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Lew McMurran in the KIRO studios. (Erynn Rose Photo)

We’ve been covering a lot of stories lately at the intersection of technology and politics, including the recent legislation impacting Tesla’s expansion in Washington state, and the ongoing debate over the regulation of Uber, Lyft, Sidecar and other alternative transportation services in Seattle.

And the state Legislature is in full swing in Olympia, with a series of technology-related bills making their way through the House and Senate during the current session.

Our guest on this week’s GeekWire radio show is in a great position to shed light on all of this. We’re joined in the studio by Lew McMurran, a longtime lobbyist for the WTIA (Washington Technology Industry Association) who now works as an independent government relations consultant and has been writing about many of these issues in a series of guest posts on GeekWire.

This extended version of the show includes a bonus segment that didn’t air on the radio, going into more detail on the ride-sharing legislation, including Lew’s thoughts on how that issue could ultimately play out at the state level. Also check out Lew’s full rundown of tech-related legislation in Olympia.

The discussion with Lew begins in the second segment of the show, at the 8:00 mark, following our weekly news roundup, in which GeekWire reporter Taylor Soper and I do our best to make sense of Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of messaging app WhatsApp. Also check out Taylor’s story about how people are (and aren’t) using the app.

Listen to the show in the audio player below or via this MP3 file.

Name that Tech Tune: The answer to last week’s challenge: A Tesla Model S. Congrats to our winner, Chenying Yang, who gets a pair of tickets to the upcoming GeekWire Anniversary Bash & Ping-Pong Tournament.

App of the Week: Thinking Time for iOS, a cognitive training app for kids. Thanks to Tom Leung of Yabbly for the suggestion. Also check out this Q&A with the creators of the app on Yabbly, and this list of Yabbly users’ favorite apps.

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