AFT Washington

🚨 Democrats have now cast 1.5x as many ballots as they did during all of 2024 early primary voting.

Current total (change from yesterday):
🔵 869,118 (+114,353)

Hey what can we do instead of numbing ourselves to the despair being pushed down from the highest levels of this country? We can build from below, which is what organizers are showing us in the public power movement. Check this out if you need a dose of optimism (backed with real life examples!)

THE WENATCHEE WORLD Elana Mainer with Rural People's Voice January 17, 2026 Op-ed "Why rural communities support the Millionaires Tax"

"Right now, every family I know, including my own, is worried about their future and tightening up their spending." "For years, everyday people have watched as our paychecks cover less and the richest get richer off our hard work."

"We know that the CEO of Weyerhaeuser lumber makes 180 times more than a millwright, but he doesn't work 180 times harder." "We know that a 40-hour-a-week job should be enough to feed our families, see a doctor, and plan for our future, but most jobs don't pay us what we're worth."

"To make sense of our hard times, we get told to blame our neighbors, other poor people, immigrants, single moms, and more, all so we don't notice when the super-rich make their first-or fortieth-billion. The stories they tell us are meant to keep us fighting each other, but we don't have to buy it." Read the full article at WenatcheeWorld.com

Elana with Rural People's Voice wrote a powerful op-ed in the Wenatchee World about why passing the Millionaires Tax is so important to funding schools for rural kids and the essential services that support hardworking families outside major cities.

#WALeg

This is just really encouraging.

Absolutely not! But it's a hoary argument for letting people amass wealth - they'll give it back in charity! - and this just (I hope to god) the nail in the coffin so we never, ever hear that again. It's categorically not true, and now we have the numbers.

President Trump says he wants to stop Wall Street and private equity from buying up homes.

Democrats are introducing The American Homeownership Act to get it done - while boosting housing supply and lowering costs.

The President and Republicans should join us.

Dr. Tim Mackey, bio professor at community college in Bothell and @aftwa.bsky.social member in support: "Right now, our enrollment is up 7%, yet last year our budgets were cut."

"Economic growth does not come from largesse of wealthy, it comes from my students graduating without debt."

This would go a long way to putting housing stock back on the market. Building infinitely isn't the solution when private equity firms can just buy the entire rental market of a city.

UPDATE: I’ve been at the Northwest Detention Facility for over 3 hours and am still being denied my congressional duty to conduct oversight.

What are they so afraid of that they won't let me meet with detainees?

I will not give up.

I'm never 100% sure something is true until these people deny it.

After a historic victory in the #WALeg Senate, the Millionaires Tax to rebalance our upside-down tax code has its 1st hearing in the House!

Sign your name in "PRO" today to show your support for a future where everyone, not just the wealthiest, can thrive in WA: app.leg.wa.gov/csi/Testifie...

Observing the Day of Remembrance Amid Increased ICE Activity in South Seattle From Puyallup to Tacoma, community members honor those incarcerated under Executive Order 9066 while calling attention to immigrant detention and deportation flights leaving King County.

Observing the Day of Remembrance Amid Increased ICE Activity in South Seattle

Events in Puyallup and Tacoma connect Executive Order 9066 to current immigrant detention and deportation activity, including ICE flights from Boeing Field.

Seems like we've been told a lot that charitable giving is as good as taxation.

Seems like that's not correct.

WA state has one of the worst tax systems in the country. Teachers, nurses, & small business owners pay a higher income tax rate than wealthy folks.

Patriotic Millionaire Victoria Hattersly explains why a proposed Millionaires Tax is a first step toward restoring fairness.

If your vote didn't matter, no one would be trying to take it away from you.

An excellent, and moving, article.

Teachers strike grips San Francisco

Educators in San Francisco are fighting for better health benefits, better wages, improved special education and more. Their fight to get SFUSD to invest in classrooms, educators and students’ futures is all of our fight.

Solidarity with United Educators of San Francisco on strike!

If you need a shot of hope, or just like numbers and data, here's some cool info from Crowd Counting Consortium.

"Taken together, an overall look at protest patterns in 2026 reinforces the sense of a growing, durable, and disciplined pro-democracy movement increasingly mobilized at the grassroots."

As someone else pointed out, even if this is a straight-up lie, it makes it much easier to win Election Day lawsuits if they do show up at polling places - they've said on the record, then doubled down on it, that they do not need to be there, so why are they there? This is excellent.

A graphic with a photo of a man and a woman looking at a laptop. The text says, "REMINDER: Social Security is an earned benefit; it’s OUR money!"

Social Security is an EARNED benefit, and we should get every promised penny when it’s time to collect!

It just so strongly highlights how small and petty they are that they can waste money to try to not support the communities they live and work in.

Like, how small are you if you can't freaking pay taxes? The meanness of spirt would make Scrooge blush and reconsider.

For the kind of real change we talk about creating and seeing, we need to see new leaders. It can be hard to know where to start; this program has been going for a while. There's also a union-led similar program in Washington State that I believe starts in the spring.

Go. Start.

AFT Washington seeks an Administrative Support Specialist to be based in Renton, WA. Details can be found at: unionjobs.com/listing.php?... #1u #UnionStrong @aftwa.bsky.social @aft.org

WA among states trying to block the sale of people's precise location data Politicians in over half a dozen Democrat-led states, including Washington, want to ban companies from selling information about people's precise location. This, amid concerns that such data will be u...

Your phone shouldn’t be a tracking device for ICE nor should your real time location be up for sale.
WA Dems are fighting to ban the sale of precise location data to protect immigrants, patients, and our communities.

If you are for some reason not familiar with Elie Mystal, you are super duper missing out. This is, as usual, an excellent piece that highlights the administration's effort to leverage slavery law and imagery to make white America shut up again.

All the resources you need on immigration and ICE Federal immigration actions are rapidly expanding, with deadly consequences. The killings of poet Renee Nicole Good and nurse Alex Pretti by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis h...

AFT's immigration enforcement webinar this week shared important tips and resources for educators, healthcare professionals and community members in the face of ICE's intensified operations. We've compiled them all in a new post here ⤵️
www.aft.org/news/all-res...

Well, that was quick - apparently the vote happened and it failed. The GOP is really not learning anything here.

It's the step that a lot of the "General Strike Now" ppl miss. At this point, a nationwide general strike will take years of organizing to actually have numbers and be effective. It's a goal, don't get me wrong! Workers need to send the message that WE have the power. But it takes work, not posts.

Curious to see what happens with that against the backdrop of looming bad polling for the GOP and the midterms coming up quick.

Texas A&M Ends Women’s Studies and Overhauls Classes Over Race and Gender

This is a five-alarm fire not just for Texas A&M but for higher education and the country more generally. And it’s old news to say it, but this resides in a different universe of consequentiality than any of the perceived transgressions that triggered the Harper’s letter.