Archives for November 2005

Once again, WashBlog’s got great coverage of the voter registration challenge hearings, with a firsthand account of last night’s session. Anonym’s cross-post to Daily Kos is currently sitting in the recommended list, but please recommend it yourself so that this story can get as much exposure as possible. The rest of the nation needs to know the kind of underhanded bullshit the GOP is trying to get away with here.

As WashBlog reports, some of the same Democratic attorney’s who kicked Dino Rossi’s ass in his doomed election contest trial are playing tag-team on behalf of challenged voters. On Monday, Kevin Hamilton took Lori Sotelo and the GOP to the mat, and last night it was David McDonald’s turn:

McDonald: Do you have any personal knowledge that Ms. Harriet can’t vote?
Sotelo: I won’t answer that question.

McDonald: Do you have any personal knowledge about Ms. Harriet’s age, which could affect her ability to vote?
Sotelo: I won’t answer that question.

McDonald: Do you have any personal knowledge about Ms. Harriet’s status as a United States citizen that could affect her ability to vote?
Sotelo: I won’t answer that question.

McDonald: Do you have any personal knowledge that Ms. Harriet doesn’t meet any of the exceptions laid out in the Washington State Constitution in regards to her voting registration?
Sotelo: I won’t answer that question.

McDonald: Do you know where in this storage facility the resident manager lives?
Sotelo: I won’t answer that question.

McDonald: I move for dismissal. Her statement that she has a “reasonable idea of where she (Ms. Harriet) lives” doesn’t meet the requirements laid out in the statute. These “drive by challenges” will enormously burden the public. If you let these challenges to forward, then you’ll be allowing future fishing expeditions.

McDonald received an ovation when he returned to his seat.

All this should make fascinating viewing, thanks to the camera the Democrats brought to tape the proceedings… despite strenuous objections from GOP Attorney Diane Tebelius. According to one observer, the Republican table totally “freaked out” when they saw the camera being set up, and demanded that cameras be barred from the hearing room.

Hmm. They didn’t seem to mind the camera our good friend Stefan brought to snap pictures of the infidels for the illustrated purge list he’s working on. And they didn’t seem to mind all the TV cameras that showed up at the hearing last Thursday. But then, that was before they knew how badly the hearings would go for the GOP, and how terrible their ill prepared, erroneous and extra-legal challenges would look to the general public.

When KCRE representative Bobbie Egan defended the Democrat’s right to tape the event by saying it was a public hearing, Tebelius demanded to know what part of the RCW allows cameras in the hearing room. Of course, perhaps if she had done her legal homework, Tebelius might have been able to tell us what part of the RCW bans camera. (Hint: that’s the part of the RCW that doesn’t exist.)

In any case, the GOP’s PR disaster continues, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see clips of Sotelo’s legal undressing in future Democratic campaign ads, for as McDonald made clear, Sotelo had no personal knowledge about the residences of any of the voters she challenged… despite the fact that she testified to such knowledge on her surreptitiously altered challenge affidavits.

Whether this rises to the level of perjury or not, I’m not sure (technically, the blame may lie on the auto-pen that was apparently used to put an identical signature on all 1944 affidavits), but the charges certainly deserve at least as thorough an investigation as she is demanding of the challenged voters.

Sotelo and the GOP are seeking to disenfranchise (even prosecute) otherwise eligible voters based on poorly supported allegations of errors in their voter registrations. Yet Sotelo herself has failed to follow the statute in filing these challenges, and has knowingly misled elections officials as to her personal knowledge.

And so I urge all of you to sign a petition to King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng, asking him to investigate Sotelo’s actions, and prosecute her if warranted. At last count, 72 people had already signed the petition… it would be nice to collect at least 1944 signatures before turning it in.

Sunday’s tragic shooting spree at the Tacoma Mall prompted exactly the type of response you’d expect from the ardent Second Amendment Libertarians on the right. The solution to gun violence? More guns.

As Michael reported over on BlatherWatch, right-wing talk radio was all aflutter with the lessons to be learned from this tragedy.

… one caller told Carlson (who agreed) that the whole darn thing would have never happened if one out of three citizens in the mall was carrying a firearm.

Well, as it turns out, at least one citizen in the mall was armed that day.

The man who was critically wounded during Sunday’s shooting rampage at Tacoma Mall drew a pistol and confronted the gunman before he was cut down by gunfire, his family said Tuesday.
…
Witnesses told McKown’s family that he was shot after he pulled his own handgun during the shooting.

“Our understanding is that Dan drew his weapon and confronted the gunman,” his stepmother, Beverly McKown, said during a news conference Tuesday at Tacoma General Hospital.

McKown is the only one of the six victims to be critically wounded. He was shot twice in the abdomen and may suffer permanent paralysis due to spinal damage.

Now I don’t mean to necessarily criticize McKown for choosing to draw his weapon; it may have been a courageous, selfless act. But it certainly didn’t end up making him any safer.

In fact, statistics consistently show that the number one risk factor for death by handgun is owning one. A gun in the home increases household members risk of homicide by 3 times, and the risk of suicide by 5 times. Indeed, of our nation’s 30,242 gun deaths in 2002, 56 percent were suicides.

I myself know how to handle a weapon — taught by Quakers, oddly enough — but choose not to own one for exactly these reasons. Guns tend to make their owners less safe, not more. (Though I suppose arming myself might slightly decrease my risk of harm from right-wing death squads, so perhaps I should reconsider?)

So if there is any lesson to be learned from the tragedy in Tacoma, it is certainly not that more citizens should be armed. If your concern is personal safety, knowing exactly how and when to use a handgun is much more important than simply carrying one.

[Cross-posted to Daily Kos]

Jesus’ General has let his “inner Frenchman” get the better of him:

Forgive me for interrupting, but for the last few hours I’ve been struggling with a post juxtaposing the Christian right’s obsession with sexual morality and theocracy with their lack of concern about torture and murder. I can’t finish. It’s too painful to address satirically.

“America has lost its soul,” The General writes, and then goes on to chronicle our nation’s horrific use of torture, death squads and chemical weapons in the name of fighting terrorism and promoting freedom.

He grimly concludes:

I can’t bear the thought of my grandson living in the world these bastards are creating. We have to do all we can to defeat them.

Which raises the question… are we progressives really willing to do all we can to defeat them? I mean… everything?

Ooops… almost forgot. The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

But I’m on the other coast, so I won’t be there.

Apparently, our good friend Stefan wants King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng to prosecute homeless people who listed PO boxes on their voter registration forms. Stefan also repeated his demand that Dean Logan be prosecuted, and failing that, thinks Maleng should prosecute himself.

Hmm. Who’s next? After he’s cleaned the streets of government officials and the homeless, I suppose he’d turn his prosecutorial powers towards ridding society of scum like me… after all, he did once accuse me of “abetting a government cover-up.”

I’m not quite sure what makes Stefan so angry (he’s got a nice house, a lovely family, a clean car with personalized plates), but I wonder if he’s ever pondered the potential fiscal impact of his vindictive approach to politics. King County already spends about 70 percent of its general fund on criminal justice (sheriffs, courts, prisons, etc.) and a major purge of Stefan’s enemies list would severely strain the county budget. The cost of incarcerating an additional 284,510 people would be astronomical, but by golly, that’s a sacrifice Stefan is apparently willing to make.

Still, while Stefan would surely have Dean, Norm and I swing from the rafters for our crimes against the state, I think he may be jumping the gun a bit on the homeless voters thing. So as a courtesy to Stefan, Lori, and the befuddled Esquire Tebelius, perhaps I better reiterate and clarify the main point from my previous post on this issue: nothing in the WAC, the RCW or the voter registration form itself explicitly prohibits a voter from providing a PO box as his place of residence.

Stefan’s confusion may stem from the fact that the voter registration form requires applicants to provide the address of their actual residence. Since one cannot physically reside inside a PO Box, it seems reasonable to infer that one could never be properly registered at such an address.

But to protect the rights of the homeless and other citizens with “nontraditional residence”, our election statutes also wisely include provisions that permit such individuals to use the address of the location “the voter deems to be to be his/her residence.” For a homeless person, whose residence may in fact include an entire neighborhood, as opposed to a single park, shelter or doorway, their PO Box may be their one link to stability, and thus in their mind, more of a permanent residence than any other place. Imagine being homeless yourself, with no other address than the PO Box where you collect your mail — what address would you put down on the voter registration form, given no instructions to the contrary? (My guess is, “the parking lot at the Renton Walmart” wouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind.)

But what of the provision that states such voters “will be registered” at a public building? To construe this as an instruction to voters would place it in contradiction to the sentence that precedes it, for the registration form simply does not permit a voter to list the address he deems to be his residence and the address of the nearest public building, unless the voter truly deems them to be one and the same.

As I’ve previously noted, this provision is clearly an instruction to election officials, not to voters… an interpretation that Stefan himself inadvertently and ironically confirms with his detective work on the “notorious Precinct 1823.”

Precinct 1823 has 763 registered “Active” voters. 527 of them list as their residence address 500 4th Ave — the King County Administration Building. 241 of these voters specifically note their apartment number as #553, which is the room number of the … King Ukraine County Records and Elections office .

Over 300 of these alleged “voters” give 500 4th Ave. (with or without the Elections office room number) as both their residence and mailing addresses. Several of the other Elections Office residents give overseas mailing addresses, such as Anuj Rathi of Mumbai, India ,Rayko Suzuki of Tokyo, Japan , and Pascal Engi of Bern, Switzerland.

Stefan chose to interpret this as proof of fraud, and for a few days right-wing talk radio got itself all puffed up over his conspiratorial analysis. But in reality, this was merely evidence of individual election workers attempting to follow the statute. When a registration form with a nontraditional address came in, KCRE correctly registered the voter at a public building. And what more obvious building for elections workers to use than the address of the office in which they worked?

It is not surprising if in the course of processing the tens of thousands of registration forms received each year, elections officials occasionally fail to recognize an address as nontraditional… but it certainly is not grounds for disqualifying a voter’s ballot, let alone prosecuting anyone for a Class C Felony, as Stefan demands.

Though I believe it misguided and ultimately self-destructive, I understand the GOP’s anti-democratic strategy; if they had managed to purge a couple thousand King County voters from the rolls before the 2004 election, Dino Rossi might be governor today. But I have trouble wrapping my mind around the anger and hatred of people like Stefan and the EFF’s Bob Williams, whose thirst for political payback has prompted them to repeatedly call for the jailing of elected officials, government workers and ordinary citizens.

Recently we had a lively debate in the comment threads over the impact of uncivil language on civil discourse. But when those on the other side start echoing — however mildly — the eliminationist rhetoric of the hard right… I wonder if there can be a debate at all?

UPDATE:
WashBlog has excellent coverage of yesterday’s challenge hearings, including a wonderful grilling of Sotelo by Democratic attorney Kevin Hamilton. An absolute must read.

Initiative profiteer Tim Eyman had a guest column in Saturday’s Olympian, and Daniel at On The Road To 2008, thoroughly dismantles it. Daniel starts with one of Timmy’s more glaring lies, his attempt to characterize Initiative 912’s stunning defeat as a “narrow loss.” As Daniel points out, I-912 actually failed by a whopping 9 percent… a landslide defeat for an anti-tax initiative.

Carl at Washington State Political Report also chimes in on Eyman’s “masturbatory rant”, taking issue with Eyman’s claim that “voters realize that initiatives are their only effective way to influence Olympia.” Carl responds with a list of things voters can do to influence Olympia, from time consuming things like lobbying legislators, to simple things like signing a petition or sending an email, or… um… you know… voting.

But more disturbing is the idea that we only have a say in a few issues. Tim Eyman seems to think that we should have no say in gay marriage. Tim Eyman seems to think that our only options for a smoking ban are a seriously flawed one or none at all. That the only plans for healthcare reform are the one the insurance industry wants, the one lawyers want, or none at all.

It is odd that the one way Eyman thinks we can influence the process is exactly the way that’s earned him so much money over the years.

No, it’s not odd. It’s good business.

FYI, Timmy’s coming back with yet another $30 car tab initiative next year. And this one’s gonna lose.

Apparently, the Seattle Times thinks this is news:

The American Nazi Party has lost its litter-control sponsorship of a stretch of local road after it failed to clean it up.

The other day I received an email from the infamous Lawyer X, who suggested I may have got it wrong in implying that registering at a PO Box is necessarily improper, as the GOP contends. He pointed me towards the WAC:

Registering to vote — Nontraditional address. No person registering to vote, who meets all the qualifications of a registered voter in the state of Washington, shall be disqualified because of a nontraditional physical address being used as a residence address. Nontraditional addresses may include shelters, parks or other identifiable locations which the voter deems to be his/her residence. Voters using such an address will be registered and precincted based on the location provided. Voters without a traditional address will be registered at the county courthouse, city hall or other public building near the area that the voter considers his/her residence. Registering at a nontraditional address will not disqualify a voter from requesting ongoing absentee voter status provided the voter designates a valid mailing address.

Let’s parse this, shall we?

The first sentence is absolutely clear that a voter may not be disqualified for using a “nontraditional physical address” as a residence address. The second sentence defines nontraditional addresses as “identifiable locations which the voter deems to be his/her residence.” I don’t think there’s much of an argument there.

But it’s the third and fourth sentences that are key to understanding the GOP challenge.

Voters using such an address will be registered and precincted based on the location provided.

It doesn’t take a legal degree to dissect this sentence, just a basic understanding of grammar. “Will be registered” is in the future progressive tense, whereas “location provided” is in the simple past tense. Thus, these instructions can only be understood to be directed at elections workers, acting in the future, based on information provided by voters in the past.

You see, voters don’t register to vote (let alone precinct themselves)… they merely fill out forms applying for registration. The actual act of registering and precincting the voter is then conducted by elections workers, based on information provided by the voter on the form. This brings us to the fourth sentence, the one that the GOP relies on to disqualify many of the challenged voters.

Voters without a traditional address will be registered at the county courthouse, city hall or other public building near the area that the voter considers his/her residence.

In the context of the previous sentence, the future progressive “will be registered” can only be understood as an instruction to elections workers, not voters. I’m not exactly sure what the purpose of this particular provision is — perhaps its merely an accommodation to the computer systems — but the failure of a voter with a nontraditional address to be registered at a public building is not a failure of the voter. Take a look at the voter registration form as defined in WAC 434-324-050: nowhere on it is any mention of nontraditional addresses, or registering at public buildings… or even, an explicit instruction to the voter that he cannot list a mailbox number or storage facility as his address.

Upon close reading, the WAC simply does not require voters with nontraditional addresses to list the address of a public building as his residence on the voter registration form. Indeed, it would be impossible do so, as the form does not accommodate both the address of the location he deems to be his residence and the address of a nearby public building on the same line. If the WAC requires the voter to be registered at a public building, fulfilling this requirement would clearly be the responsibility of the election worker who processed the registration card… and an election official’s error is not sufficient reason to toss out a ballot from an otherwise qualified voter.

Thus, according to Lawyer X, challenged voters like Terri Carpenter and David Combs, who both have nontraditional addresses, are free to register at a PO Box, if that is the location they deem to be their residence… regardless of whether they can physically reside inside.

Residency is a state of mind, not pinned to an exact location. This is particularly true where the person has no other residence. When you are dealing with a homeless person, and where the GOP has made no effort to show the person has any other residence, the residence has to be the address provided by the voter. Every citizen of the state is entitled to vote. They can’t have it taken away because they do not own or lease property. Unless someone shows a voter has some other residence, the one the voter provided is it.

In this context it becomes all the more clear why the challenge statute requires the challenger to provide the actual address of the voter in question, because without it one can never truly determine that the location provided, whatever its dimensions, is not in fact the location the voter deems to be his residence. And so it seems likely that should the canvassing board follow the letter of the law, voters like Carpenter and Combs will survive the GOP’s challenge, as will other voters for whom the Republicans cannot prove, by clear and convincing evidence, their actual address.

And once again, the only thing the GOP will succeed in proving, is that administering elections is a lot more complicated than they pretend.

Andy MacDonald over at (un)SoundPolitics doesn’t like Seattle Monorail Board chairwoman Kristina Hill’s choice of words:

She then proceeds to give a profanity-laced interview, using the s-word three times and variations on the f-word no less than six. This is the behavior of the person the monorail board has chosen as their leader.

I can understand that Hill is angry after losing a battle she has fought for several years. But an employee of a public agency should not be cursing in interviews to the press, especially not the head of an agency. Civil servants — in which I include elected and appointed officials — should always strive to be exactly that: civil. A lowered standard of civility in public discourse has a corrosive effect on democracy.

What a fucking load of shit. This was The Stranger she was talking to, for Christ’s sake, a publication whose writers long ago traded in their stodgy, old Roget’s for a dog-eared copy of Glenngary Glen Ross. Hill gives an honest, in-depth, 3000-word interview, and we should just dismisses the entire thing, because she uses the “f-word”…? What the fuck?

I betcha Andy still refers to his penis as his “pee-pee.”

As my regular readers know, I occasionally exercise some of the more colorful features of the English language, and so I’ve grown accustomed to critics flinging that “civil discourse” crap my way like so much monkey shit. But it’s especially galling coming from the folk over at (u)SP. I suppose calling Ron Sims “the Robert Mugabe of Washington politics” raises the standard of civility in public discourse, huh? And relentlessly accusing King County Elections of fraud and corruption, without providing a single scrap of evidence… that doesn’t have a corrosive effect on democracy, does it?

Personally, I’ll take a shitload of “fucks” over (u)SP’s politely phrased lies, any day of the week.

It’s open. It’s threaded. It’s Friday.

My good friend Stefan and I had a bit of a rapprochement yesterday. I parked my car next to his at the voter registration challenge hearing — his personalized plates and David Irons bumper sticker were a bit of a giveaway — and apparently, neither of us slashed the other’s tires. We even exchanged a few pleasantries, though he claimed not recognize me, saying I have a common looking face or something. (Yeah… us whiney, bearded, 40-somethingish Jewish guys all look alike.)

Anyway, I could only hang around for part of the first session — in which only one of fifteen challenged voters actually showed up — but I think Stefan neatly sums up the subtext of yesterday’s hearing, and indeed, the entire GOP-manufactured election integrity controversy:

It’s conceivable that not all of the no-shows are real people.

Yes, it is conceivable. It’s also conceivable, I suppose, that each and every one of the no shows belongs to the contingent of North Korean soldiers I keep quartered in my basement. Or perhaps, they’re just average citizens, otherwise eligible to vote, who may have innocently, but improperly, registered at a rented mail box. Or, they may have been wrongly challenged, but busy.

The point is, nearly all the allegations of fraud and corruption that Stefan and his GOP cohorts have been flinging about for over a year, are, in fact, conceivable. But what the GOP has consistently failed to do is provide actual proof.

No doubt, at any one time, the voter registration rolls are filled with errors; erroneous registrations are being added and corrected every day. As a case in point, in the few weeks between the time Sotelo “personally” compiled her list of allegedly improper registrations, and the time she filed her Oct. 26 challenge, at least 126 of the voters on the list had already, unprompted, and on their own initiative, fixed their voter registration.

So it is important, when looking at this trumped up controversy, to focus on what exactly the problem is that the GOP hopes to solve? Are there hundreds of King County voters (out of 1.1 million) improperly registered at non-residential mailing addresses at any one time? Most likely, yes. Is there a scrap of evidence that any of these individuals are otherwise ineligible to vote? Well, if the GOP had actual evidence of fraud, you can be damn sure they’d let us know. So what is the problem?

These voter registration challenges are typical of all the other GOP allegations of fraud, which together amount to a collection of hearsay and conjecture intended to undermine the public’s faith in our electoral system. And like all of the Republican sponsored election “reforms”, the solution they propose is intended to fix a problem that doesn’t exist… disenfranchising innocent voters in the process.

For example, I’m told that the GOP’s original list of 1944 challenges includes the name of a prominent, local musician who registered at a mail box to protect his privacy. One’s voter registration is a public record, and unable to qualify for the address confidentiality program available to victims of domestic violence and sexual crimes, the musician has now apparently opted to no longer vote. Lori Sotelo has forced him to choose between his franchise and his privacy… and he chose the latter. Hardly a victory for the democratic process.

Another example is Terri Carpenter, the single voter who showed up at the 4:30 session to defend her ballot, a woman of unsteady means, whose one link to stability has been the Redmond mailbox she’s rented for the past 15 years. At the time she rented the mailbox, she had been living in a trailer on a nearby parking lot, and has resided, on and off, in various nearby locations ever since. Currently she is living on “recreational property” near Carnation. Should Sotelo succeed in casting out her ballot, we will have achieved little more than stripping the most basic right of citizenship from a woman, who despite her difficult circumstances, made the effort not only to vote, but to defend that vote before a roomful of strangers and a gaggle of media.

And then there is the story of David Combs of Issaquah, who, suffering from severe illness, has become homeless, living in his car, sometimes at the parking lot of the mailbox store he uses as an address. He came to the 6:30 session to beg for his vote, and upon leaving, flipped a picture of his 12-year-old daughter at his GOP accusers, demanding that Sotelo explain to her why her father doesn’t have the right to vote.

Yes, in all three cases the voters were improperly registered, and perhaps Sotelo will succeed in having their ballots disqualified. But to what end?

Out of the nearly 2000 voters that the Republicans challenged — hundreds of them wrongly — less than 184 ballots are expected to come before the canvassing board. All of the challenges may be denied due to the GOP’s failure to meet statutory requirements, though dozens would survive a challenge regardless. But there will not be a single scrap of evidence presented that a single one of these ballots was fraudulently cast by an individual not otherwise eligible to vote.

If the Republicans were truly interested cleaning up the voter rolls, they would have cooperated with King County Elections, and provided their list before the rolls were frozen, rather than filing a sloppy challenge just days before the election. But the problem that the GOP is trying to solve has nothing to do with electoral integrity, for the GOP’s problem with elections is its growing failure to win them in a county and state that continues to trend Democratic.

The GOP is willing to win elections by hook or by crook — by unfairly destroying the public’s faith in Democrats, or by disenfranchising tens of thousands of Democratic voters. That is what this dispute has always been about, from the day it became apparent that the Gregoire-Rossi race was headed for a recount.

King County Elections will hold the first of its voter registration challenge hearings today at 4:30 PM, for the 48 voters who cast challenged ballots at the polls on election day. Um… actually it’s only 36 voters, as Lori Sotelo withdrew another 12 challenges once she saw the list.

Hearings are also scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of next week, for the 168 challenged voters whose absentee ballots have been processed thus far. Additional challenges may be scheduled for absentee and provisional ballots that have not yet been processed… but it doesn’t look like there could be too many outstanding.

So… out of the original 1944 challenges filed with much fanfare by Republicans on Oct. 26:

• 76 were duplicates;
• 126 voters had changed their address prior to Sotelo’s Oct. 26 challenge;
• 116 voters changed their address by the Nov. 5 deadline;
• 152 have been withdrawn by Sotelo;

That leaves only 1,474 challenges left standing, and of these, only 204 ballots have been processed. That’s, um… about 0.04% of total ballots counted thus far.

And that number is bound to shrink, for as the Seattle Times reported yesterday (“Voter-challenge errors mount“), the challenge list includes many more errors of the type the GOP has already withdrawn.

Vance said Sotelo and other King County GOP officials now are reviewing each challenge “with a fine-tooth comb,” and expect to withdraw more. There won’t be many, he added

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Common sense won out in Congress Wednesday, when lawmakers killed plans to spend $230 million to build the “Bridge to Nowhere,” a span that would have connected Ketchikan Alaska to an island populated by about 50 people.

In retaliation, powerful Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens immediately announced plans to personally pilot a single-hulled tanker, and run it aground in an environmentally sensitive area of the Puget Sound.

Not much consolation for the anti-government folk, but at least Initiative 912 campaign manager Brett Bader gets a guest column in today’s Seattle Times.

I can honestly say that the elation I-912 supporters felt after the historic qualification of the measure in July was matched, at the opposite end of the spectrum, by the deep disappointment we experienced after the tax-cut initiative’s failure at the polls on Nov. 8.

Yeah… well, I appreciate your honesty, Brett. There’s a first time for everything.

The rest of his column is the usual bullshit. “Will WSDOT be able to rebuild trust with voters?” Bader asks, a particularly amusing query coming from a guy who has made a career out of destroying the public’s trust in WSDOT. And a high paying career at that; as of the last disclosure report, Bader’s consulting firm had received over $97,000, nearly one-third of all the campaign’s expenditures.

My question is, will Bader ever be able to rebuild trust with reporters, who by now must be awfully tired of the lazy spin he constantly tosses in their direction? Take for example his closing dig at WSDOT and the gas tax hike:

Now that gas taxes have been raised 14.5 cents a gallon and billions more will be flowing from the new diesel tax and new license and weight fees, we can see if things, instead, start to get better.

But, with news that an $800,000 bike lane in Moses Lake will be the first project built with the rescued tax, I won’t hold my breath.

Oh no… an $800,000 bike lane! How scandalous! But if you actually bother to look at the details of this “bike lane” it reveals a cost-effective project coming out of a healthy political process.

Bader is apparently referring to the Potato Hill overpass in Moses Lake, which replaces the last under-height bridge over I-90. This project was funded in the Nickel Package passed by the Legislature in 2003, and WSDOT had scheduled to advertise it for construction in October 2005 at a cost of around $3 million.

Everything was on schedule until the City of Moses Lake found they couldn’t afford to build a nearby pedestrian overpass, and Republican state Senator Joyce Mulliken came upon the bright idea of combining the two projects together. By adding 12 feet to the width of the Potato Hill overpass, locals would get a twofer: the Nickel overpass plus the pedestrian overpass in a single, less costly project.

Sen. Mulliken managed to get an additional $700,000 or so included in the 2005 Transportation Package to add a pedestrian/bike lane to the Nickel overpass already slated for construction… a smart move, and a net win for taxpayers.

WSDOT held the project to see if it would survive I-912, and now that it has, the twofer contract will be advertised on Monday. The project will build the already slated Nickel highway overpass, but with sufficient shoulder for a pedestrian/bike lane, courtesy of the 2005 package… saving Moses Lake a pile of cash they didn’t have, while delivering a sensible overall improvement.

This is exactly the type of smart, nimble resourcefulness we want from our government, delivering necessary improvements for the least amount of money. But in the misleading soundbites of somebody like Bader, it gets twisted into a prime example of WSDOT’s lies and misplaced priorities.

And of course, attacking WSDOT’s priorities is one of Bader’s biggest lies of all, for WSDOT doesn’t set priorities, the Legislature does. You want to know what WSDOT will build, and when? It’s all laid out in the transportation improvement package passed by the Legislature last spring, and approved by voters last Tuesday.

So if Bader has a problem with this bike lane, I suggest he take it up with Sen. Mulliken… though I’m guessing the citizens of Moses Lake are pretty damned pleased with the fine work she did on their behalf.

UPDATE:
The Seattle P-I editorial board chimes in tomorrow morning, chiding Bader for his dishonest attempt at a “gotcha”:

Thanks to state Sen. Joyce Mulliken, an Ephrata Republican, a deal was struck to use money from the new gas-tax increase to add the bike-pedestrian lanes to the soon-to-be-rebuilt Potato Hill Bridge. The result: a new bridge able to accommodate auto, pedestrian and bike traffic and capable of being expanded later to accommodate four lanes of auto traffic — which local officials say will be needed — for less money and in less time.

Mulliken called the combined project “government efficiency at its best.”

That’s hardly the post-election poster child the would-be tax repealers were hoping for.

As election workers tally the last of the late absentees, the Republicans’ failure in last Tuesday’s election has become more and more pronounced.

The anti-roads Initiative 912 — considered a sure thing back when the state GOP officially endorsed it — is now losing by over 9 points… a stunning reversal of fortune. Of course, the sore losers on the right initially tried to dismiss this as yet another example of socialist Seattle forcing its will on the rest of the state — a silly excuse considering we cast votes by the person, not the square mile — but when all the ballots are counted, I-912 will fail in 10 to 12 counties.

So here’s some perspective: if the GOP had succeeded in randomly disenfranchising 9 out of 10 King County voters… I-912 still would have failed statewide.

Meanwhile, back in King County, Executive Ron Sims continues to stretch his lead over mechanic David Irons. A few days back, our friend Stefan pointed towards Sims’ meager 13 point margin as a hopeful trend, but I wonder how buoyed he feels now that it has grown to nearly 16 points, and Irons’ has dropped below the magic 40 percent mark?

You want perspective? At 39.9 percent of the vote, Irons’ — who had about $800,000 of campaign and independent expenditures on his behalf — polled only 3 points better than HA favorite son Richard Pope did in his last countywide race, spending nary a dime. (Say what you want, but on a cost-per-vote ratio, Richard kicks ass.)

Just a little perspective.

UPDATE:
To be fair to David Irons, as Roger Rabbit astutely points out in the comment thread, he’s apparently slightly more popular than cigarette smoke.

King County vote totals:
David Irons - 194,804
No on I-901 - 172,844

Way to go, Dave.