SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Cyrus Habib’s mockery of worried hairstylists shows Left’s contempt for small biz

Jan 31, 2019, 2:20 PM

hairstylists...

(Geraldine H. Jane/Flickr)

(Geraldine H. Jane/Flickr)

Are we getting to the point where the working class, the middle class in our state have finally started to figure out that the Democrat party has sheer contempt for you? For more than a week, I have been absolutely bombarded with emails and Facebook messages from hairstylists in our state worried about that new hair salon bill in Olympia.

The model for most individual single-proprietor hairstylists is that they just rent a chair in a salon. But because the unions and the corporations control everything in our state, and because the Democrats have an insatiable hunger for more money, Sen. Karen Keiser (D-Des Moines) introduced a bill that would stop them from using this business model.

The reason is because in the salons that rent out chairs, the hairstylists are seen as sole proprietors. The state of Washington says, “We’re not collecting a B&O tax from that salon owner. We’ve got to get more, more more. We need money, money, money.” This would only apply to hairstylists, not barbers, so it certainly has an anti-female bias to it.

RELATED: Jay Inslee rips off small businesses in new budget

So many stylists have written to me telling me how they fear for their careers and their livelihoods. Hundreds of hairstylists went to Olympia this week to testify. These are predominantly women, they operate on a thin margin, the state wants to take more of their money, and they did what you do in a democracy — they made their voices heard.

And the power of free speech worked — thanks to their strength in numbers, it was announced Thursday morning that the bill is not moving forward.

But what else happened in the meantime? The lieutenant governor of Washington decided to mock them on Twitter. This is the guy who wouldn’t do his job of presiding over the State of the State speech because he didn’t like our state constitution, which allows you to bring guns into the House gallery.

He said that this made him to scared to come to work, so he refused to preside over the speech, pretty much the only duty a lieutenant governor has.

The absolute contempt for these hairstylists from Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib is unbelievable. Habib wrote on Twitter, “If Twitter is any indication, the State Republican Party’s 2020 electoral strategy is going to hinge on flipping hair stylists.”

What a snotty comment. What a snotty, condescending comment about a bunch of professionals, predominantly women, who just wanted to make their voices heard. Many of the stylists said in their testimony that they are single mothers and they’re terrified that they’re going to lose their ability to feed their families.

One woman cried as she gave her testimony in front of the Legislature. And the lieutenant governor mocked her on Twitter.

Democrats have contempt for the working class, for entrepreneurs. They don’t like capitalism. We are moving rapidly toward Marxism in this state.

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Dori: Cyrus Habib’s mockery of worried hairstylists shows Left’s contempt for small biz