think that there's a savviness among this administration who sees and recognizes this straight off. I think under the prior administration, there was a deference to these elements that really didn't serve anyone well, and I think ultimately contributed to them getting voted out of office. And so, the Wilson administration - these city officials are going to have to deal with these elements. They're not changing. We're going to see how it turns out.

Now I say - They're not changing. But there is one change in SPOG, the Seattle Police Officers Guild, that is going to happen that we got news of. What is that change?

[00:19:05] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, their president since 2020 - Mike Solan - is not running for another term. And this is a big deal because Solan was elected at the very beginning of 2020 - January 2020 - before the pandemic really hit, as a MAGA Trump supporter. So, Trump had been an officer for four years, Seattle hated his guts. And here comes Mike Solan running for the president of SPOG, basically saying - Yeah, I'm going to have your back against all these progressive reformers. I stand with Trump. I stand with MAGA. And of course, he got elected by the rank-and-file of SPD. And remember, SPD had six officers there at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021 - more than any other police department in the country. So Solan was not just some rogue MAGA guy, he was representing what was the rank-and-file of SPD at the time. Now, a lot of officers left SPD during the pandemic. There's been hiring since. It's going to be really interesting to see what, if anything, has changed about the rank-and-file of SPOG and their attitude towards these things. I think people should keep their expectations pretty low - that not much has changed. It's not like the previous SPOG leadership before Mike Solan in 2020 was any sort of progressive set of reformers - they were certainly not. But Solan was facing internal challenges and appears to have decided to step aside. He may focus now on becoming a right-wing pundit himself - who knows? Maybe he wants to go get a job at the Trump administration - also a possibility. But I think the real question here is - what direction is the rank-and-file of the Seattle Police Department going to choose for their leadership and for their union? And it will tell us a lot about whether anything has changed or whether nothing has changed.

[00:20:49] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's right. We will see - is the big one. I really wonder who the next president is going to be - if there is any differences in either ideology or approach. But we'll see.

Now, big news in the state this week - continuing news with the budget with Governor Ferguson. So Governor Ferguson made news with saying - Hey, he supports a millionaire's tax. But that tax money, at best, wouldn't be received until 2028, 2029 - long road there. In the meanwhile, he's proposed a dramatic austerity budget with really steep and painful cuts, really going against a lot of what our legislators have touted as priorities and values over the past several years. What has he proposed and what is really noteworthy about it?

[00:21:49] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, Governor Ferguson put out his budget in late December. And right before Christmas, two days before Christmas, he said - Oh, by the way, I support an income tax on millionaires. All of a sudden, people are like - Whoa, this is a huge deal. This is a thing we've been working 90 years to get. But there are all sorts of caveats to it. It wouldn't start generating money until 2029. And rather than use a lot of the money for public services, he wants to use a bunch of it to offset other taxes. And sure, we should do a state version of the Seattle Shield Initiative that Alexis Mercedes Rinck proposed last year and voters approved - where they raised the B&O tax on big corporations, they cut it or eliminated it for a lot of small businesses and had tens of millions of dollars left over for public services. That's exactly how you want to do it. A state income tax on millionaires should generate a ton of money for schools and healthcare. And yeah, you can have some leftover to cut the sales tax a little bit. That makes sense. But that's not clear that's what Ferguson wants to do.

And more importantly, it wouldn't happen for another three years, whereas we have a budget right now to deal with and Ferguson says he doesn't want any new taxes. He wants to make cuts to healthcare, which would exacerbate and worsen what Trump has done - cause a lot of people to lose Medicare coverage, would cause doctors to stop providing service in rural areas, could cause more hospitals to close. Ferguson is proposing big cuts to mental health services. All these crisis care facilities that are being opened all over the state need state funding to stay open so that someone in mental health crisis on the streets has a place to go, there is a bed for them. Ferguson wants to cut that funding and those crisis care centers might not be able to open or stay open. And there are other cuts. He's planning to cut hundreds of millions of dollars to rural school districts that can't raise their own property tax revenues.

And it was an interesting point made by Jim Brunner at The Seattle Times, one of their political reporters, who thought that one reason Ferguson might have announced support for a millionaire's tax would be to try to deflect from his deeply unpopular austerity agenda. And I think Washington voters have made it pretty darn clear over the last few years that they want to tax the rich to fund public services. They are unequivocal about this. And Representative Shaun Scott, for example, has a proposal - the Well Washington Fund - which would be a statewide version of Seattle's JumpStart, a payroll excise tax that could be used to address this - that could be used to prevent cuts, could even add some more funding to schools and healthcare, and bridge us to a state income tax on the rich. But Ferguson is not clear whether he would embrace that. And as far as I can tell, Ferguson just genuinely supports and likes austerity. He always has. He's been a smaller government guy. When he was on the King County Council 20 years ago, one of the first things he did was say we should shrink the size of the County Council from 13 members to 9. He has always had these proposals to shrink the size of government - it's what he inherently believes is a good thing. That is not what the mainstream of Washington voters want, especially when Donald Trump and Elon Musk are taking a hatchet to all these other public services.

[00:24:56] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And, to your point, that this is a really mainstream issue. This is not a progressive or conservative issue. This is popular and called for across the board. In 2024, we had a huge referendum with people of the state saying - Hey, we want to make sure that you approve these taxes. We're putting this up to a public vote. Do you support taxing the wealthy with a capital gains tax? And on the east side of the mountains and the west, in rural areas and in metropolitan areas - people supported it. People in areas that are red - that voted for Trump - support taxing the rich, support the avoidance of these steep cuts, oppose Medicaid cuts, oppose the cuts to hospitals in their areas. And it just doesn't seem like Governor Ferguson is hearing them, has internalized this.

And to your point, this is consistent with where he's been for a while. I think for a lot of people - certainly in news coverage - most of the federal news dominates news coverage and not so much of the local. And so people kind of saw Bob Ferguson, when he was Attorney General, as fighting the Trump administration. And he kind of got some progressive cred from that, them feeling like - Oh, he's really taking on Trump. He's really fighting. And the Trump administration was doing pretty clearly blatantly unconstitutional things, which was mostly found in courts of law. And so I'm glad he did that. That was very good. But that doesn't at all inform us on where he stands, where he stood on environmental policy, on fiscal policy, on so many of the issues that we have to deal with as a state and that he has to deal with as a governor. And what we are seeing is what he believes and where he stands. A budget is really a values document, a statement of what you believe in its most base form - really putting your money where your mouth is. And we see where this stands for Governor Ferguson and there are many people saying - This is just simply not good enough.

[00:27:06] Robert Cruickshank: Well, and what they're also starting to point out is that this comes at a huge political cost. I mean, polling last year showed that Ferguson is the most unpopular governor in 30 years. And after Katie Wilson's inauguration, a bunch of us standing around talking in the lobby of City Hall, and I heard from a number of different progressive advocates and leaders that they feel what one person said are "Bruce Harrell vibes" coming from Ferguson - a sense that he is so unpopular that he's probably vulnerable to a primary challenge from another Democrat in 2028. Now, that election is almost three years away. A lot can happen in two years. You don't want to overstate that case. But I think it is correct to point out that Ferguson is so far out of step - not just with his own party, but with the electorate of Washington state as a whole - that you have to wonder how much longer this can go on. Now, I think Ferguson on some level may recognize that, which is why he wants to embrace the millionaire's tax - he knows it has some political popularity. It is also an income tax. And polling shows that while Washingtonians want to tax the rich, it is unclear whether they are willing to yet embrace the income tax itself - even though it's not going to target most Washingtonians. So Ferguson is taking on these huge political fights with very little political capital left. And if he stays on this course, it is entirely possible that he becomes another Bruce Harrell. Who knows, right? Again, there's a long way to go. But without a course correction, 2028 could be pretty interesting politically.

[00:28:41] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And this is only made more plain by criticism from former Governor Inslee this week on Ferguson's plan to raid climate funding for other purposes. What is Ferguson proposing here and what did Governor Inslee have to say about it?

[00:28:59] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah. So, in 2021, we finally did pass a carbon pricing system - the Climate Commitment Act. It was a crown jewel of Inslee's time in office. And it is designed to raise money from climate pollution and invest that money in clean energy programs, including things like free transit for people under the age of 18 and other important things to make it easier for people to get around without burning fossil fuel. The reason why we burn so much fossil fuel in the state isn't because individual Washingtonians are bad people making bad decisions. It's because for a hundred years, we've engineered a society and a civilization which you have no other choice but to burn fossil fuel to get around. So we have to make it easier for people by investing in it upfront. That's the goal of the Climate Commitment Act. Now, part of the politics of getting it done was saying - Yeah, you can use a little bit of the money also to fund the Working Families Tax Credit so that if energy costs do go up a little bit because we're doing all this investment in clean energy, which takes time for those costs to come down, we can give people a little bit of a bridge. But not - the whole money wasn't supposed to go to that.

Well, what Governor Ferguson proposes instead is to take half a billion dollars, $500 million, from the Climate Commitment Act money and use it fund the Working Families Tax Credit rather than tax the rich to do that. And this week, Governor Inslee came out and criticized Governor Ferguson for that. And that's a pretty rare thing for a previous governor to do to his successor, especially when they're from the same party. But Governor Inslee said this is not the intent of the Climate Commitment Act - that while sure it was always envisioned that maybe you could use some of the funding for a tax credit, it was only supposed to be a minor amount. And Inslee correctly pointed out that we have seen, just in the last few weeks, the damage being done by the climate crisis. All of that flooding across Washington state really causing devastation to farmers and other families. It creates additional costs for the state to have to clean that up, especially when we're not getting federal funding to do that. And most importantly, we're lagging in clean energy investment. There was a report last year from ProPublica that Oregon ranks 47th in clean energy investment. Washington ranks 50th. Like, what are we doing here? And Inslee's point this week is that the climate crisis is real, those costs are real, and that we need to be investing in that clean energy so that those costs come down. If the state doesn't provide that upfront investment, it's hard for the private sector to do it, especially now with Trump in office who will not fund anything related to clean energy. And Inslee's point is correct that this is just going to make the climate crisis harder to deal with. And legislators like Joe Fitzgibbon, Majority Leader in the House Democratic Caucus, says the same thing. He's reluctant to do what Ferguson wants. So Ferguson's picking fights with his own party on this. And it's just really shocking to see that this governor appears determined to pick fights with his own allies for really unpopular reasons. I can understand if you want to pick a fight with your own party and your own allies for something that the public really, really wants. This ain't it.

[00:32:09] Crystal Fincher: It really isn't. And this is also happening amidst news that the carbon reductions that were reported as a result of this legislation were overstated. What's that about?

[00:32:24] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, so the right-wing Washington Policy Center, which doesn't want to do any clean energy investment, has been looking at all the details. And they said that the Department of Ecology had dramatically overstated the amount of carbon emissions saved from the investments from the Climate Commitment Act. That somewhere around 8 million tons of climate pollution was supposed to be eliminated, but in reality is only about 300,000. Now there's some dispute about this. There are some climate observers who think actually - well, it's in the low millions, but yeah, the Department of Ecology probably did overstate it. This is not unusual - both for it to take time for those savings to appear and for the right wing to attack it. Listeners may remember from the Obama administration - early 2010s - criticism over a company called Solyndra in the Bay Area that got a bunch of money from the Obama administration to make solar panels and wasn't producing much immediately. It was seen as wasteful spending. Well, China was doing the same thing at the same time and kept at it, whereas in response to the scandal Obama cut it off. China kept going, and the cost of solar production in China over the course of the 2010s dropped dramatically. They stuck with it, and it worked, it delivered results.

What is happening here is we're seeing - yes, startup costs are high. You're not seeing the type of savings you thought you might see initially. You will eventually if you stick with it, but the Washington Policy Center doesn't want us to stick with it, and now Governor Ferguson is threatening that funding. And at this moment where we desperately need Washington state to innovate on this. I mean, we're already seeing the effect of Trump's tariffs hurt our trade - and Washington is very much a trade-based economy. The tech industry is shifting away from employing people to AI. Washington needs a new source of economic growth. Why not clean energy? Wouldn't that make so much sense? But you have to invest in that, again, to address those upfront costs. And to eventually deliver the type of carbon emission savings that you want, you have to stick with it. You have to be persistent. You got to give it five, ten years. But the usual suspects are coming at it and we have a governor who may be willing to help.

[00:34:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, you're absolutely right that there are entities - like you said, the Washington Policy Center just agrees with this legislation, agrees with any kind of carbon reduction action, climate mitigation action wholesale and is kind of twisting the truth with this. I do think it's really important for people to understand how legislation like this really works. First off, like you said, what all of the evidence pointed towards - and we talked about this certainly on this program when the Climate Commitment Act was passed. Pricing carbon, attaching a price to it generally doesn't produce in and of itself significant carbon reductions. That was nothing I ever expected to see - said it at the time when it was passed. But what it does is it raises money that you then use to, as you said, build infrastructure, change how our economy works, how our communities work so that we are no longer forcing people into heavy emissions activities and having to drive, having to use dirty energy. That requires a lot of investment. That requires - you know, we built our infrastructure over a century - that got us here. We're going to have to change that infrastructure. We've got to mitigate the impacts of this. So, the money that is raised - it's absolutely critical that it stays dedicated to climate action because that is actually how you get the reductions. It's in the wise expenditure of the funds that you raise that produces the results. So, proposing to raid these funds is really just flying in the face of how this legislation was designed to work, flying in the face at any opportunity we have to make significant differences. And at this time, when the federal government is abandoning all efforts at climate mitigation - criticizing it, mocking it - it is imperative that we take this action ourselves in this state. This is really a time for people to stand up and stand by their values - and to protect the people of the state. This is a risk to people's life, health, and welfare. And it just seems unconscionable that we would divert the funds that are necessary to do that.

[00:36:58] Robert Cruickshank: That's exactly right. And I don't think anyone would believe that Bob Ferguson is deliberately trying to help Donald Trump and Elon Musk. That said, his budget echoes a lot of what they're doing. If they're raiding and slashing federal spending on climate, why would Washington state essentially do the same thing? It doesn't make any sense. And the other thing that Governor Inslee pointed out this week is that in 2024, voters upheld the Climate Commitment Act against a right-wing effort to repeal it. And part of that was on the promise that this money was going to be invested in clean energy, in projects that bring down the cost for people of living a fossil-free life. And now, Governor Ferguson is trying to throw that out and - yeah, he got elected governor in 2024, but the support for the Climate Commitment Act was stronger. The No vote on the repeal got more votes than Ferguson did. So again, it's just this bizarre situation where the governor is doing things that are fundamentally unpopular for no good reason.

[00:38:02] Crystal Fincher: Well, we'll certainly keep our eyes on this. We've got a legislative session starting now that we will continue to follow through. And we're at the point where we're making some really important decisions - I encourage people to stay tuned, to tune in, to be in contact with their legislators, with their elected representatives and let them know how you feel. From the federal level, sometimes it feels like we're powerless. But I can assure you - from someone who is familiar with the people who get these calls - that it does make a difference. They do need to hear from you. A lot of times they only hear after a decision is made, only from people who disagree with it. It makes a huge difference as they're considering a decision to understand that people are paying attention, tracking them. And making it clear where they stand - knowing that there really is community-based support - if they're going to sometimes do what feels like going out on a limb and defy the governor or defy other people who are calling for something different. So please be engaged in this legislative session.

[00:39:10] Robert Cruickshank: Absolutely. And it's a 60-day session, so the opportunities to provide input exist, but they're going to be many fewer than in an odd year where the session goes for 105 days. So when that hearing comes up on your bill, you can testify remotely - you don't even have to drive to Olympia. Or you can even just send in a message to your legislators - that goes a really long way, especially in a short session.

[00:39:32] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, January 9th, 2026. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng, and she is incredible. Our insightful co-host today was chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist Robert Cruickshank. You can find Robert on Bluesky at @robertcruickshank.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Bluesky at @HacksAndWonks, and you can find me on Bluesky @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, it makes a huge difference if you leave 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.

Thank you for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.