Week in Review: July 26, 2024 - with Shauna Sowersby

Senator Rebecca Saldaña Fights for Environmental Justice and Warns of Ballot Threats from Hacks & Wonks

“Natural gas initiative qualifies for WA ballot” by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times

“Government transparency? Here's what leading candidates for governor say about their records" by Shauna Sowersby from The Olympian

“Joseph O’Sullivan, Shauna Sowersby honored for watchdog reporting” by Donna Gordon Blankinship from Cascade PBS

“WA women don’t trust U.S. Supreme Court, poll says” by Alex Halverson from The Seattle Times

“Abortion is key to Dems 2024 plans, as this WA Poll shows” by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times

“WA lawmakers decided to tax the rich. Poll shows voters aren’t so sure” by Paul Roberts from The Seattle Times

“New poll sees if WA cares about payroll tax to fund WA Cares program” by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times

“Crypto-financed independent expenditure for Emily Randall turns heads in Washington State politics” by Owen Averill from The Cascadia Advocate

“County Jail Will Begin Booking Again for Drug Use, Other Misdemeanors In the “Downtown Activation Zone”” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola

“‘Someone who never stopped caring.’ TNT columnist Matt Driscoll dies unexpectedly at 43” by Craig Sailor from The News Tribune

@MelissaSantos1 on Twitter/X: “I wasn’t able to say much earlier this week about the passing of @mattsdriscoll because I was still in shock and grieving. But there are a few things I want people to know about him.”

Support the Driscoll Family After Matt's Passing | GoFundMe

Find stories that Crystal is reading here

Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here

[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.

If you missed our Tuesday topical show, State Senator Rebecca Saldaña discussed her fight to advance environmental justice in Washington and warned of ballot initiatives that could devastate our climate crisis response and other progress. 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: state politics reporter for Cascade PBS, Shauna Sowersby. Welcome.

[00:01:22] Shauna Sowersby: Thanks Crystal - good to be on again.

[00:01:25] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back. Wanted to start off this week with news of a new statewide initiative that qualified for our November ballot. What will this initiative do?

[00:01:38] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, so Initiative 2066 rolls back portions of a law that passed during the legislative session this year that basically lays out a way for Puget Sound Energy to transition away from natural gas. It also rolls back energy efficient mandates that would require installing heat pumps instead of appliances that are typically fueled by fossil fuels. And I think it is worth noting that this initiative only took a couple of months to get the required signatures it needed to be on the ballot coming up.

[00:02:16] Crystal Fincher: Well, and this is pretty interesting because it doesn't look like your typical coalition for and against - where it might be labor versus industry, or environmental organizations versus industry. This initiative is supported by Puget Sound Energy, but is opposed by the state's building industry. Environmental organizations have criticized the initiative. What does this look like it's shaping up to be for a campaign for the rest of the year?

[00:02:45] Shauna Sowersby: Well, it's maybe a little bit hard to say at the moment. The Let's Go Washington folks and the building industry of Washington will tell you that this has broad support, not just from conservatives, but also independents and Democrats. They, again, managed to get over 500,000 signatures in just a matter of months. So in their words, they think that this is broadly supported from multiple bases.

[00:03:13] Crystal Fincher: In fact, based on some recent polling conducted on behalf of The Seattle Times - in partnership with KING 5 and the UW Center for an Informed Public - it looks like at this point, among likely voters, 54% said they were certain to vote for it, 21% said they were certain to vote against it, a quarter were uncertain. So it does look like this may have a base of support. What are the main arguments in favor and in opposition to this?

[00:03:43] Shauna Sowersby: I think the arguments against this certainly lie within the state's proposed goals over the last few years to try to be more climate friendly here. I think a lot of those activists believe that this would set us back, would make it so that our climate goals would not be as achievable in this state. The folks that are for this initiative - the ones that are running the initiative and people that have signed it - believe that it gives people the option of having gas if they want to in their house. Obviously, it's not for everybody, but they just believe that there should be a choice for people to decide whether or not they would like to have fossil fuel appliances.

[00:04:29] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Well, we will continue to keep an eye on that through the November election. Also this week, a story you wrote - covering where the candidates for governor stand on transparency with public records. Why is this issue so important?

[00:04:48] Shauna Sowersby: I think that this is increasingly becoming a more important topic. As people are feeling less confidence in their government officials, I think it's becoming more important that lawmakers, elected officials are committed to transparency. I hear this all the time from folks - that they simply don't trust their elected leaders anymore. And I think that just being transparent with your constituents just is a good show of faith that they can trust you. If you can't be transparent with certain things or if you're willfully withholding information, that doesn't instill any confidence in your voters. So I think it's interesting to see the shift, this election cycle - I know The Seattle Times has endorsed candidates based off of transparency issues. Manka Dhingra, for example, was not endorsed over Nick Brown due to her record with using legislative privilege. So I think we're starting to see this kind of come up in all of these different elections as an issue. Just a simple - yes or no, they are going to be transparent, they're not going to be transparent - just so that voters know who they can trust.

[00:06:06] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And this is a long standing precedent. This work is being done on behalf of the public, on behalf of the people of the state, financed by the public. And so having an eye - a transparent eye - into how decisions are made, how work is being done, how they're arriving at their conclusions through their processes. Not like it all needs to automatically be posted online, but if there's something worth looking into that there is access and the ability to be able to do that. That has been growing more complicated and more challenging for the public to access records, specifically, definitely with the legislature, but increasingly across the board. So where do each of the candidates stand? What have they committed to or not committed to do?

[00:06:56] Shauna Sowersby: Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who is running for governor - he has vowed not to use executive privilege, which is something that Governor Jay Inslee has also not used during his entire time that he has been in office, which simply gives them the right to withhold certain information as their role as governor. Now, interestingly - I was kind of surprised talking to Dave Reichert's folks that he has not committed to not invoking executive privilege. I felt like that's a pretty easy one to either say that you would agree with or not agree with, so I was a little surprised to see him say that - he may potentially use it in the future. That certainly changes the precedent that's been set over the last 12 years with Governor Inslee in office.

[00:07:44] Crystal Fincher: Interesting difference between the two, specifically because you hear kind of in Republican ranks - government for the people, by the people, we the people. Well, it doesn't seem like they're that excited for the people to see - really interesting to follow. Also worth noting that you - as well as Joseph O'Sullivan, who was with Cascade PBS - received the Washington Coalition for Open Government's prestigious Bunting Award for your reporting on lawmakers' efforts to hide information about their work from the public using legislative privilege. So you have been on this beat covering this story from a number of angles for quite some time. And it's pretty impactful for the public on how accountable we're able to hold our public officials for how they go about the work of governing on our behalf.

[00:08:38] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, it's been really nice. When we started out doing this work - Joe and I together - we got a lot of pushback, obviously, from lawmakers who said - Oh, this isn't that big of a deal. This isn't an issue that we should be looking into - kind of downplaying it, saying that there's more important things that we should have been focusing on. And so it's been really nice seeing The Seattle Times, as they do their endorsements, bringing this up as an issue and seeing all these other news outlets bring this up to say, kind of signal - Hey, this is a big issue. People do care about this.

[00:09:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We also received more polling news this week, starting off with a poll revealing that women in Washington state do not trust the United States Supreme Court. What did this poll reveal about how Washington women are feeling?

[00:09:31] Shauna Sowersby: The results showed increasingly unfavorable opinion of the Supreme Court more broadly - 61% of residents who were polled said that the Supreme Court is out of touch, and a majority of those were women. Certainly understandable after a lot of the rollbacks we've seen on some abortion issues in the last couple of years, for sure.

[00:09:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Like you said, 67% of women in the state held an unfavorable view. Almost half of men hold an unfavorable view of the Supreme Court. Interestingly enough, almost half of Republicans, 47%, hold an unfavorable view of the Supreme Court. Really, this looks like a dramatic shift - unfortunately downward - in people's perceptions and trust in the courts. How might this impact elections in Washington state?

[00:10:31] Shauna Sowersby: I wonder about that, too - just as Washington is typically pretty blue. I think that people will be more cognizant of who they're voting for locally, as we kind of grapple with what the Supreme Court is doing nationally. I think that we will see a lot more focus on and more intentionality of the way people vote for their local elected officials, because at least we have a little bit more control in that respect than we do about decisions that are being made higher up.

[00:11:07] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Certainly, we will see what the impact may be on these elections, but we are at a bit of a different place than we were four years ago, when we were considering the choice for president - when certainly the Supreme Court was on people's minds. People were - a number of people, we talked about it on this program - were predicting that we could see the end of Roe vs Wade, that we could see a dismantling of the administrative state, especially at the federal level. But there was disagreement on that fact. It was - Well, maybe it won't be that big of a deal. There's precedent for Roe vs Wade. It'll be there. And so now we're in a place where we actually have decisions that we've seen that have been impactful. Certainly people have seen how women, in particular - mostly because it can impact reproductive health care far beyond just decisions about how people want to have children or not, but impacting other medications that could fall in that category that are being used to treat other illnesses or conditions, really grappling with the impact that this can have on the mother's life and how critical conditions can be allowed to just get worse. I think just seeing the consequences of some of these decisions has people paying more attention to it and explains the dramatic decline from where we were just a few years ago. So will certainly be impactful as we continue to see these. And it'll be interesting to see how people consider these choices - not just for President, but even Governor and Attorney General - and how those may impact the freedom that people have to make choices in their lives.

[00:12:49] Shauna Sowersby: We're seeing that issue also come up in our local elections as all of the candidates are being pressed on where they stand on that issue. I think it's pretty clear that that is an issue that is important to a lot of folks here in Washington state. And they want to make sure that no matter what happens at a national level, that women here in our state will be protected by our laws.

[00:13:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And that really is relevant to another question asked on this Washington poll - asked if people would be more or less likely to vote for a candidate who supports federal restrictions on abortion, or if it would make no difference. 20% said a candidate's support for restrictions would make it more likely that they would support. But 49% - almost half of the state overall - said it would make them less likely to support someone if they supported restrictions on abortion. 24% said it made no difference. 7% were uncertain. But certainly stark numbers that also seem associated with how people are perceiving the Supreme Court, but certainly how they're considering their choices in this election.

There was also some polling about a couple of the initiatives. One - Initiative 2109 - which would repeal the 7% state capital gains tax on stock and bond sale profits over $250,000. 46% said they were certain to vote yes on that initiative to repeal it, 23% said they were certain to reject the repeal, 31% weren't certain. So this is an interesting race where, from a campaign perspective, looking at numbers like that, certainly this is making people who support the repeal - those who oppose the idea of a capital gains tax - gives them cause to feel optimistic. From the viewpoint of people who support capital gains and want to reject this initiative - at first glance, it may seem like it's troubling. But one of the things about this poll that was quickly pointed out was that the way you ask questions makes a big difference in the types of answers that you receive. One of the things about polling for initiatives is that it's critical to ask the question as it's presented on the ballot - as voters are reading the question and considering in real-life conditions. This poll didn't seem to do that - don't know why. It did test some messaging, which can be useful - like here's an argument for it, here's an argument against it - that can be useful to see how convincing people find different arguments to be. But at this time before people are really engaged in paying attention to this - these initiatives are not on the August ballot, they're on the November ballot. And we really haven't had a widespread conversation about this yet - that often happens within a couple months of when the election is going to be and sooner, definitely a lot within the final month before the election. So I think there's a lot of room for this to move and pretty sizable - I think it was about a third of the voters that at this point say that they're undecided, 31% were not certain - certainly leaves a lot of room for people to move. And depending, that 46% certain to vote yes to repeal the capital gains tax may be close to a ceiling there. So we'll continue to see, but certainly points to this being a competitive race for the rest of the time.

Similarly, Initiative 2124 to repeal the payroll tax to fund the WA Cares long-term care insurance program is in stronger position, with 52% of likely voters saying they're likely to support the ballot initiative to reject this payroll tax for WA Cares, 27% certain to vote no, and 22% not certain. This has faced some challenges legislatively - the Legislature has established this and then after some feedback, made some modifications to the program - but this looks like there may be an uphill battle to address this. What does the WA Cares program do?

[00:17:07] Shauna Sowersby: The Cares program takes a certain percentage of folks' paychecks every month. For example, if you make $50,000 a year, you'd get $25 taken out of your paycheck every month. And that goes into a fund that ensures that if anything happens to you, if you need medical care - not necessarily even after you retire - if you need medical care for any length of time, it provides up to, I believe, $36,000 of benefits that can go towards various things - home health care aids, medical equipment, that sort of thing. So it's just a little bit of extra assurance that some of your medical needs will be taken care of through the state, through this program.

[00:17:55] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Opponents of this initiative - in other words, people who want to maintain the long-term care program that we have - say letting people opt out of paying into the program, which is a big safety net, could cause it to collapse. Repealing the payroll tax is really repealing the program. And it is pretty stark to see, especially in today's world, how many people are projected to wind up needing long-term care. It's estimated that most of us are going to need long-term care, and virtually no one has any coverage for that. This is not something that is covered by almost all health insurance. This is kind of in a different category and is causing tremendous financial disruption to people right now who are being faced with it. But the opponents of it, the supporters of this initiative, say that - Hey, people are under pressure financially. They want a choice. They want to be able to opt-in and they should get that choice. Have you seen this conversation pretty much stay the same as you've covered the Legislature? Have you seen things move with this? Where has the sentiment of the average voter been on this and has it shifted?

[00:19:10] Shauna Sowersby: Just from what I've seen as this has moved - it was only recently - I know they spent years trying to finally get this enacted and trying to figure out a way to get this funded, or figuring out when they were going to start funding this. And so just from my point of view, the arguments have pretty much stayed the same. Like you said, the folks who are for this say that - We need everybody on board in order for this to work, in order for it to be properly funded. And then the folks who are against it, again, like you said - It's just the choice of the matter. We shouldn't have to pay into this program. It should be an option. But I feel like the arguments have pretty much stayed the same. And the folks who are sponsoring this initiative are using a lot of the same talking points that Republicans used when they voted against this measure in the Legislature. So not much has changed on that. It just seems like they feel like folks should have the option to decide.

[00:20:07] Crystal Fincher: As you astutely pointed out, this does mirror a lot of the rhetoric that we've heard from Republicans. In fact, this initiative, this entire suite of initiatives - the new one that we talked about at the top of the program and these that we're talking about right now - are all on the ballot because of Brian Heywood partnering with the Chair of the Washington State GOP and really funding and financing these initiatives. He's a hedge fund manager who has bankrolled this, so these are all part of a collective - really, GOP effort - funded by someone who is sympathetic, to put it mildly, to that rhetoric, has been sympathetic to what Republicans have been trying to push. Another challenge with this poll is that particularly with this, but with a number of them, they did not include the fiscal impact, which is also included on the ballot. And so characterizing this in any other way except for - really it equates to a defunding of long-term care insurance, it will make it insolvent the same way that the Climate Care Act repeal really defunds the Climate Care Act and our state's main climate response. So that's a major issue, certainly a fault line between Democrats and Republicans in this state. But I do think it's helpful overall as people are considering this - this is really a suite of initiatives brought forth, really funded by Brian Heywood. And certainly they've been making their arguments - and there's a portion of the Washington state population that definitely agrees with him.

Usually in polling that we've seen - that has used the ballot language that voters will be seeing, that has presented a fiscal impact - the polling results have not looked like this. These are different, but that's also why generally you don't ever want to consider one poll, even if it's a great poll in favor of it. Like one poll usually isn't what you use to put all of your eggs in that basket. You look at kind of the suite of polling that we have - do they all agree or point generally in the same direction? And then you look at outliers to that. And if this does seem to be an outlier, there do seem to be potential reasons that you can look at to see why that would be. But we'll continue to follow this. I do think that these are going to be competitive initiatives - absolutely. I don't think that it's just - Ah, dismiss this. It doesn't make any sense. These are going to sail through automatically. I think opponents of these initiatives have their work cut out for them. But based on the suite of polling, it looks like these are competitive and this certainly is not over. And there's a lot still to be said about these.

[00:22:44] Shauna Sowersby: I'm very curious to see how this shakes out during the November elections. I think it just adds that little extra bit of flavor to our statewide elections this year.

[00:22:57] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Other news, interesting news this week - was news of a independent expenditure supported by crypto proponents for Emily Randall, who is a current state senator and who is running for Congress in the 6th Congressional District against Hilary Franz. What is this IE and what are people saying about it?

[00:23:19] Shauna Sowersby: So it's a pro-crypto PAC - and I can't even tell you what a pro-crypto PAC means - I thought this was pretty interesting. But Randall's opponent, Hilary Franz, calls it "dark money" from Protect Progress, which is a firm led by Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, both of whom have endorsed Donald Trump. And so, yeah, they're putting major money into this - $1.4 million in ads in favor of Senator Emily Randall. It's worth pointing out as well that the group isn't legally allowed to coordinate with Randall's campaign, so this is money that they are just contributing on behalf of her, but not with her. But this is certainly an interesting one. I don't know in any other election that I've seen where a pro-crypto PAC is donating money to a statewide election.

[00:24:16] Crystal Fincher: This is really interesting, as you said, to see this group - this is not an organization that we're used to seeing in Washington government. And any time you have a group headed by people who are - one, extraordinarily rich, and two, who have endorsed Donald Trump, in support of MAGA Republicans, it's going to make people's eyebrows raise. They're going to wonder what the motivation is here. What alignment do they see? And I think those are justified questions for people who are considering this. It's a $1.4 million ad buy that they're making on behalf of Emily Randall. Again, as you said, this is not the campaign doing this - they may not know anyone involved with this. But why is this happening? is a big question. And as interesting is who has also come out and said - Hey, we find this troubling. Both Derek Kilmer, the current congressman from the 6th District, who is stepping down from the seat, in addition to Norm Dicks, who was the representative before Derek Kilmer, released a joint statement with the Franz campaign saying that they were appalled by this and saying it "undermines our democracy and our free and fair elections." Emily Randall's campaign has responded and said - Hey, she's the only candidate endorsed by Planned Parenthood, Patty Murray, Governor Chris Gregoire, and her values are clear in this race. And she's not accepting corporate PAC money, the only candidate who signed a pledge for no negative advertising in this race. But that's also a very interesting thing - yes, you can make a pledge to say we're not accepting corporate PAC money with a campaign. But organizations operating on behalf of you - that are corporate PACs - are doing that. So just a really interesting development, and I don't know how voters are going to perceive this or how much it's going to be known. But certainly unclear to see.

[00:26:12] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah. And I just can't imagine that there are too many voters in the state that are so pro-crypto that this will influence their opinions at all. I think that that is just such an interesting aspect of it. I think that article said, too, that that PAC had donated to one of the candidates in Arizona who's trying to take Sinema's seat as well. So this will be interesting to see how this plays out in other states if they plan on doing other ad buys for other candidates, too. And like you said, why?

[00:26:47] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, why? Especially because Franz is reportedly - at least broadly - in support of crypto, according to a website that tracks where people stand on this. So what is it about Randall that they find particularly compelling or Franz that they find particularly off-putting? But certainly a noticeable expenditure here in Washington state that I will be curious to learn more about - what is the motivation in that race?

[00:27:15] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, I'm curious to see the ads, too.

[00:27:18] Crystal Fincher: Yes, definitely. News this week that the King County Jail will begin accepting bookings again for drug use and other misdemeanors in the Downtown Activation Zone. What is happening here?

[00:27:34] Shauna Sowersby: So basically, it will come down to the discretion of police officers to decide whether or not they want to book individuals who are arrested for simple misdemeanors, such as a violation of the new law in Seattle that criminalizes public drug use and possession. And this only applies to folks who are arrested in the Downtown Activation Zone, which stretches from the International District to the Denny Triangle, which I found kind of interesting - that it just applies to that area.

[00:28:07] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. What this really is, is an issue that is billed as public drug use, but really looking largely at a proxy response for homelessness. This is public - we all know the rates of drug use by people who do have homes is significant also. But people who are unhoused, who have attracted, certainly, media attention for drug use outdoors - which does make people uncomfortable. There are a number of people struggling with substance use disorder. We notoriously do not have adequate services and rehabilitation, detox services and facilities available for people. And we've had a longstanding conversation in our state about what the appropriate response to drug use and substance use disorder is. We had moved away from a carceral approach to that - Hey, lock 'em up and that'll get 'em clean. - after overwhelming data shows that although people here and there may "hit rock bottom" in jail and find a way to get clean, that is not the case for most people. In fact, it is often more destabilizing. However, as the problems of homelessness and drug use and substance use disorder have lingered and gotten worse to many people's view, there are now leaders in place who feel like - Hey, we need to go back to someone's doing drugs, we can lock them up. And so if you don't have a home and you have substance use disorder, that is you going to be doing that in a public place. And that geographic area that you described where it's interesting is where a lot of the conversation about homelessness is focused in the city of Seattle, certainly - in that Downtown zone area where certainly the Downtown Seattle Association, the Chamber of Commerce have focused a lot of efforts and energy in wanting encampments cleared and wanting that area to be cleared up. So not just drug use, but also simple misdemeanors - back to misdemeanors - which had bookings dramatically reduced, certainly, if not wholesale stopped during the pandemic with COVID because of short staffing levels, inadequate service levels, and the public health risk that comes to that. So this is basically kind of a return back to where we were, to where jail is the solution that we're pointing to here. What are leaders and stakeholders saying about this move to lock people up for drug use and other misdemeanors?

[00:30:44] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, I mean, I certainly think that there's some, like Mayor Bruce Harrell, who believe that this is a good solution, that this is the direction that everything should be headed. And of course, like you said, there's going to be people who are opposed to this. We don't know how this will quite pan out yet. I'm curious to see if they keep any sort of data moving forward on this - to see if this is working, or how they will determine if this is actually going to work. So I just hope that there's somebody keeping tabs on this sort of thing because I would like to see - either way - what they believe is working or what they consider working.

[00:31:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I think that's very important. And we, at Hacks & Wonks, will certainly be keeping an eye on this as it rolls out and see what's going on with it.

Finally, this week, very horribly sad news that Matt Driscoll - who listeners of Hacks & Wonks are familiar with as another co-host that we've had on for a number of times - columnist with The News Tribune, who lived in Tacoma with his wife and three kids, passed away at the age of 43 earlier this week. Just absolutely, just devastating and really shocking news. This was completely unexpected and has really just shocked and stunned and saddened so many people around the state, but certainly the entire Pierce County and Tacoma community.

[00:32:22] Shauna Sowersby: I don't think I've gotten over the shock yet.

[00:32:25] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, yeah. How did you know Matt? And as you're trying to process this, how are you reflecting on him?

[00:32:38] Shauna Sowersby: We worked together. As you know, I was part of The News Tribune, as well as the other three McClatchy newspapers here in the state. Matt, I would say I - out of all of the folks at The News Tribune, I would often go to Matt and Sean Robinson for a lot of advice just on how to move forward on things. You know, a lot of banter between me and Matt - sometimes just discussing certain lawmakers. I looked up to him quite a bit. I always looked for his advice on a lot of things. It always made me feel really good when Matt would reach out and congratulate me, like on the award or tell me that he liked my article - it just felt really special coming from him - just because I thought his opinion just meant the world. And yeah, this is just, I can't, yeah, I don't think I've processed this quite yet either. Just a huge loss, like you said, to everyone. And really beautiful to see that so many people have come together and, you know, his GoFundMe has raised over $100,000 for his family, which I would encourage people to donate to if they haven't yet. So, you know, in light of all this, it's nice to see the community coming together.

[00:34:08] Crystal Fincher: It is. Shocking and still processing this, I think, is where a lot of people are at with this. And the people listening have had a window into how thoughtful and caring Matt was. Certainly I did not know him as long as many people did, we didn't get to spend a ton of time together. But what we did, I mean he - what I, I said it online, I said it a few times - He loved his family and he loved Tacoma, and that was just ever-present in everything he did. He loved people. He loved people of Tacoma. And he was very thoughtful and very caring - and really humble. And was just a guy who was trying to do his best and trying to care for the people around him who, you know, was his family but everyone in his community and did his best to try and be a good steward of the platform that he had. And I really, really appreciated that and appreciated all of his insight - always - that he shared on this program. But in other conversations with him, like, personally, I love - I've not met his wife and his children, he has three children - but I love, like, when someone talks about their spouse, and they clearly just love and admire and think they're just so cool. And like, you get excited about them and you're like - Wow, they sound super cool. And like, that is so cool to see through his eyes what that is. And his kids, like he just adored his kids and, you know, would just talk about them with joy and pride and he would light up and like, I can't imagine what they are feeling and going through, but I do hope - there's nothing to be said, nothing that can take the pain away, but that there is some comfort in how broadly the community has been expressing their love and appreciation for who he has been for everyone. We will absolutely be sharing the link to the GoFundMe in the show notes. Again, this is sudden - he was only 43, one of his kids needs 24/7 medical care - there's just a lot going on. And this is just the beginning, certainly - it's not just for now, but there are going to be ongoing needs for quite some time. So it is encouraging to see the response so far in that he gave so much to the community and that the community can be there for his family that he loved so much.

I just - it is hard to process. And those who knew him for a while, who were close to him are - like, it's just so hard and it's just so shocking and even getting past the shock. Melissa Santos with Axios, who you've also heard as a co-host on this show, I think shared some really great thoughts this morning on Twitter. She said - I wasn't able to say much earlier this week about the passing of Matt Driscoll because I was still in shock and grieving. But there are a few things I want people to know about him. Matt made it a priority to truly listen to people. That's why he could empathetically tell stories of people struggling with addiction; it's why even his opinionated takes were tempered with the best arguments of the people who disagreed with him. Because he listened. He was incredibly funny, and he had the type of writing talent you don't come across many times in a lifetime. Because he didn't rest on pretty words - he was also a diligent reporter who did hours of legwork behind the scenes to make sure his work was fair and thorough. He put up with me talking at him constantly while he was on deadline with kindness, although it had to be annoying, annoying as hell. He gave me little tips about life that I think about often (like not to eat the food your kids inevitably waste every day - your waistline will thank you.) He was the kind of journalist that understood that the responsibility we have in the media is not just to be fair and accurate in an individual story, but also that the choices we make about what to cover, how often and in what manner have real societal effects we must consider. Matt balanced his duties to his readers and the community with challenges in his personal life, having a child with intense medical needs. He showed up and gave things his all, even when it must have been extremely hard to do so. The sadness I'm feeling is only a shadow of the wrenching loss I know his family is going through right now. But I am going to deeply miss my friend, who I still can't believe isn't a mere text away anymore. RIP Matt Driscoll. I'm better for having known you.

[00:39:10] Shauna Sowersby: We all are.

[00:39:13] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, yeah, and I absolutely am. I'm better for having known him - I've learned from him, was fortunate to laugh with him. Like, these are just shoes that can't be filled, this is a hole that will just remain. But there's so much to take from how he lived, and I will be continuing to think about him often.

[00:39:42] Shauna Sowersby: He will definitely be missed, and I'll just echo what you said, too. I can't imagine what his family is going through right now. I don't have the words to say how I feel about this whole situation.

[00:39:58] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's still new and raw and - just shocking and devastating are the two words that continue to come to the top of my mind. But I appreciate Matt and will miss him.

And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, July 26th, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was state politics reporter for Cascade PBS, Shauna Sowersby. You can find Shauna on Twitter at @Shauna_Sowersby. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter or many platforms at @HacksWonks. You can find me on most platforms at @finchfrii. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else 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, 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 and in the podcast episode notes.

Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.