State House passes ‘revenge porn’ measure
Distributed by Crosscut Public Media
The Washington House unanimously passed a “revenge-porn” bill Monday that would allow a victim to seek damages in civil court for posting intimate images without a person’s consent.
The measure, sponsored by Rep. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, would allow a maximum of $10,000 or actual damages proven by the victim, whichever is greater. The bill now goes to the Senate.
Click here for more 2015 Olympia coverage.
Muslim group calls for apology by legislator for his remarks
By John Stang
An organization of American Muslims said Thursday that Rep. Larry Haler, R-Richland, should apologize publicly for saying it is a subsidiary of violent Middle East groups.
In reply, Haler issued a press release saying he has apologized twice in private for his remarks.
The controversy dates back to a Jan. 14 hearing of the Washington House Judiciary Committee on a bill by Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, D-Burien to repeal a state Cold War sedition law. Instead, committee members Haler and Rep. Brad Klippert, R-Kennewick, wanted to keep that law intact and add Middle East terrorist organizations to it.
Haler wanted to add the Council on American-Islamic Relations — or CAIR — to the list, The Seattle Times reported. “We do have a group in this country called CAIR, which is basically run by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, they are a political entity” Haler said in The Times’ story. “And their goal is to overthrow the country.”
“His remarks came as a surprise to us. … We were founded (in 1994) in America by Americans, funded by people in our own state,” said Arsalan Bukhari, executive director of CAIR’s Washington state chapter. CAIR tackles discrimination and other Muslim empowerment matters in the United States.
CAIR – along with representatives from the Faith Action Network, OneAmerica and the Washington Low-Income Housing Alliance — met with Haler twice in private. They wanted to express their concerns, seek a public apology and to find out what information he had to link CAIR to Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood, their representatives said at a Thursday press conference in Olympia. Haler never provided information to CAIR on the alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas, they said.
The lack of a public apology prompted the organizations to issue a letter Thursday to ask Haler for an apology in public.
“Comments such as yours that invoke long-discredited theories, especially because of your position of authority and power as a state lawmaker, can have an extraordinary harmful impact on the safety and welfare of Muslims across our state,” said the letter, signed by 19 state organizations, plus several Muslims living in the Tri-Cities area.
The organizations holding the press conference pointed to two 2014 anti-Muslim incidents in Washington, including one in Haler’s own district. A Burbank man with a sign saying “Death to Islam” picketed the Tri-Cities’ main mosque in West Richland on Sept. 28. He also had a pistol in a holster with him, according to the Tri-City Herald. On Dec. 7, 2014, Muslim cab driver Adan Gaal, a 34-year-old American citizen who moved to the United States from Somalia in 1999, was repeatedly punched in the face by one man in an all-white group of three men and one woman in his cab.
Gaal said of Haler’s Jan.14 remarks: “Some people might take it seriously and the same thing that happened to me will happen to someone else.
Haler declined to talk about the matter. But he issued a written statement that said: “I respect the views brought forth by the groups in today’s press conference. I have acknowledged that my comments may have unintentionally offended some. I met with a group of constituents in Olympia on Jan. 19 to apologize. Furthermore, I met with CAIR and (the Faith Action Network) on Feb. 2 to extend my apologies. It is unfortunate that these two instances do not satisfy their definition of apology.”
Fitzgibbon’s bill to repeal the sedition law has not yet come up for a vote in the House Judiciary Committee.
Distributed by Crosscut Public Media
Click here for more 2015 Olympia coverage.
Lawmakers look to help women get fair pay
By John Stang.
Jean Godden used to be one off six columnists for the now-closed Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. The other five were men. Then, Godden, who is now a Seattle City Council member, found out she was the lowest paid of the six.
That made her angry.
“I don’t want another woman to face the same problem I faced with wage discrimination,” Godden said at a Thursday announcement of two proposed bills in Washington’s Legislature to tackle the disparity between what men and women are paid for similar work.
“Even today, women are paid 80 cents for every dollar earned by men for similar work,” said Rep. Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island. Senn and Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver, plan to introduce companion bills to require employers to provide valid reasons — such as differences in education, training or experience — if employees challenge pay disparities between workers of the opposite sex for essentially the same work.
The proposed bills would allow gender-based pay disputes to be taken to an administrative judge at the Washington Department of Labor & Industries. The bills would also forbid employers from ordering workers not to disclose their salaries, and would forbid ordering employees from sharing pay information with each other. Nine states have similar laws.
In 2013, Washington had the nation’s 21st largest wage gap between women and men in the nation, according to the National Women’s Law Center. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that a woman is the sole or main breadwinner in 40 percent of families.
In Washington, the federal census and the 2013 American Community Survey showed the pay gap between sexes increases as the level of education rises. For example, men 25 and older with high school diplomas in Washington made some $8,000 to $9,000 annually more than women of the same age and education. Among bachelor’s degree holders, men were earning nearly $20,000 more than women in Washington, according to the 2013 data. And male Washingtonians with graduate degrees earn about $24,000 more annually than women with graduate degrees. The Seattle-based social issues think tank Economic Opportunity Institute crunched the census and survey numbers.
Also in Washington, men earn a few thousand dollars more annually than women in the food services, other services and administrative support fields. In health technician jobs, men average roughly a little less than $60,000 annually, while women average slightly more than $40,000 a year.
The gaps in Washington widen significantly in management, computer and math jobs. Among men in management, pay in this state averages roughly $85,000 a year, while the average woman manager receives about $61,000. In the computer and math fields, the average male makes a bit less than $100,000 a year, while the average woman earns just over $75,000.
The bill sponsors expressed optimism about winning approval for their measure. Senn said she had collected 55 co-sponsors for her bill so far – a majority of the 98-member House of Representatives. Cleveland said she is “very, very hopeful” of getting one of the bills through the Senate.
Distributed by Crosscut Public Media to be one off six columnists for the now-closed Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. The other five were men. Then, Godden, who is now a Seattle City Council member, found out she was the lowest paid of the six.
That made her angry.
“I don’t want another woman to face the same problem I faced with wage discrimination,” Godden said at a Thursday announcement of two proposed bills in Washington’s Legislature to tackle the disparity between what men and women are paid for similar work.
“Even today, women are paid 80 cents for every dollar earned by men for similar work,” said Rep. Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island. Senn and Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver, plan to introduce companion bills to require employers to provide valid reasons — such as differences in education, training or experience — if employees challenge pay disparities between workers of the opposite sex for essentially the same work.
The proposed bills would allow gender-based pay disputes to be taken to an administrative judge at the Washington Department of Labor & Industries. The bills would also forbid employers from ordering workers not to disclose their salaries, and would forbid ordering employees from sharing pay information with each other. Nine states have similar laws.
In 2013, Washington had the nation’s 21st largest wage gap between women and men in the nation, according to the National Women’s Law Center. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that a woman is the sole or main breadwinner in 40 percent of families.
In Washington, the federal census and the 2013 American Community Survey showed the pay gap between sexes increases as the level of education rises. For example, men 25 and older with high school diplomas in Washington made some $8,000 to $9,000 annually more than women of the same age and education. Among bachelor’s degree holders, men were earning nearly $20,000 more than women in Washington, according to the 2013 data. And male Washingtonians with graduate degrees earn about $24,000 more annually than women with graduate degrees. The Seattle-based social issues think tank Economic Opportunity Institute crunched the census and survey numbers.
Also in Washington, men earn a few thousand dollars more annually than women in the food services, other services and administrative support fields. In health technician jobs, men average roughly a little less than $60,000 annually, while women average slightly more than $40,000 a year.
The gaps in Washington widen significantly in management, computer and math jobs. Among men in management, pay in this state averages roughly $85,000 a year, while the average woman manager receives about $61,000. In the computer and math fields, the average male makes a bit less than $100,000 a year, while the average woman earns just over $75,000.
The bill sponsors expressed optimism about winning approval for their measure. Senn said she had collected 55 co-sponsors for her bill so far – a majority of the 98-member House of Representatives. Cleveland said she is “very, very hopeful” of getting one of the bills through the Senate.
Distributed by Crosscut Public Media
