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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1908 | 15 |
| 1909 | 36 |
| 1910 | 5 |
56 stories matching session
- A Special Session Becomes an Impeachment Court
Washington lawmakers returned to Olympia to try Insurance Commissioner Schively, with the accused demanding that more than a dozen senators be disqualified as biased judges.
- The Governor Calls the Legislature Back to Get Rid of an Insurance Commissioner
Olympia convenes in extraordinary session to hear the investigating committee's report on Commissioner Schively — and cannot agree on whether to impeach him or simply abolish his office out from under him.
- The 1909 Legislature Went Home With a $10 Million Tab and an Unfinished Scandal
Washington's eleventh session adjourned with record spending, a sweeping new criminal code, a local-option liquor law, an equal-suffrage referendum — and an insurance investigation the House only agreed to after the acting governor threatened to drag them back.
- The House Turns on Its Insurance Commissioner
The Washington House votes unanimously to impeach Insurance Commissioner James H. Schively, opening a Senate trial that could remove him—and prolong the special session.
- A Federal Judge Takes Away Washington's Power to Set Railroad Rates
Judge Hanford rules in Seattle that the state railroad commission cannot fix freight and fares — and Governor Mead weighs a constitutional amendment and a special session to give it back.
- The Governor Wants Every State Office in His Own Hands
Governor Hay will ask the legislature to make every statewide office but his and the lieutenant governor's appointive — a cabinet government for Washington — while a commission tries to untangle a legal code nobody can read.
- Washington's First Impeachment Trial Is Losing Its Charges to a Comma
Insurance Commissioner J. H. Schively's Senate trial drops twenty-six counts down toward half of them on a technicality, while the sixty-day legislative clock runs out Saturday at midnight.
- The Statehouse Recesses—and an Impeachment Trial Waits
Lawmakers adjourn until August 11 to try Insurance Commissioner J.H. Schively on 26 counts, capping a special session that cost $117,984 and spawned investigations of the Supreme Court and a 'Nurses' Trust Bill.'
- The Bid That Didn’t Stick: Stevens County’s $219,500 Bond Deal Goes Bust
A Chicago bond house wins the county’s funding issue, then fails to make good; Denver’s Rollins Sons steps in with a premium bid.
- Eight Days, $7 Million in Requests, and a Labor Agenda Left to Die
Washington's 1909 legislature entered its final week with appropriations far outrunning revenue, more than 30 liquor bills pending, and nearly every labor measure quietly sidetracked.
- A Mining Company's Stormy Reckoning
Stockholders of the Spokane Lead Mines Co. trade accusations of mismanagement over a Metaline-country concentrator, then elect new trustees.
- Flooded Out, Then Taxed: Assessor Asks Relief for the Calispel Farmers
High water wiped out the grain fields of the Calispel valley this spring. The county assessor says the survivors should not have to pay for land that gave them nothing.
- The New Penal Code Left the Red Lights Burning
Washington's 1909 criminal code accidentally protected brothels from local crackdowns, and Northport's city fathers could only watch the glare.
- The Last-Week Jam in Olympia: Liquor, Primaries and a Budget Nobody Counted
With the 60-day session expiring, Washington's lawmakers settle local option, rewrite the primary ballot, kill the initiative and abandon the joint budget committee — leaving taxpayers to foot a three-mill levy.
- The Road Newport Was Promised—and the Colville Detour That Ate It
State Road No. 3 was supposed to run from Newport through Metaline and Northport to Orient. Instead, Newport’s share of the money went to surveys and improvements near Colville, leaving the lower river country with nothing but promises.
- Smallpox in the Jury Box: Court Shut Down by a Newport Man's Illness
A five-day lumber trial in Colville collapses when George Perkins is diagnosed with smallpox, sending jurors home and raising fears the disease will spread across Stevens County.
- Newport City Council Faces Financial Crisis
With only $130 in monthly tax revenue and $3,000 in outstanding warrants, the newly seated council struggles to keep the town afloat.
- Suffragists Patch Up a Convention Fight—After Silencing Washington’s Delegates
A credentials dispute over the Spokane delegation turned a Seattle suffrage convention into a faction fight. The national body restored harmony but stripped Washington women of their votes in the deliberations.
- City Hall Hands a 50-Year Power Franchise to the New Electric Company
Newport’s council approves a long-term electric franchise, ties up a telephone ordinance in restrictions, orders street grades, and hears complaints about street preachers.
- The Pan Tans: Spokane's Secret Order of Judges, Cops and Councilmen
A police commissioner's confession exposes a sworn club that counted three superior court judges, four councilmen, a deputy prosecutor and a police judge among its members — and the recall petitions start the same week.
- Olympia Moves to Outlaw the Insanity Defense — and Gag the Press on Murders
With the 1909 session half gone, Washington's legislature advances local option and an anti-racetrack gambling bill, while a sweeping new criminal code would strip juries of the insanity plea and bar newspapers from covering homicides before trial.
- The $35 Fee That Became $335: Insurance Commissioner Schively's Sliding Scale
Olympia investigators say J. H. Schively charged newly organized insurance companies whatever they would bear—then kept the difference. With 75 companies heard from and $8,000 in excess fees alleged, the evidence is headed to the governor.
- Seattle Breaks Ground on the Canal That Would Reshape Its Harbor
After more than fifty years of proposals, a former governor turns the first spadeful of earth on a waterway meant to join Lake Washington to Puget Sound.
- A Ditch, a Dam and the Fight to Keep Calispel Dry
Diking District No. 2 commissioners weigh an engineer's plan to divert the Calispel River above the falls and block Pend Oreille backwater with a dam.
- Stevens County Sets a Date to Vote the Saloons Out
With the petition deadlines cleared, the county auditor orders a Nov. 9 local-option election — and the dry forces, organized out of Colville, are predicting the small-town saloons are finished.