Why Renters Have to Fight for Their Right to Air Conditioning (opens in new tab)

Washington State’s 2026 legislative session ended not with a bang, but with an alarm. On a drizzly mid-March evening before adjourning for the year, lawmakers filed out of the capitol having narrowly averted a special session over a data center tax break bill. “Someone or something” had set off the rotunda’s fire alarm, according to a local news outlet; returning after the brief delay, legislators cast their final vote, approving the state’s $79.4 billion spending plan.The alarm was, in many ...