Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.

Chuck Collins at Inequality.org writes—The Movement for a Wealth Tax in Washington State. A levy of just 1% on wealth over $1 billion would raise more than $2 billion per year to meet the state’s urgent social needs:

Legislators in Washington state are taking bold steps towards instituting a state-level wealth tax.

Thanks to House Republicans circling the wagons around Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her history of truly gross statements and actions, Democrats had to hold a full House vote to strip her of committee assignments. That included an assignment to the education committee despite her claims that the school massacres at Sandy Hook and Parkland were hoaxes.

If you hear the keywords “GOP,” “Republican,” “transgender,’” and “sports,” you might be thinking: Which state can possibly be pushing more anti-trans legislation while we’re in a global pandemic? After all, as Daily Kos has covered, Tennessee, Idaho, and South Dakota have all recently pushed these efforts. The latest state? Utah. 

First, the basics of the legislation. H.B.

Okay, campers, rise and shine!

Groundhog Day is a smidge behind us now, but that does nothing to mitigate the general sense of deja vu pervading action in statehouses these days.

Take, for instance, Wisconsin.

I wrote in this space last week about how Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin were in a rush to pass a resolution that would eliminate Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ statewide mask mandate.

More than 350 congressional staff members signed an open letter Wednesday to the Senate, urging legislators to convict former President Donald Trump for inciting an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. “As Congressional employees, we don’t have a vote on whether to convict Donald J. Trump for his role in inciting the violent attack at the Capitol, but our Senators do,” the staffers said in the letter.