Tag: Seattle

Just weeks away from the November election, state Senate candidates Democrat Manka Dhingra and Republican Jinyoung Lee Englund squared off in a debate Tuesday. The question dominated a state Senate election debate between Democrat Manka Dhingra and Republican Jinyoung Lee Englund in Redmond on Tuesday. A victory by Dhingra, a senior deputy prosecutor for King County, would give control of the state Senate to Democrats, who already hold the governorship and state House. The bill passed the House on a bipartisan vote this year but stalled in the Senate. Englund, who has worked in the nonprofit, business and political worlds, railed against Seattle’s new tax on income, and against plans to open two safe drug-injection sites, one in Seattle and another elsewhere in King County. However, Englund has said she would have voted against the GOP-driven property-tax hike to raise more money for schools. Those tax increases are expected to hit many 45th District residents hard. Dhingra, like many Democratic lawmakers, also criticized the property-tax plan. The candidates split over whether they supported Democratic state Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s lawsuits against Trump administration policies involving immigration and other issues. “What I would like to see our attorney general do is focus on matters of the state,” said Englund, such as contesting Seattle’s new city income tax, which has already drawn multiple lawsuits.