Week in Review: Timothy Rankin, Tanya Woo, and OSPI

Guest host Mike Lewis discusses the week’s news with The Needling’s Lex Vaughn, Republican strategist Randy Pepple, and Seattle Times columnist Claudia Rowe.

Timothy Rankine, one of three former Tacoma police officers acquitted in the 2020 killing of Manuel Ellis, and his wife, Katherine Chinn, have filed a defamation lawsuit against the city of Tacoma and Washington state officials for a total of $47 million. Rankine alleges he was falsely accused of racist and criminal misconduct, which destroyed his reputation and eliminated his chance of finding work. He seeks $35 million in damages from the city and state, and Chinn is seeking $12 million. Officials with the city of Tacoma and the Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the lawsuit. What is a reputation worth? Is the $47 million justified in this case?

Seattle's ethics czar has said that when the Seattle City Council votes on a new, lower pay standard for app-based delivery drivers next week, Councilmember Tanya Woo should not participate in the vote, according to The Seattle Times. Wayne Barnett, who directs the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, said because Woo’s father-in-law owns Kau Kau BBQ in the Chinatown International District, a restaurant that uses the delivery apps that the council is targeting for change, it gives Woo’s family a possible financial stake in the vote. Could almost any change in city policy create a potential conflict of interest given that council members live and work in the city?

The Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, or OSPI, is coming under the post-pandemic spotlight as money that has poured into the public primary education system has not improved outcomes for many students, and in fact outcomes by some measures are getting worse. Should OSPI have more say, given the state of public instruction here?

Capital gains tax collections in Washington declined in 2024. The state collected $433 million as of May 15 this year compared to $786 million netted in 2023, which was the first year the state collected the new tax that largely targeted stock and bond sales exceeding $250,000, the Washington State Standard reported. That declining revenue in its second year has brought additional attention to Initiative 2109, which seeks to repeal that tax. The money collected goes toward education, specifically early learning and child care, and school construction costs. Does the potentially fluctuating nature of the capital gains tax, which the state has described as a sales tax, underscore the need for a state income tax?

For the first time in history, or perhaps the first time people openly admitted the real data, the number of Americans who use marijuana every day exceeded the number of daily drinkers. This is an unsurprising outgrowth, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University say, from the expansion of legal recreational pot use in nearly half of U.S. states. According to the Associated Press, an estimated 17.7 million people in 2022 reported using marijuana daily or near-daily compared to 14.7 million daily or near-daily drinkers. In 1992, the same data showed, daily pot use hit a low point less than 1 million people who said they used marijuana nearly every day. Alcohol is still more widely used. Is this a good thing, a bad thing, or a mixed bag?