Archives for January 2005

I’ve already documented the close connections between Dino Rossi and the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW). In addition to spending $750,000 on Rossi’s election, the BIAW has also led the legal and PR effort in pushing for a new election, dedicating its entire staff of 30 to scouring the voting lists for hint of scandal.

Now activist website and longtime Tim Eyman nemesis Permanent Defense reveals the close political alliance between Rossi and our state’s most prolific initiative-peddler. [Tim Eyman and Dino Rossi: Friends and Allies]

Washington State GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi likes to promote himself as a sunny moderate who will bring prosperity back to Washington State.

But what most people don’t know about Dino Rossi is his extremist positions – including his ties to initiative profiteer Tim Eyman, as well as his similarity to previous GOP candidates John Carlson (2000) and Ellen Craswell (1996).

Permanent Defense cites a string of quotes from both Eyman and Rossi attesting to their support for each other.

Surprise.

It’s hard to blame Rossi for attempting to recast himself as a moderate in the wake of Carlson’s and Craswell’s right-wing electoral debacles. But gullible voters who deserve blame for believing it.

Earlier this week I blogged on Seattle Times and AP reports on the financial woes of small-town Washington, like Mansfield and Bridgeport in rural Douglas County. [“Unintended consequences” Part 1 and Part 2]

Josh Feit follows up on the mainstream media’s sympathetic news coverage, but in The Stranger’s characteristically mean mien: “You Made Your Bed.”

Josh interviews Tricia Sima, tiny Mansfield’s beleaguered town clerk, who has been forced to cut a host of services — and add custodial duties to her own job description — as the city lost 76% of its revenues in the wake of Tim Eyman’s anti-car-tab I-695, and anti-property-tax I-747. Josh was decidedly unsympathetic.

After I established that Sima was a Republican (“I’m a bit conservative,” she chimed proudly) I asked her my question: Had the harsh reality of budget cuts made her reevaluate her conservative convictions about taxes? “No,” she told me emphatically. “I believe we can cut other programs that would not hurt the small rural areas.” (How’s that for traditional values? Greed and selfishness.)

According to Josh, compared to a rural county like Douglas, an urban county like King contributes 110 percent more state sales tax per capita, yet gets back from the state only 21 percent more. And King County actually generates 41 percent of state sales tax revenues, while Douglas County nets nearly $300,000 in special assistance. I have been warned in the past that revenue flow comparisons such as these can be complex and misleading, but have been assured by every “expert” I have consulted that, contrary to the myth oft repeated by politicians east of the Cascades, revenue does indeed flow from urban to rural areas.

Yet Douglas County voted 70.3 percent for I-695 and 69.9 percent for I-747. Josh is justifiably irritated at the suggestion that we should cut our services to maintain theirs.

Despite their disproportionate role in the equation, Republicans like Sima think services for the rural areas should take priority when taxes are cut. To that I say, I hope Mansfield’s leaky sewage lagoon is somewhere near Sima’s home.

Now some might (will) argue that if Mansfield wants more public services they are free to tax themselves. But Eyman’s I-776 was a statewide initiative aimed at preventing voters in three urban counties from doing exactly that… taxing themselves. A political “fuck you” that promised to stop Sound Transit from building light rail, it passed by a comfortable margin throughout most of the state, but failed in nearly every precinct within the Sound Transit taxing district.

Understand that the local MVET taxes I-776 banned were only levied in a handful of western Washington counties, and yet people like Sima voted to prevent us, from taxing ourselves, to maintain our public infrastructure… while at the same time expecting us to divert our dwindling tax revenues to subsidize theirs.

Don’t get me wrong; I believe most voters go to the polls attempting to do what they believe is right for their community. Unfortunately, our sense of community has grown so incredibly narrow, that we often fail to see the complex tangle of social, political, and economic interdependencies that Washington state really is. I join Josh Feit in his justifiable outrage over Sima’s misinformed and shortsighted politics, but rather than taking I-told-you-so satisfaction from the image of her backyard overflowing with sewage, I view it as a disturbing metaphor for Washington’s potential future.

There is a growing consensus in Olympia that structural flaws in Washington’s tax system are so profound, that beyond the perpetual budget crises we have now, state and local governments will eventually fall into a catastrophic financial meltdown, sometime within the next decade. Some Democrats see this as an opportunity, a point at which Washington will have no choice but to accept an income tax… or cease to be a modern economy.

I’m not so confident that given the current political climate, voters will make the responsible choice. Major tax restructuring is absolutely essential if we are to stay vital and competitive. But not even a fatal crisis will get us there, unless we first educate voters as to the realities of our current system, and the advantages of a new one.

Politics is rarely about leadership. Most successful politicians are more adept at convincing voters that they agree with us, than at persuading us to agree with them. But giving voters what they want is not leading… it is following.

It is time for individuals and organizations to take on the arduous and nearly-impossible task of shifting public opinion. Whether rising above the rhetorical rancor, or harnessing it to their own devices, it is time for leaders to step forth and risk their political careers in the service of persuading voters that tax restructuring is in the self-interest of all of Washington’s citizens, even those few at the top who will surely see their taxes rise. It is time to build a consensus for a tax system that at the very least meets the needs of a twentieth-century economy, if not the twenty-first.

Republicans refuse to engage in an honest public debate over the proper size and scope of government, because despite the loudmouthed libertarians on the right-wing blogs, they know they’ll lose. And Democrats are equally fearful of telling voters the truth about what it actually takes to give us the services we demand; instead, they perpetuate the charade that we can continue to close an endless series of multi-billion dollar budget gaps without raising revenues… or reverting to a nineteenth-century economy.

Yes I know that I am generalizing; there are some politicians willing to speak out on these issues, but rarely loud enough. For when someone like Ron Sims does, we the people take out his knees, desperately angry at the messenger for telling us what we don’t want to hear. Meanwhile, the politicians who lie the best, we reward the most. There is an odd, pathological symbiosis between us voters and our elected officials, that I would say is suggestive of the “Stockholm Syndrome” if only I could figure out who has been taken hostage by whom.

But we need political leadership whether we want it or not. So somebody better provide some before there’s no one left to lead.

It may be spitefully satisfying to envision Tricia Sima encamped on the edge of her leaking sewage lagoon, but it won’t be so amusing ten or twenty years from now when we are all wallowing in our own communal, political shit, passionately blaming the other guy for what went wrong.

Personally, I’m still willing to help Tricia clean up her mess, if she’s willing to help me clean up mine.

One of the reasons Judge Bridges denied the Republican request to expedite the discovery process was the incredible burden it was placing on some of the 39 counties, particularly the smaller ones. According to the Seattle Times:

One even accused Republicans of attempted extortion, saying the party offered to cut back its information request in exchange for the county agreeing not to fight some issues in court.

Republicans have apparently already made deals with ten counties:

Republicans offered to narrow their subpoenas, not seek attorneys’ fees and drop the counties as parties in the suit

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In an overwhelming victory for bloggers everywhere, Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges denied a Republican request for an expedited schedule in their contest of the gubernatorial election. The next hearing will be held Feb. 4.

He said the old maxim that justice delayed is justice denied has a corollary, “And that is justice hurried is also justice denied.”

Bridges said the speeded-up schedule requested by Republicans would have been “expedited chaos.”

The ruling is a crushing blow to the GOP’s legal strategy, which was relying on “chaos” in the state court proceedings as the underpinnings of their inevitable federal court challenge.

Judge Bridges also denied Democratic efforts to suspend discovery until jurisdictional and legal issues are settled… much to the consternation of Ferry County Prosecutor James von Sauer, who says county officials have no idea why they were named in the suit.

“Even the Republican Party doesn’t know what we did wrong because they are asking all sorts of questions that have nothing to do with Ferry County,” von Sauer told Bridges.

He said to comply with the Republican requests for information would require the auditor to do nothing else.”

“As a county are we obligated to quit serving the public in order to respond? … This is really a serious matter for the small counties.”

Sounds to me like what’s known in legal circles as a fishing expedition. So here’s a suggestion, maybe all the county auditors should just chip in and send Dino Rossi a nice gift basket from my favorite seafood store, Jack’s Fish Spot in the Pike Place Market?

It’s beginning to piss me off! So just a quick reminder to my friends in the media as you prepare to report on today’s hearings in Chelan County:

Dino Rossi is not asking for a “re-vote.” He is asking for a “new election.”

This is not a subtle distinction. A “re-vote” is evocative of a “recount;” it implies that we just need to vote again to make sure we got it right.

But what we really would get is an entirely new election… new year, new campaign, new voters… new issues. It would come months into a Gregoire administration, after an unprecedented and virtually unopposed paid media and PR assault designed to undermine public trust in Christine Gregoire, the Democratic Party, and government in general.

There would be absolutely nothing “re” about this election… it would be entirely different.

In the unlikely event the GOP manages to meet the high standards of the contest provision, and the court orders a new election, well… we’ll just have to live with the dramatic and incredibly disruptive aftermath. But the public should not be lulled by carelessly repeated partisan PR fluff, into believing that a new election is — in and of itself — a good thing, regardless of the legal grounds.

The shamelessly partisan liars at the BIAW are free to call it whatever they want, but you in the media are not. Call it a “re-vote” and you are promoting their cause. But if you want to be accurate and neutral, you will call it what it is: a “new election.”

Uh-oh. As the Chelan County courthouse prepares for the circus to come to town, yet another “scandal” is brewing in King County regarding military ballots. According to an article in today’s Seattle Times, two Republican observers said they saw election workers improperly duplicate “federal write-in” ballots.

These federal ballots must be duplicated because the orginals cannot be read by the optical scanners. When a voter fails to name individual candidates, but merely indicates the party, the ballots should be counted as straight party-line votes.

But Republican observer Kirk Brandenburg said he sat at a table where election workers ignored party choices on at least 30 ballots. He said that when he asked a supervisor about it, he was told, “The names were not to be counted unless they were listed.”

Shit. The claim was corroborated by Carol “Sacrificial Lamb” Cassady, a Republican observer who also supposedly challenged U.S. Rep Jim McDermott this November. Damn it! A congressional candidate would never lie, so this really looks bad for Gregoire.

Or does it?

Cassady and Brandenburg said most of the overseas voters whose ballots they saw favored Democratic candidates, including newly elected Gov. Christine Gregoire.

If election workers had consistently counted party-choice ballots, Brandenburg acknowledged, Gregoire would have extended her 129-vote lead over Republican Dino Rossi.

Oh.

I guess that’s why we haven’t seen this “smoking gun” over on (un)SoundPolitics.

I was planning to report in detail on the House Finance Committee hearing I attended yesterday, including my private exchanges with several of the committee members… but my better judgment has gotten the better of me. Needless to say, it wasn’t particularly exciting, but the turnout in support of these worthy bills was very encouraging.

HB 1069, HB 1094, and HB 1096 all concern greater accountability for the over 500 tax exemptions, deductions, credits and other breaks scattered throughout our state tax code. Hundreds of millions of dollars in new exemptions have been added over the past few years, and that doesn’t even include the $3 billion package for Boeing. It only makes sense, particularly in these tight budgetary times, that the Legislature periodically review these tax “expenditures” to assure that they are producing the social and economic benefits intended.

In testifying, I referred to these as tax “loopholes”, a turn of phrase strongly objected to by Rep. Ed Orcutt (R-Angryville). While my choice of words was admittedly pejorative, I sincerely doubt that most voters would understand what I was talking about if I adopted the Legislature’s happy euphemism of “tax preference.” (I suspect that most voters’ tax “preference” would be not to pay any.)

Whatever.

From his line of questioning, Rep. Orcutt seemed awfully concerned that these bills were just a sneaky way of eliminating some of his cherished loopholes preferences… and I have no doubt that many of those in the room supporting the measures assume that this will surely be the end result. But if these incentive-exemption-thingies can’t survive a little public scrutiny, they deserve to die.

I’m not going to bore you with details. For those who are interested in a more wonkish debate, I suggest reading the bills, and downloading the excellent report from the Economic Opportunity Institute: “Lost Revenue, Lost Opportunities: Tax Exemptions in Washington State.”

Anyway… today is the first hearing in the election contest lawsuit. I don’t expect anything dramatic, but I’m sure there will be loads to discuss.

Yesterday I went down to Olympia to support legislation that would authorize State Auditor Brian Sonntag to conduct independent, comprehensive performance audits on state agencies. Today I am heading back to the Capitol to support legislation that provides similar oversight of tax exemptions.

The House Finance Committee is meeting at 1:30 today for a public hearing on HB 1069, HB 1094, and HB 1096. It’s time we demand the same kind of accountability from tax exemptions as we do from other government programs.

With the Legislature struggling over whether to raise some taxes in their efforts to close a $1.6 billion budget gap, one thing neither party seems to want to discuss are the billions of dollars of tax exemptions currently in place — an amount that actually exceeds the size of the budget itself. And of course, much of the lobbying that goes on in Olympia, is on behalf of millions of dollars in new exemptions.

If people like Tim Eyman really cared about giving taxpayers the most bang for their buck, he’d be down there with me, fighting to assure that our existing tax exemptions are actually producing the social and economic benefits that they promised. Otherwise, all this talk about performance audits on government expenditures, while allowing zero accountability on “tax expenditures”, comes off as just a load of partisan hooey.

I’ll post a full report tonight.

I’m trying to wean this blog from “all election contest all the time”, so that I can cover some issues that are actually important. But I couldn’t help notice a curious thing about the trickle of new information coming from Dino Rossi’s legal team: the more errors they uncover, the less it may help their case.

Much of the manufactured outrage has focused on Democratic stronghold, King County. The county has especially been taken to task for the 348 provisional ballots that apparently were improperly fed into scanning machines at the polling place. To hear some on the right-wing blogs tell it, this is a “smoking gun” that proves gross negligence, if not outright fraud.

Hmmm. But a number of similarly mishandled provisional ballots have now turned up in a few other counties, with more likely to come: there were 6 in Jefferson, 77 in Pierce, and 12 in Stevens. And when we calculate these numbers out as a percentage of total ballots cast in each county, we find that King’s performance was rather middling:

Stevens:	.058%
King:		.038%
Jefferson:	.033%
Pierce:		.024%

In fact, if Stevens performance was extrapolated out using Kings 900,000 ballots, it would have had over 520 improperly canvassed provisional ballots.

As I’ve said before, the only thing extraordinary about this election was its closeness. But now I’ll add a corollary: the only think extraordinary about King County is its size.

Errors occurred throughout the state, as they do in every election. It wasn’t due to fraud or negligence… just honest mistakes. Indeed, considering how much effort has been put into uncovering illegal votes — and how little the Rossi/BIAW/GOP folks have to show for it — this is turning out to have been a remarkably clean and well run election.

Can we do better at running our elections? Absolutely. Can we achieve perfection? Not in this world.

If this election were to be set aside based on the evidence made public thus far, then every close election will find itself in court. And that’s a precedent the court simply doesn’t want to set.

“My name is David Goldstein. I’m a citizen activist and a blogger, and if I’m going to sit at my computer criticizing the legislative process, I feel I have the obligation to come down to Olympia and engage in it.”

That’s how I opened my testimony today before the House State Government Operations & Accountability hearing on HB 1064, “Improving government performance and accountability” (Performance Audits). In case you’re wondering, I testified in favor of the bill.

I also attended the Senate Government Operations & Elections hearing, and curiously, Tim Eyman was nowhere to be seen at either… despite being so passionate about the issue, that he’s willing to spend $600,000 of other people’s money to get it on the ballot as an initiative. Instead, he just sat at home and sent out another fundraising email attacking the bill as a “cheap substitute.”

For my fellow lovers of fiction who also subscribe to Tim’s email list, let’s set the record straight on some of his comments:

I-900 allows true independence. All other proposals require the state auditor to beg and plead each year for funding FROM THE VERY PEOPLE HE IS GOING TO AUDIT.

Um… it’s not the Legislature that will be audited… it’s Executive branch departments and agencies.

And while it is true that HB 1064 does not have a dedicated funding source, other proposals do, such as SB 5083. If Tim bothered to attend the hearing, he could have suggested adding such a provision, although he might have chafed at SB 5083’s $2.5 million a year appropriation — a quarter that of Tim’s initiative. But then, what do you expect from the bill’s ultra-liberal sponsor: the Evergreen Freedom Foundation?

I-900 requires public exposure of the audit reports and ensures public involvement. … The audit proposals in Olympia keep the audit reports secret, hidden from the public, and released only to legislative leaders.

Yeah, that’s true… as long as your idea of a “secret report” is HB 1064’s requirement to post it to the Internet. Also secret I suppose, is the bill’s Citizen Oversight Board, that collaborates with the State Auditor on all audits.

I-900 holds all levels of government accountable. Under current law, the state auditor can conduct FINANCIAL AUDITS of state and local governments in Washington. … I-900 simply expands this existing authority so that the auditor can also do PERFORMANCE AUDITS of state and local governments.

First of all, Tim… STOP SHOUTING.

Second, State Auditor Brian Sonntag, to whom Tim wants to grant the independence to perform these audits, clearly stated his opinion about the initiative before both committees: “It is not the approach I prefer. I prefer a legislative and collaborative process.” Indeed, the idea of mandatory performance audits of all local agencies and accounts is so silly, that I actually provoked chuckles by mentioning the notion of auditing cemetery districts.

I should also note that while I-900 appropriates $10 million a year, the Auditor’s office estimates that it would actually cost $90 million per biennium, and take twelve years to ramp up his office to meet the initiative’s requirements.

And finally…

Democrats are falling all over themselves to get in front of I-900’s speeding train.

Eat me.

Performance audits represent a bipartisan issue that, in one form or another, has passed the House several years running, only to be blocked in the Senate by Republican Pam Roach (who by the way, showed up for the hearing an hour and fifteen minutes late.)

So Tim, don’t give me any shit about Democrats following your lead. Rep. Miloscia has been pushing performance audits for six years, and with 46 co-sponsors, HB 1064 is sure to sail through the House once the language is finalized. Sen. Kastama plans to fast-track a companion bill through his committee, and there is no doubt that the final version will come to the Senate floor for a vote.

There is certainly some institutional resistance from the governor’s office, state agencies, and even the Joint Legislative Legislative Audit and Review Committee. So it may yet take a little arm-twisting to ease a bill through the Senate.

If Eyman really cares about performance audits, instead of just grandstanding the issue for personal gain, he’ll join me in twisting a few Senators’ arms once the time comes. But that seems unlikely, considering that nobody pays him to lobby the Legislature. (At least, not that he’s reported to the PDC.)

HB 1064 enacts comprehensive, independent performance audits, and has broad bipartisan support. If Tim Eyman has an ounce of integrity in his body, he’ll join me in helping State Auditor Brian Sonntag get the bill he wants.

If I’m gonna talk the talk, I better walk the walk, so I’m heading off to Olympia this morning to attend a couple hearings on performance audits. But if I see Senator Don Benton (R-Vancouver) coming my way, I’m keeping my hand on my wallet.

According to Peter Callaghan in the News Tribune, Sen. Benton is developing an online newsletter called todayinpolitics.com, which he hopes to hawk to Capitol lobbyists and other courtiers. The newsletter, which costs $565.00 a year, will compile links to newspaper articles written about government and politics. (Hey… great idea! It’s called Google.)

The Legislature pays crap, so seeking a little side income, Sen. Benton sent out an email recently soliciting subscriptions.

But among those receiving the come-on were lobbyists who represent clients in front of the Legislature, including committees that Benton serves on. Legislative ethics generally restrict lawmakers from soliciting business from lobbyists. That’s because you can never be sure if they buy because they want to or because they feel like they have to.

“What will it cost you NOT to subscribe?” Benton wrote. “That could be a princely sum indeed!”

Yikes. That’s an unfortunate choice of words.

The newsletter is scheduled to start February 1… just in time to include links to news stories concerning his inevitable ethics board hearing.

In my previous blog entry I talked about the financial troubles of two rural, Douglas County towns, Bridgeport and Mansfield. But according to the AP’s David Ammons, prospects for the majority of Washington’s cities and towns are also bleak. [State’s cities awash in financial problems]

The news comes in the annual State of the Cities Report to the Legislature. The percentage of the population being served by cities is up, while per capita revenues are down across the board. And with health care costs for city employees rising 15 percent a year, more service cuts are inevitable.

The cities and towns aren’t keeping up with the population boom, particularly since state voters capped property-tax growth and abolished the car-tab tax, said Mary Place, Yakima councilwoman and president of the Association of Washington Cities.

“The fact is, most cities across Washington state have been caught in the perfect financial storm,” she said. “At the same time Washington’s population has been growing and moving to our cities, we were hit by a severe recession, skyrocketing costs, more unfunded mandates and tremendous cuts in state funding from initiatives.”

The survey said that cities face a $3.4 billion gap in meeting basic transportation needs over the next six years. Deferred maintenance has left streets and bridges in disrepair, and traffic is getting so bad it may choke off economic growth.

Welcome to libertarian utopia.

A quick pointer to the excellent AP story running in today’s Seattle Times, that tells the tale of two rural, Douglas County towns struggling to survive in the wake of Tim Eyman’s ill-conceived initiatives. [Rural towns feeling the pinch]

In Mansfield, population 325, the town’s two full-time employees (superintendent and clerk-treasurer) have taken on custodial duties, vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms to save money. Council members have discontinued their $30-a-month salaries, and the mayor now only earns $50. Because they can’t afford the overtime, snow is only plowed during weekday offices hours… by the superintendent himself.

18 miles away in Bridgeport, population 2,100, they’ve closed their 2-year-old public pool because the city can’t afford the $30,000 in annual operating costs. The city also abolished its municipal court, cut its contract with the county sheriff from $98,000 to $73,000, and retired a firetruck to stay within the department’s $11,000 annual budget.

And these cuts have all occurred while both towns were still draining their financial reserves. While the article doesn’t specify, it seems likely they have also exhausted their “banked levy capacity” to help cushion the crisis.

Come 2006, the real hardship sets in.

While there was certainly some legitimate anger over the state’s high MVET tax, much of the revenue was dedicated to sales tax equalization payments to rural towns like Bridgeport and Mansfield; by reducing car tabs to a flat $30, I-695 eliminated this state aid.

Unlike big urban and suburban cities, rural communities don’t have the base to collect a significant amount of sales tax.

“There are no new businesses. No new revenues. No new industries,” Snell said of Mansfield. “The wheat industry is all that we have.”

Bridgeport doesn’t have an industry. There are no major retailers. Mom-and-pop operations

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The next big thing in Washington politics is an old thing: “property rights.”

As reported yesterday in The News Tribune, Oregon’s new anti-growth-management law, that requires financially compensating property owners for potential losses due to zoning or land-use restrictions, has spurred interest in Washington from the usual suspects. [State might copy Oregon property rights plan]

On Friday, some of the state’s most powerful interest groups met in Olympia to discuss acting on that inspiration by running an initiative similar to Oregon’s Measure 37, either this fall or in 2006.

“The conclusion was the time was ripe for such an initiative,” said Gary Tripp of a group called Bainbridge Citizens United. “We are going to draft an initiative ASAP.”

Tripp organized the meeting, which was attended by several building groups and initiative veterans, including the Building Industry Association of Washington, the Washington State Grange and Tim Eyman.

That’s right, the BIAW and Tim Eyman.

And the Grange…? Well, I’m still not sure what to make of them, but they’re beginning to piss me off.

Not that any of this should come as a surprise. Environmentalists have been expecting a copy cat initiative, and those of us on the Eyman-watch have been wondering when Tim would abandon his dead-in-the-water performance audits initiative to pirate this potentially more lucrative issue.

But being alert and being prepared are not the same thing. Those of us who believe that rational growth management policy is absolutely necessary to maintain our region’s quality of life, must start organizing, working the media, and raising money… now. For all of Eyman’s bluster and self-aggrandizing, all it really takes to get an initiative on the ballot is half-a-million dollars worth of paid signatures. There’s a ton of money to be made by builders and others from unconstrained development, and you can be sure that they are ready to invest millions at even the hint of electoral success.

As I’ve often complained, the initiative process tends to suck all the nuance out of public policy debates, throwing extreme proposals at complex issues. But as James Vesely points out in today’s Seattle Times, this is an issue worthy of further discussion:

The required 10-year review of the growth-management practices kicked a moribund engine into life. That engine is the desire of small property owners to develop their land, if they wish. The big question is: How can we accommodate them to avert a property-rights rebellion without changing a region’s core beliefs?

Good question. And perhaps in the comment thread of this blog entry we can thrash out some answers.

Unfortunately, an initiative won’t afford voters such luxury; they’ll simply be allowed a thumbs up or down on a radical piece of anti-growth-management legislation. In 1995 voters rejected a similar Referendum No. 48 by a healthy margin, 59% to 41%. But that was the result of an intense, well-organized campaign… an effort we need to duplicate, and quickly.

Just thought I’d give you all a heads up.

My regular readers know I don’t much care for the Bastards Building Industry of Association of Washington (BIAW). My first introduction to the BIAW was their Orwellian initiative to ban state ergonomic rules (“Workers Against Job-Killing Rules” my ass,) which earned them a top spot on my list of political windmills. But now that they have so openly become the power-behind-the-power-behind-the-puppet — subsuming the official Republican Party in their efforts to unseat Governor Gregoire by any means — it looks like my quest may not be so quixotic after all.

Ah yes… The Seattle Times reports today, that Democratic legislators are preparing to tie off a couple of the udders on the government sponsored cash cow the BIAW milks to feed its viciously partisan political operations. [Bill to cut income of political foe]

Here’s how it works:

State law allows businesses to form workers’-compensation pools to share insurance risks. The BIAW, which operates the state’s largest such pool, gets refunds from the state every year its premiums exceed claims.

The BIAW keeps 20 percent of the refunds and gives the rest to members who participate in its workers’-comp pool. The association’s take in 2004 was more than $5 million, half of which went to its 15 local chapters.

Under the legislation introduced this week, House Bill 1070, groups like the BIAW could keep no more than 10 percent of their refunds. In other words, the BIAW’s income would be cut in half.

The BIAW’s is the largest, but there are nearly 60 such workers’-comp pools in the state, covering 16,000 employers. While the BIAW skims the maximum 20% currently allowed by law, many other pools charge less.

There is no doubt that the “retro rebate” program has been a modest success, and the BIAW and others deserve credit for efficiently managing their pools. But the program was intended to reduce claims and save employers money, not as a means of exploiting inefficiencies in the workers’-comp system so as to permanently fund partisan political activities.

The beauty of the Democratic proposal is that it is “win-win”: it is both good policy, and good politics. It sends more of the refund money back to businesses (where it belongs,) who will reinvest it in creating jobs for real people… not just right-wing Republican politicians.

Rep. Cary Condotta of Wenatchee complains that the bill is a “blatant political attack.” Well, duh-uh! But so is the $750,000 of workers’-comp money the BIAW spent on Dino Rossi prior to Nov. 2, and the untold hundreds of thousands they have spent since, running deceptive TV and radio ads, and dedicating their entire staff of 30 employees to sifting through voting records and felons lists.

The BIAW has not been shy about threatening to pass a “right to work” initiative, effectively defunding organized labor, one of the Democratic Party’s most steadfast allies. I suppose the Dems should just sit back and whine “Gee… that’s not fair,” as they watch a government sponsored monopoly be used to fund a relentless effort to turn Washington into a one-party state along the lines of Texas?

“They’re just mad because we compete with them in the political arena,” BIAW spokesman Erin Shannon said.

Yeah… well, that’s not exactly how she phrased it to The Seattle Weekly in the heady days immediately following the Nov. 2 election, when she gloated:

“We are kicking their ass. How many years have we whipped labor?”

At the time, Erin also described the past election as “a big ‘Fuck you!’ to all the liberals out there.” Sounds like somebody may have finally washed her potty-mouth out with soap.

Democratic Senator Karen Keiser of Kent, who works in the off-season as communications director for the Washington State Labor Council, says the BIAW’s abuse of the workers’ comp-system to fuel their political agenda is “flat out corrupt and should be stopped.” She told the Times that she has no doubt the Democrat-controlled Legislature will pass a bill, and that Gregoire would sign it.

I sure hope so. This is political hardball… and if the BIAW insists on crowding the plate, they deserve to get beaned.