Local News

WASHINGTON — Some politicians knock on doors for votes. U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene will knock and deliver your UPS package. The freshman Democrat from Medina on Monday announced plans to go “undercover” as a Woman in Brown to make delivery rounds in Redmond Wednesday morning. The reasons? To bring attention to the benefits of higher minimum wage…

Minimum wage is an important discussion, but it should happen at the state level, said Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia. He’s sponsoring Senate Bill 6307, which would prohibit cities and counties from enacting laws to regulate minimum wage, hours and other private employee considerations. The bill would not set a minimum wage but would reserve that action for the…

House Democrats introduced a bill Thursday that would boost the state’s minimum wage nearly 30 percent, to $12 an hour, by 2017. Under the proposal, the state’s current $9.32 cent-an-hour minimum wage would increase to $10 an hour starting Jan. 1, 2015, and would get another $1 an hour bump at the beginning of…