A preview of Tuesday’s sessions

This article was originally published by the Washington State Standard.

Plans to offer free breakfast and lunch to all public school students in Washington appear shaky ahead of a Friday deadline in the state Legislature.

About 70% of students in the state’s public schools now have access to the free meals. Reaching 100% would cost about $120 million a fiscal year. With the state facing a budget shortfall in the ballpark of $12 billion over the next four years and lawmakers contemplating other big-ticket education legislation, a bill to carry out the meals expansion is proving to be a heavy lift.

Asked during a press conference Wednesday whether the bill was a good idea proposed at the wrong time, Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, replied: “Yes.”

The Senate already allowed its version of the legislation to lapse last week in the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee as an earlier deadline came and went.

That leaves a House version — House Bill 1404 — now pending in the Appropriations Committee. That panel must approve the bill by Friday for it to stay alive.

“Given the number of competing demands we have, it’s a challenge, but nothing in House Appropriations is dead until after Friday,” said House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, D-West Seattle.

This expansion of the state’s free school meals program is one of the priorities Gov. Bob Ferguson identified at the outset of his term in January. 

Under the bill, public schools, including charter schools and state/tribal education compact schools, would have to offer free breakfast and lunch to any student who requests it. This would take effect in the 2026-27 school year and the state would reimburse districts for meal costs.

Ferguson, a Democrat, has intervened to move along other legislation this session. A spokesperson for the governor did not respond to questions Wednesday about whether he planned to do the same with the school meals bill.

Lawmakers have been under pressure to pass other pricey school legislation, including bills to boost funding for special education, school operations and transportation. 

The latest versions of these bills, which have been moving in the Senate, would cost around $1.5 billion altogether in the next two-year budget. 

The special education bill, which Pedersen and Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, are co-sponsoring, and another to boost state assistance with school materials, supplies and operations costs, are scheduled for Senate Ways and Means votes on Thursday. 

A bill to strengthen student transportation has had a Ways and Means hearing but was not scheduled for a committee vote as of Wednesday afternoon.

Friday’s deadline is when bills that need to go through fiscal committees, like Senate Ways and Means, must gain approval from those committees in the chamber where the legislation originated. 

Later in the session, lawmakers can revive proposals that die at this deadline, working instead through the budget process. But on the school meals bill, Fitzgibbon said, “If the bill doesn’t pass out of House Appropriations on Friday, then it’s not passing for the year.”

He said a middle-ground option, rather than expanding the program, is “probably paying for the cost of the existing free school meals programs that we’ve already legislated in previous years.” He noted about a $30 million increase would be required just to meet that cost. 

“We very much hope to be funding that as part of our budget,” he said.

Deputy Senate Majority Leader Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, emphasized that the debate over free school meals needs to be balanced against broader discussions about assisting people with food insecurity in Washington. 

There are also worries about the possibility of federal funding cuts to nutrition programs as Republicans in Congress move ahead with their budget plan.

“It is a much larger conversation,” Dhingra said. “School meals is one part of it.”

The Washington State Standard originally published this article on Feb. 26, 2025.

At least two domestic indoor cats in Washington state have tested positive for avian influenza, or bird flu, after eating commercially available raw pet food, the state’s Department of Agriculture reported Wednesday.

One of the cats was euthanized, and the other is being treated by a veterinarian. The cats are from King and Snohomish County, and more cats are being tested.

The pet owners reported feeding their cats food from Wild Coast Raw pet food. The brand was connected earlier this month to severe illnesses in several housecats in Oregon that were euthanized after getting sick. The cats and the food in the Oregon cases tested positive for H5N1 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).

Certain lots of Wild Coast’s Boneless Free Range Chicken are now under a voluntary recall, and the Olympia-based company reported that it has switched to fully cooked poultry recipes.

Bird flu symptoms in cats include lethargy, low appetite, fever, hypothermia, progression of illness to pneumonia, progression of illness to neurologic abnormalities and upper respiratory infection. Cat owners who observe these symptoms should isolate their animals and call their veterinarians, informing them of symptoms so they can reduce the risk of transmission.

The currently circulating strain of HPAI is considered low-risk to the public, but there is greater risk for those who handle contaminated raw pet food products or who care for infected animals, the WSDA said in its press release. Currently, the WSDA does not recommend feeding raw pet food or raw milk to animals.

While rare, people can get sick with bird flu, killing one person in Louisiana earlier this year. Bird flu can also spread to cattle, which has prompted testing and precautions around milk and dairy herds.

This article was originally published by the Washington State Standard.

A federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order halting the admission of refugees into the United States.

The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Jamal Whitehead, a Biden appointee, is the first to block Trump’s order indefinitely suspending the United States Refugee Admissions Program. 

Whitehead said the president’s order likely “crossed the line.”

The order, one of many the president signed on his first day in office, describes the country as “inundated with record levels of migration” over the past four years, threatening resources for U.S. citizens.

The order says Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should recommend within 90 days whether the refugee program should resume. 

The move stranded thousands of refugees expecting to come to the country. Days later, the White House also suspended funding for resettlement agencies, leading to layoffs and furloughs. 

Tuesday’s ruling comes days after a federal judge in Washington, D.C., denied a request to temporarily block the refugee funding freeze in a separate case.

Nine affected individuals and three resettlement organizations, including Lutheran Community Services Northwest in Tacoma, filed the lawsuit in Seattle court this month. The individual plaintiffs, identified in court papers only by their first names, include refugees, refugee applicants and people in the United States sponsoring refugees. 

One of them, a Bellevue woman, was sponsoring an Afghan refugee family before the federal government suspended their case, according to the complaint. Another was a refugee named Sara who was fleeing Iraq and awaiting travel plans to join her eldest son in Idaho before Trump’s executive order.

“When Sara closes her eyes, she still imagines herself at the airport and the joy she would feel in seeing her oldest son waiting for her,” the lawsuit reads. “He is now a U.S. citizen and is expecting his first child. Sara is crushed that she might miss the birth of her first grandchild.”

The plaintiffs argue Trump’s order violates the Administrative Procedure Act by skirting the usual process for agency actions. They claim the policy must include a public comment period under the law.

They also argue the executive action is at odds with the Refugee Act of 1980 that laid out the process for letting refugees into the country.

Attorneys for the Trump administration countered in court filings, stating Congress has delegated the admission of refugees to the president. So he can block their entry if he finds it “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States,” the Justice Department wrote.

The president also sets the refugee admissions goal each year. At the end of his first term, Trump set that number at 15,000. Last year, former President Joe Biden set the benchmark at 125,000.

“The president can set the number at zero and there’s no requirement for an explanation of that,” August Flentje, of the Department of Justice, said in court Tuesday.

In his first term, Trump tried to block refugee arrivals various times, leading to numerous successful court challenges. The plaintiffs say his order this time around goes even further than his previous attempts.

In an amicus brief, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, and colleagues from 18 other states sided with the plaintiffs. The brief states Washington resettled 4% of the refugees nationwide in fiscal year 2024. 

The states called the order “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.”

The judge’s injunction in the case, known as Pacito v. Trump, will remain in effect until the case is resolved, unless the Justice Department successfully appeals it.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would have jurisdiction over the appeal. Democratic presidents appointed a majority of the circuit court’s judges. The case would next go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This is the latest rebuke for a Trump executive order from a federal judge in Seattle. Other judges have also sided against the Trump administration in cases against his birthright citizenship and gender-affirming care orders. The Washington state attorney general’s office brought both of those cases.

The Washington State Standard originally published this article on Feb. 25, 2025.

This article originally appeared in the Washington State Standard.

Washington state’s attempt to block the Trump administration’s plan to restrict birthright citizenship could soon be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

An appeals court late Wednesday rejected the Justice Department’s challenge to a lower court ruling that halted implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order, teeing up an argument justices could soon hear.

Washington’s case, brought with Oregon, Arizona and Illinois as well as two pregnant women without legal immigration status, could be the first the Supreme Court takes up on the birthright citizenship question.

Two of the three judges from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found the Trump administration had not shown it was likely to succeed on the merits of its case. The three judges were appointed by three different presidents: Trump during his first term, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Danielle Forrest, the Trump appointee, wrote she sided with her colleagues not because of the merits of the case but because the Justice Department hadn’t shown the circumstances were worthy of the emergency action it was seeking.

“Just because a district court grants preliminary relief halting a policy advanced by one of the political branches does not in and of itself an emergency make,” Forrest wrote. “A controversy, yes. Even an important controversy, yes. An emergency, not necessarily.”

U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour has called Trump’s order “blatantly unconstitutional.” In a Seattle courtroom earlier this month, he approved the second of four preliminary injunctions blocking Trump’s order until the case is resolved.

Even if the 9th Circuit judges had agreed with the Justice Department’s arguments Wednesday, the three other rulings still would have blocked Trump’s directive.

The executive action aims to end birthright citizenship for babies born to a mother and father who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. Legal precedent has long upheld birthright citizenship since it was codified in the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.

In court filings, attorneys for the administration had argued the executive order is one part of the White House’s efforts to curb illegal immigration by “removing incentives to unlawful immigration and closing exploitable loopholes.”

They also said the states “cannot plausibly claim any injury” from the administration’s preparations to implement the order. Washington state and the other plaintiffs have said Trump’s order could mean losing federal funding to provide services if people are no longer born citizens.

“The equities and public interest likewise cut decisively in favor of maintaining the injunction,” wrote Lane Polozola of the Washington state Attorney General’s office. 

Lifting the lower court ruling, Polozola added, “would cause the States to lose jurisdiction over thousands of their residents, forfeit unrecoverable funds from federal contracts, and invest millions to abruptly change major programs that turn on state residents’ citizenship.”

The Washington State Standard originally published this article on Feb. 20, 2025.

As the Trump administration pushes to cut billions in federal funding for public universities and research centers, local scientists gathered to protest the potential cuts to their jobs and the research that they say is vital to the community. 

At a rally outside the University of Washington’s Genome Sciences building on Wednesday, hundreds of people demonstrated against a new National Institute of Health directive that would carve a massive hole in research budgets at institutions across the country. 

Research universities like the UW receive hundreds of millions each year from the NIH. A lot of the money comes from reimbursements for “indirect costs” associated with research, such as facilities, administration, electricity, maintenance and salaries for support staff like postdoctoral research fellows. The UW has negotiated a 55.5% indirect cost rate for on-campus activities, which means the school gets $55.50 to help pay for overhead costs for every $100 it receives in research grants. 

But on Feb. 7, the NIH abruptly announced a new policy that would cap all reimbursements at 15%, even for grants that have already been awarded. Local research institutions say the restriction would be a massive blow. In a lawsuit challenging the order filed by Washington and 21 other states, UW said it would lose $90 million to $110 million — which would force the school to lay off staff; delay lifesaving research; and scale back ongoing clinical trials for kidney disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other illnesses. Washington State University would also be affected.

A federal judge ordered a temporary pause on the planned funding cuts in response to the states’ lawsuit, but the future remains uncertain. Researchers were already reeling from Trump’s attacks on research funding tied to diversity, equity and inclusion, and researchers at the protest Wednesday said the looming specter of NIH cuts has rattled the scientific community. 

“It affects planning,” said Jack Castelli, a Ph.D. candidate at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center whose research involves hematopoietic stem cells and engineering immunity against HIV. “We don’t know if those funds are going to stay around or not, so we have to be more careful in what we purchase for research.” 

Fred Hutch stands to lose as much as $125 million under the proposed NIH cuts, The Seattle Times reported. 

Castelli, an organizer with UAW 4121, the union that organized Wednesday’s rally and represents academic student employees, postdocs and researchers at UW, noted that Fred Hutch has already rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in response to President Trump’s executive order seeking to end grants related to DEI. 

“Bending to illegal orders like that is obviously going to impact the research,” Castelli said. 

Ansel Neunzert, an affiliate physics instructor at the University of Washington Bothell whose research involves gravitational waves, said the NIH order and DEI grant cuts are having a “chilling effect” on the next generation of researchers. 

“I’ve got students who are considering leaving the field, trying to think about whether or not they’re going to be able to do this kind of work,” Neuzert said. “I think that’s going to have a massive impact, regardless of what happens with the judicial outcome at the end.” 

If the cuts go through, the researchers who lose their jobs will be the first ones affected. But the damage will ultimately be felt by the entire community, said Valentina Alvarez, a biochemistry Ph.D. candidate at UW who researches immune diseases and cancer. 

“It’s definitely going to show up in lack of access to health care,” Alvarez said. “Slower waiting times, there’s going to be less people working in general, slower developments for life-saving medicine.” 

Eva Cherniavsky, an English professor at UW who attended the rally, worries that the loss of research grant funding could also lead to cuts at other departments. She’s doubtful the university would be able to fill the hole with tuition increases or funding from the state, which is already grappling with a massive budget deficit this year. It all adds up to a “perfect storm,” she said.  

“Different sections of the university are not hived off,” Cherniavsky said. “It’s kind of life or death for the University of Washington right now.” 

At the rally, U.S Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-WA7, said the NIH funds had been appropriated by Congress, and described the Trump administration’s efforts to cut them as “unconstitutional” and “an authoritarian power grab.” (The Atlantic reported yesterday that NIH staff weren’t aware of the policy change until the Department of Health and Human Services sent a memo ordering NIH staff to push it through the agency in a single day.) 

The NIH funds “critical research that is capable of saving countless lives,” Jayapal said to the gathered crowd of postdocs, Ph.D. candidates, teaching assistants, professors and other scientific researchers. “The cuts that they are proposing are devastating.”

Note: This story was updated on 2/20 to correct the spelling of Eva Cherniavsky's name. 

A vast majority of Washington voters support the idea of capping annual rent increases, creating limits on move-in fees and increasing warning time for renters’ rising costs.  

Those findings come from a new poll of 1,100 registered voters from across Washington conducted by EMC Research Jan. 26 - Feb. 2.

The poll was commissioned by the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, an advocacy group that supports efforts by Democrats to pass a rent stabilization bill in Olympia this session.  

If passed, the new law would limit annual rent increases for existing tenants to 7%, with exceptions for newly constructed buildings and nonprofit affordable housing. There is currently no cap on the amount a landlord can raise the rent. Under the proposed law, a landlord can raise the rent by any amount after a tenant moves out.  

In addition, the bill would cap move-in fees to the equivalent of one month’s rent, limit late fees to 1.5% of the monthly rent and require six months’ notice for any rent increase greater than 3%.  

When asked generally about a bill to limit “excessive rent increases or excessive move-in and late fees,” 52% of poll respondents said they strongly support the idea and 20% said they somewhat support it. That’s compared to 18% who strongly oppose the idea and 9% who somewhat oppose it.  

According to EMC, the idea drew bipartisan support with majority favor by Republican and Independent respondents and 87% support from Democratic respondents.  

Most poll respondents have had personal experience with rising rents. Asked if a rent increase impacted their financial situation, 71% either strongly or somewhat agreed. Another 63% strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that they’d had to move because the rent got too high.  

Respondents were also asked if their support for the bill would increase or decrease based on certain proposed policies. Eighty percent said they were more likely to support the bill if it required additional notice for rent increases. Another 77% said their support increased if it capped move-in fees. And 76% said they would be more likely to support the bill if it included educational support for landlords to help them comply with the law.  

A Cascade PBS/Elway Poll conducted in late December found similar support for limiting rent increases among registered voters, with 68% of respondents saying they’re in favor.

Last year, a nearly identical rent-cap bill passed out of the House, but failed to get a vote in the Senate amid opposition from Republican and moderate Democratic lawmakers.  

This article was originally published by the Washington State Standard.

When an immigrant faces threats or exploitation by their employer, they often have limited recourse. Law students from Seattle University want to change that, pushing for a state bill to strengthen protections for people facing workplace coercion based on their immigration status. 

“In the last several years, we have been advocating for legislative changes that would help our clients and this is one of those,” said Elizabeth Ford, a law professor who teaches the workers’ rights clinic at Seattle University. 

Sen. Bob Hasegawa, D-Seattle, took up this legislation and introduced Senate Bill 5104 to give workers better tools to avoid workplace threats based on their immigration status and to prevent employers from exploiting the immigration status of employees. 

“It’s a shame that we have to try and find every abusive situation and draft a separate bill to deal with it,” Hasegawa said. 

An example of workplace coercion would be if an employer notes someone’s immigration status and then asks them to work unpaid overtime.

The bill would require the state’s Department of Labor and Industries to investigate complaints of coercion made against employers and would give the agency the authority to impose civil penalties when violations occur. 

When a worker files a complaint, the department will notify the employer. However, language in the bill was added to make personal information from the worker confidential to anyone other than the department and employee. 

“Employers have so much more power than workers, it’s the unfortunate truth,” said Yasmene Hammoud, a law student at Seattle University. “But when you add immigration status to the mix, the power dynamic and the leverage that the employer gains is incredibly disproportionate.” 

Similar legislation passed in New Jersey last year with bipartisan support. 

Concerns came up during committee hearings that the Washington bill may be redundant with existing law. 

Under current law, citizens and noncitizens are entitled to the same standards, rights, and protections in the workplace. Laws on the books protect any worker, regardless of their immigration status, from retaliation. 

Angelo Tadrous, a law student at Seattle University, said the bill is still necessary and noted that workplace coercion differs from retaliation because it happens before an employee raises an issue. Retaliation happens after the employee does so. 

If a worker raises an issue to their employer and the employer responds by withholding wages or rest breaks, that’s retaliation. If this occurs, a worker can file a complaint with the Department of Labor and Industries. 

Most complaints regarding coercion don’t get filed until the employee leaves their workplace. 

“One of the dynamics of coercion is this, that it silences people. And so that there’s a major risk of coming forward, that’s why coercion works,” Ford said. 

The bill was heard on the Senate floor Wednesday and passed on a 40-9 vote. It now awaits action in the House. 

“It’s incredibly important to safeguard [immigrant] rights and well-being to really allow the labor law to do what it was designed to do, and that’s to protect workers across the board, regardless of their immigration status,” Hammoud said.

Jacquelyn Jimenez Romero is a WSU Murrow Fellow who writes for the Washington State Standard, which originally published this article on Feb. 12, 2025. 

Some Democrats in Olympia think employees should have more representation on REI’s board of directors. 

House Bill 1635, sponsored by state Rep. Cindy Ryu, a Democrat from Shoreline, would require any Washington-based consumer cooperative with more than 2,500 employees to reserve two seats on its board of directors for people who work at the co-op. 

The bill doesn’t mention REI by name, but in an interview with Cascade PBS and KNKX last month, Ryu acknowledged that the bill is directed at the outdoor retail company. She wasn’t aware of any other co-ops in Washington it would apply to. (PCC, a large local grocery co-op, has about 1,800 employees, according to a 2024 financial report.) 

Unionized workers at the REI store in Bellingham requested the bill. The Bellingham store is one of 11 REI stores nationwide that have voted to unionize since 2022. None of the unions have reached a contract yet with the company.

REI members vote on board candidates in annual elections. Any REI member is able to nominate themselves to run for a board seat, but bylaw changes in the early 2000s gave the existing board final say over who appears on the ballot. The board’s bylaws also prohibit employees from running for board seats. Unionized workers say the process has grown undemocratic and left them without a voice. 

Several REI employees testified in favor of the bill at a public hearing on Wednesday. 

“REI used to take workers’ experiences into account when making business decisions and every day people used to serve on the board,” said Andrew Soderquist, an REI employee in Seattle. “Now there are no meaningful avenues to share our perspectives or give feedback.” 

Soderquist added that he was shocked to see the REI board recently sign onto a letter supporting U.S Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, a Trump-administration appointee and former governor of North Dakota, who has faced criticism from environmental activists and REI members over his close ties to the fossil fuel industry and a recent order paving the way for oil and natural gas drilling on public lands.

REI responded to members’ criticisms about Burgum this week, saying the co-op had signed the letter “in acknowledgement of his work to champion outdoor recreation, the link between health and nature, and establish the Office of Outdoor Recreation in North Dakota.” The company said it disagreed with his recent order regarding drilling on natural lands, and called on members to sign a petition in opposition.  

An REI spokesperson told Cascade PBS and KNKX that the company did not have a comment on HB 1635. 

Michael Hutchings, a Washington business lawyer who advises corporations and cooperatives on governance, testified against the bill on Wednesday. 

“While this bill may have an admirable goal of elevating employee perspectives to the board, mandating through legislation employee board seats is fundamentally flawed and will create significant problems,” Hutchings said, speaking as an individual. 

Hutchings said he’s concerned that the bill will set a “dangerous precedent” by targeting one specific company and sending a message to other businesses that lawmakers in Washington are willing to “legislatively interfere” in a labor dispute. He also worried that employees who sit on the board would open themselves to conflict-of-interest concerns.  

Unionized REI employees recruited two pro-labor candidates to run in this year’s board of directors election: Shemona Moreno, a Seattle activist who leads the climate nonprofit 350 Seattle, and Tefere Gebre, the chief program officer at Greenpeace and former AFL-CIO executive vice president. 

It’s unclear if either of the union-backed candidates will appear on the ballots this spring. An REI spokesperson said the company never received an application from Moreno, even though Moreno shared a screenshot that appears to show her emailing the board her application material before the deadline. 

The REI board met on Feb. 3 to decide which self-nominated candidates to allow on the ballot. The candidate slate won’t be made public until March 3. In anticipation of Moreno and Gebre being left off the ballot, the REI union is urging members to vote No on whomever the board puts forward. 

Moreno testified in favor of the proposed bill on Wednesday. 

“I was shocked to learn that REI banned workers from the board and still hasn’t reached a fair contract with employees,” Moreno said. “I believe large co-ops should have workers on their boards to make sure they stay true to their founding values.” 

A spokesperson for Rep. Ryu said in an email that if the co-op bill isn’t voted out of executive session next week, it is likely dead for the session.

This article originally appeared in the Washington State Standard.

A federal judge in Seattle on Friday temporarily paused President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to stop federal funding for hospitals providing gender-affirming care for young people.

The temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Lauren King is the second on this issue in as many days. On Thursday, a federal judge in Maryland issued a 14-day nationwide pause in a case brought by several transgender youth along with parents and advocacy groups.

This case was filed last week by Washington, Oregon and Minnesota, along with three anonymous doctors representing themselves and their patients. 

In granting the order, King said Trump’s order likely won’t withstand “constitutional scrutiny.”

Late last month, Trump issued an executive order entitled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order states “it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.”

Trump’s order seeks to end grants to hospitals and medical schools providing gender-affirming care to people under age 19. 

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown argues the order is unconstitutional in several ways. 

In court filings, the states have said the order violates the 10th Amendment by trying to regulate medical care in the states, as well as the equal protection guarantee against discrimination in the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

King repeatedly pressed the Trump administration’s attorney, Vinita Andrapalliyal, to explain what treatments covered in the executive order apply to both transgender and cisgender people. Andrapalliyal couldn’t provide one. 

The judge, who former President Joe Biden nominated for the bench in 2021, went on to push Andrapalliyal to answer numerous other questions about the meaning of the executive order. The attorney couldn’t answer them.

“You’re not answering my questions,” King said. “This is extremely frustrating.”

The states say cutting off federal funding could be devastating. For example, UW Medicine provides gender-affirming care and receives $500 million in federal funding each year, according to court documents. This withholding of funding already appropriated by Congress would also violate the separation of powers, the states argued.

Justice Department attorneys counter that the administration hadn’t moved to revoke any funding, so the states’ claims are, in legal parlance, unripe. They also say the executive order directs agencies to act on the president’s order “consistent with applicable law,” so the order can’t be construed as a directive to violate the law.

Care for gender dysphoria in youth can include puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery. Trump has long argued, with little evidence, that young people regret transitioning. 

The order stoked confusion in hospitals across the country. The plaintiffs cite a White House press release stating the order was “already having its intended effect” as “hospitals around the country are taking action to downsize or eliminate their so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ programs.”

In Washington, Seattle Children’s reportedly postponed gender-affirming surgeries for trans youth after the president’s Jan. 28 order.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Brown thanked his staff “who demonstrated, once again, that this president of the United States is not above the law.”

“I want to encourage all of the providers in this state, in the state of Oregon and the state of Minnesota who also joined this effort to get back to work to continue to provide the medically necessary care for their children,” the attorney general added.

This is one of several orders Trump has signed targeting the transgender community. Others aim to ban trans women from playing women’s sports, prohibit transgender people from serving in the military and order incarcerated trans women be transferred to men’s prisons. He has also declared the federal government would recognize only two sexes.

King, the first Native American federal judge in Washington state, issued Friday’s order in front of a courtroom packed with observers wearing trans flag stickers. Applause broke out in the room. 

This is the second temporary restraining order Washington has won against a Trump order in federal court in Seattle. Last month, Judge John Coughenour issued a similar ruling in a case against Trump’s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, calling the executive order “blatantly unconstitutional.”

These two cases will likely follow a similar path. 

The states will ask for a permanent preliminary injunction to last throughout the proceedings. Coughenour issued such an injunction last week in the birthright case. 

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the majority of which are Democratic appointees, would decide on appeals. From there, the case would go to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Trump appointed three of the justices. 

The Justice Department appealed Coughenour’s approval of the preliminary injunction in the birthright citizenship case, so that case is for now in the appellate court’s hands.

A hearing on a preliminary injunction in the gender-affirming care case would be set for Feb. 28.

The Washington State Standard originally published this article on Feb. 14, 2025.

Some workers in Burien might soon see their paychecks increase. 

Measure 1, a citizen initiative to expand Burien’s minimum wage policy, was leading after the second round of ballot counting on Wednesday with 55% of voters in support. 

If it passes, Measure 1 will replace a minimum wage policy recently adopted by the Burien City Council with a new version that increases the number of businesses required to pay a full minimum wage. 

The City Council’s law raised the wage floor to $21.16 when it went into effect at the start of this year. But initiative supporters argued that the city’s law didn’t represent a true wage increase because it came with a number of exceptions that allowed some businesses to continue paying less — for instance, those with small staffs and ones where employees get tips. 

Measure 1 would remove many of those exemptions. It would also tie Burien’s minimum wage to that of the neighboring jurisdiction of Tukwila, where the wage cap is currently $21.10 and set to increase with inflation. 

“It just means that more people in our community are going to make a better living wage,” Jennifer Fichamba, a Burien resident who helped lead the Measure 1 campaign, said in an interview last week. 

The initiative to get Measure 1 on the ballot was led by the Transit Riders Union, a progressive advocacy group that in recent years has led successful campaigns to raise the wage floor in nearby jurisdictions like SeaTac and Tukwila. Many business owners opposed the initiative, supporting the City Council’s law and arguing that the exemptions were necessary to protect small employers. 

The City Council’s law allows businesses to count an employee’s tips and benefits toward an employee’s total wage. It also allows businesses with fewer than 20 employees working within King County to continue paying a wage as low as the state’s $16.66 minimum. 

Measure 1 will remove the carveout for tips and benefits. It will also change how business sizes are calculated: “Small” businesses with fewer than 15 employees total (not just in King County) will pay $18.10 an hour, and “medium” businesses with 15 to 499 employees will pay $19.10 an hour. Businesses with more than 500 employees will pay the full $21.10. There will be a gradual phase-in; by 2031, businesses of all sizes in Burien will be held to the same wage standard. 

Measure 1 would also expand an employee’s right to take private legal action if they believe their employer isn’t compliant, and create a new rule that says businesses have to offer available hours to existing employees before hiring new ones. 

The idea of raising the wage may also be a topic in Olympia this year. A group of House Democrats are backing House Bill 1764, which would raise the state’s minimum wage by $1.50 each year until it reaches $25 by the start of 2031.