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Archives for July 2008

McKenna defends Spokane compact… and so does the record

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Dino Rossi and the BIAW are attempting to make their manufactroversy over the Spokane tribal gaming compact a key issue in their mean-spirited, racist and dishonest campaign against Gov. Chris Gregoire. So they’re probably not all that pleased with state Attorney General Rob McKenna straying from the script in speaking at a recent conference of the Washington Indian Gaming Association.

In responding to complaints about the attacks, McKenna told tribal leaders:

“It was a negotiation,” McKenna said. “It was conducted strictly in the framework of state and federal law and it produced a compact which was adopted strictly within the requirements of the framework of state and federal law. Period. And if anyone ever questions the process I would be happy to tell them that, to the letter, we believe the law was scrupulously followed.”

He also said the compacts themselves were working well, though the actual policies they advanced are open to debate.

There ya go… the Republican AG calling bullshit on Republican legislative leaders’ bullshit demands to investigate the negotiations. Of course, McKenna has a habit of telling audiences what they want to hear, but he’s absolutely right in stating that the compact negotiations were “conducted strictly in the framework of state and federal law,” a framework, by the way, that our local media clearly doesn’t fully understand. For example…

Republicans in the House and Senate … want to know which tribes, if any, requested that the Governor’s Office step in to strike revenue sharing from the tribal compact and if there were promises of campaign support in exchange for the governor’s actions.

But in exchange for revenue sharing the rejected compact would have provided the Spokanes a tenfold increase in the number of allocated slot machines, along with many other goodies, and if you understand federal law you’d understand that the other tribes would all have had the right to take the same exact terms. Um… do the math. 75% of one thousand is a helluva lot more loot than 100% of one hundred.

And, if you understand federal law you’d also understand that no other tribe would have been obligated to accept the terms of the Spokane compact and its revenue sharing provision, so there would have been zero incentive one way or the other for tribal leaders to kill it.

In fact, this was the deal the tribes wanted, as I’ve explained in cogent (if excruciating) detail here and here. I know this because I personally worked to kill this compact, both in front of and behind the scenes, an effort on which I enjoyed the support of members of the Republican legislative caucus… so if you don’t believe my analysis of the revenue sharing compact and its political reception at the time, perhaps you’ll believe the words of Republican state Rep. Bruce Chandler, the ranking minority member of the State Government & Tribal Affairs Committee, in his own goddamn press release:

“The interests of Washington citizens were not represented in these negotiations,” said Chandler, R-Granger. “Voters have made it clear they don’t want what the governor is giving away. We should not accept expanded gambling activities when they have been overwhelmingly opposed by communities.”

Initiative 892, which failed by a 61 to 39 percent state vote in 2004, would have allowed an expansion of gambling in licensed non-tribal gambling establishments. The measure received even less support in Spokane County where it failed 63 to 37 percent.

The compact released Thursday would allow the Spokane Tribe of Indians to install up to 4,700 cash-operated slot machines — the first to be legalized in the state. It would also be the first to allow no-limit betting on table games. Chandler says the effect would reach beyond Spokane casinos.

“When the governor expands gambling for one tribe, other tribes in Washington are allowed to request that their compacts be amended in the same favorable terms,” said Chandler. “This compact will dramatically expand gambling throughout the state. I’m concerned the governor has not fully considered the significant economic and social implications.”

Yes, that’s right… the Republican caucus openly and vocally opposed the revenue sharing compact at the time… the very same folks who are now demanding that Gov. Gregoire be investigated for rejecting the compact. And reporters continue to grant them more credibility on this issue than they grant me?

So there you have it, the Republican state Attorney General on the record saying the compacts are working well, and were negotiated “strictly in the framework of state and federal law,” while the ranking Republican member of the pertinent House committee is contemporaneously on the record as demanding the governor do exactly what his caucus is now attacking the governor for having done.

If there is a controversy, it is entirely manufactured by Rossi and the BIAW… a con job in which our state media has been regrettably complicit.

Sound Transit II on the ballot this November

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By a 16-2 margin, the Sound Transit board voted today to put a $17 billion, 15-year Phase II expansion package on the ballot this fall. King County Executive Ron Sims and Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer voted no, while state DOT director Paula Hammond proved earlier rumors wrong, voting yes after pushing through a last minute amendment to front-load expanded bus service.

The package expands light rail north to Lynnwood, south to Federal Way and east to Redmond, and includes a 25% expansion of ST express bus service and a 65% expansion of Sounder commuter rail, along with street car connectors on Capitol Hill and in Tacoma. All this would be paid for with a .5% increase in the sales tax; that’ll cost you about $69 per year on average, roughly equivalent to the cost of a single tank of gas. (Personally, I wish ST had a less regressive revenue source at its disposal, but it doesn’t, and so our choice at the moment is to build the infrastructure we need with the taxing authority we have, or build nothing at all. That’s reality.)

TANGENTIAL NOTE:
During their frequent appearances on my radio show, I routinely locked horns with The Stranger’s Erica Barnett and Josh Feit over last year’s “Roads & Transit” package. They opposed Prop 1, arguing that Sound Transit would come back the next year with a better package, sans roads. I thought they were being politically naive, and argued that the powers that be would never allow ST to come back with a transit-only package in 2008, and would be picked apart by the “governance reform” vultures well before 2009.

I am not at all unhappy to admit that they were right and I was wrong.

CSI: Wenatchee

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Jesus… did Dino Rossi whack somebody or something? I mean, if Republicans have to seal off Rossi events like a crime scene, what does that say about Rossi? I can only assume he has something to hide?

It’s (belatedly) in the P-I

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More than a little giddy after forcing the local media to finally pick up the Doug Sutherland sexual harassment story (as a blogger, that’s the kinda shit we live for), I headed off to Netroots Nation with some hastily printed business cards in hand. On one side was the HA Seattle logo and all my HorsesAss.org contact info, while the other side mockingly sported a Seattle Times logo and the self proclaimed title of “Volunteer Ombudsman.” The card proved a big hit with my fellow bloggers.

Well it looks like I may also have to print up a Seattle P-I version of the card, as nine days after the story broke, our city’s second daily has finally decided its customers deserve to read the facts too. And as it so happens, it is also nine days since P-I reporter Chris Grygiel, in an email to The Stranger’s Erica Barnett, defended his paper’s decision not to run with the story:

“Sutherland and the woman had different accounts of what happened… According to the documents, Sutherland met with the woman at her request and followed through on other antiharassment protocols she had suggested… No disciplinary action was taken and there was no payment of state funds in any settlement. We decided to pass on the story. People can certainly second-guess our decision, but that was the reasoning at the time.”

So what’s changed between then and now to cause the P-I to second-guess its own editorial judgment? Nothin’. Except, maybe, the fact that they probably felt more than a little silly sitting by quietly while the rest of the local print and broadcast media jumped on such an obviously sexy and relevant story.

The dailies still have an enormously larger audience than us lowly bloggers, and they likely always will, but the days when they were the exclusive arbiters of what is or is not news are now over. You gotta think that’s eventually gonna weigh heavily on future editorial decisions about stories like this.

I agree with the Seattle Times

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What they said…

MERCHANT bankers from Australia have offered a small box of concessions to win friends for their planned capture of Puget Sound Energy. Their little box has mollified a lot of folks, but it is not enough.

State utility commissioners Mark Sidran, Patrick Oshie and Philip Jones, who have full authority to put a stake through this takeover, should do so, in the name of the public interest.

As a Seattle City Light customer, I’ve got no skin in this game, but why on earth would the state approve a highly leveraged buyout—four cents on the dollar—that delivers nothing to rate payers but a monopoly utility company with billions of dollars in new debt?  Given the power to stop this deal, why wouldn’t we?

Over the next few decades PSE could use its profits to invest in its existing infrastructure, to, for example, prepare itself to respond more quickly to mass outages like the one that knocked some of its customers off the grid for weeks following the 2006 windstorm.  Or, it could invest its profits in build green generating capacity, like solar and wind farms.

But instead, under the proposed deal, PSE will need to squeeze every penny it can out of ratepayers just to service its enormous debt.

Rejecting this deal is just common sense.  So common, that even the Times and I agree.

Danny Westneat thinks you lack restraint

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Danny Westneat thinks thinks that despite a down economy and rising gas prices, our local elected officials are “as tax-crazy as an IRS agent on Ritalin.”

A $75 million Pike Place Market levy. A $146 million Seattle parks levy. A $17.6 billion, tri-county light-rail package. Roughly $300 a year, in total, for the average Seattleite

Oh, and don’t forget that 20-cents-per-grocery-bag Green Fee!

If this is proceeding with caution, what will “full-steam-ahead” look like?

And while Danny reassures us that “I like all these things,” he can’t help but wonder…

… where’s the restraint? There’s no hint that government has any sense of limits.

I’ll tell you where the “restraint” and the “sense of limits” comes from, Danny… from the voters, that’s where.  See, nobody’s raising anybody’s taxes, at least not without our approval at the polls, so this familiar refrain of blaming politicians for putting tax measures on the ballot, well… it just plain pisses me off.

When voters approve measures that cut taxes, we’re told that’s “the will of the people,” their ballot a sacred text that is somehow inviolate.  When Tim Eyman passes one of his stupid, selfish and ill conceived initiatives, we’re told that’s “the will of the people” too.

But apparently measures that raise our taxes are entirely different.  Apparently, we voters simply can’t be trusted to resist the natural temptation to tax ourselves, especially for frivolous things like parks and transit.  And if God forbid we voters are foolish enough to tax ourselves the equivalent of a single tank of gas a year to extend light rail south to Federal Way, north to Lynnwood and east to Redmond, well, apparently, it’s our elected officials who deserve the blame for their obvious lack of restraint in giving us the opportunity to decide these issues for ourselves.

I’m just sayin’.

Unqualified

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This video (via The Agitator) thoroughly documents John McCain’s long trail of cluelessness when it comes to Iraq.

Now that we know that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki supports Obama’s troop withdrawal timetable, it’s pretty clear which of the two major candidates is more in tune with what’s happening in the region. McCain continues to claim that the surge has worked, but that’s taking a very loose definition of “worked.” If the surge worked, the Iraqi leaders would have made political breakthroughs that would have allowed the Iraqis to begin shouldering the load of providing security. That hasn’t happened. And in fact, the occupation continues to cost us more and more money the longer we’re there. If the goal here is to make Iraq self-sufficient, the surge did the opposite of that. It got us further entrenched in a country where the populace has been demanding we scale back our presence for several years now.

McCain is stuck now, asking the American people for their vote just as the evidence of his spectacularly poor understanding of Iraq is being laid out in front of him. Here’s an interview he did back in 2004 at the Council on Foreign Relations:

PETERSON: Let me give you a hypothetical, senator. What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there? I understand it’s a hypothetical, but it’s at least possible.

McCAIN: Well, if that scenario evolves, then I think it’s obvious that we would have to leave because— if it was an elected government of Iraq— and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don’t see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.

PETERSON: A second and final question from me. As you know—

McCAIN: By the way, could I— if we do it right, that’s not going to happen, but we will be there militarily for a long, long, long time.

Obviously, we didn’t do it right. The decision to invade Iraq was based upon the willingness of those in the Bush Administration to believe what they wanted to believe, rather than to objectively look at the situation and take a rational course of action. But anyone with half a brain knew this by 2004. Somehow John McCain did not. He continued to believe even then that we’d never get to a situation where an elected Iraqi government would be asking us to leave.

We’ve already suffered through two terms with a President that clueless. We can’t afford another.

It’s in the Times

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It looks like I may have to spend half my day reading and writing on opinion pieces in today’s Seattle Times, where Danny Westneat once again pisses me off, while Ron Sims and Greg Nickels prepare to piss on each other. But first, I’d likely to briefly comment on medical marijuana, an issue on which HA and Times editorial columnist Bruce Ramsey appear to be in total, if rare agreement.

Ramsey tells of the suffering of medical marijuana patients, both physically and legally, at the hands of our criminal justice system, before laying out a simple thesis in defense of their plight:

I relate Hiatt’s story partly because I believe in letting these folks alone, but partly also because I had an aunt who was in sharp pain from a pinched nerve. Her doctor prescribed an opiate, which handled the pain but messed up her mind and her gut.

My aunt was the most un-stoned person I ever knew, but she told me she would have taken marijuana, or anything else, if it had killed the pain, and to hell with the government. I would be no different.

Personally, I find libertarianism a simplistic, naive and unworkable political prescription when pursued in an ideologically rigid and overly broad manner, but I respect those like Ramsey who apply its philosophy consistently. If I can grow a plant in my backyard that eases the pain of a chronic illness, at no cost to society or impact on my neighbors, then like Ramsey I say to hell with a government that would interfere with my right to seek the medical treatment that works best for me.

Those on the right who claim to embrace individual freedom, yet continue to blindly support our tragic war on drugs beyond all reason, well… you’re all a bunch of goddamn hypocrites. And those on the left who quietly acknowledge the abject failure of our nation’s drug policies, yet refuse to stake any political capital on changing them, well… you’re all a bunch of cowards. As for those of you in the middle, who are conflicted on this issue, who fear (or know first hand) the often tragic impact of drug addiction on your own family, I urge you to put all the fear mongering and drug bust bravado aside, and start to think about this as the public health issue it really is… a context in which one neighbor’s medical marijuana use has about as much impact on your own well being as another neighbor’s gay marriage.

So kudos to Ramsey for speaking out on this issue. If only he could drag his colleagues on the ed board to pursue this issue with the same sort of vigor they reserve for things like repealing the estate tax, perhaps we might make some progress.

Podcasting Liberally — July 22nd Edition

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Goldy was joined in political punditry by a diverse panel: Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, initiative specialist Laura McClintock of McClintock Consulting, the newest Seattle Weekly online contributor (and former Sound Politics front-pager) Don Ward, and Eat the State, KEXP and occasional HorsesAss contributor Geov Parrish.

The conversation begins with a Netroots Nation debriefing. Goldy observes that Darcy Burner was welcomed to Austin as a veritable rock star. Do voters in the eighth notice? Should they? The topic turns to Tim Eyman, his so-called anti-congestion initiative, and the media’s failures to scrutinize his initiatives and claims.

The panel then takes a bite out of Attorney General Rob McKenna. Are his PSAs being used as a campaign tool in violation of the law? Are the words followed up by actions? The podcast closes with a round of speculations about vice presidential running mates.

The show is 52:01, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_july_22_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottleJoin us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We begin at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E, but some of us will be there early for Dinner.

Tonight we will welcome back a contingent of Pacific Northwest bloggers from Netroot Nation and commend them for braving the 100 degree Texas heat and suffering for want of a proper caffè latte (or even a good cup of joe).

For tonight’s theme song, we’ll raise a toast and sing a ditty in honor of “not our fault” FEMA, with this Bob Dylan classic.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

Swing State upgrades WA-08 to tossup

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Yet another analyst has upgraded WA-08 to tossup status, this time the liberal, yet cautious, Swing State Project:

WA-08 (Reichert): Lean Republican to Tossup

Of all the vulnerable Republican incumbents this year, we feel compelled to acknowledge that Dave Reichert is the first to lose a clear edge over his opponent, Democrat Darcy Burner. Reichert’s incumbency is less potent than other vulnerable incumbents in the Lean R column given his short tenure. Furthermore, he hasn’t been addressing his fundraising as seriously as other similarly-situated Republicans, allowing Burner to build a $1.25 million to $916K cash-on-hand advantage. In a tilt-Dem district (D+2.3) in a state and region where Obama is showing some early strength over McCain, Reichert is standing on shaky ground.

Add to that the million dollars in TV time the DCCC has already reserved, combined with the NRCC’s catastrophic money disadvantage (only $6 million in the bank as of June 30th) and Reichert better turn in some surprising numbers over the next couple months if he wants to stay competitive.

HA up, cesspool down

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We’re trying to get our comment threads back online, but our first attempt failed, as HA remains in the midst of a pretty massive DDoS attack. The easiest solution would be for the BIAW to just ask their colleagues in the Russian mob to call off the hit, but well, I’m not holding my breath.

It is likely no accident that this attack started the day after I broke the story on Doug Sutherland’s sexual harassment scandal, but ironically, rather than shutting me up, they’ve merely managed to shut up the many trolls who dominate my comment threads. Kinda funny really.

Anyway, bear with me until we find a solution or the bad guys get bored, or both.

UPDATE:
We’ve made another mod, and re-enabled comments again.  We’ll just have to wait and see if we’ve beaten the Russians.

First TV ad of the campaign

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UPDATE (Goldy):
Let me just say that it is more than a little grating to see the 1% property tax limit touted in Gov. Gregoire’s ad.  It’s terrible policy.  But if it helps her get reelected I suppose I’ll keep my mouth shut now that the damage is done.  Hell, it’s not like Rossi is any better on this issue.

Post-Postman post post

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Out of town (and at times, out of commission) at Netroots Nation last week, a lot of posts slipped by unwritten, and my efforts to catch up on local events haven’t been helped much by the cowardly DDoS attack we’ve been forced to fend off in recent days. (I suppose this is what my critics on the right consider the “free marketplace of ideas”…? I’m free to blog on my ideas, and they’re free to hire Russian mobsters to knock my blog off line?)

But before I recap the week in Austin and get back to the pressing task of fisking current events, I just can’t help myself from belatedly commenting on Postman’s belated take on the Doug Sutherland sexual harassment story I broke last week:

As you likely know by now, the Times ran a story Wednesday about Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland and his admittedly inappropriate behavior toward a new female employee. If you read it, you’ll see that the paper had documents relating to the case for months, and interviewed Sutherland in April.

But the story wasn’t published until after horsesass.org posted details of the incident. So why did The Times publish now, but not when it had the story first? The shortest answer is that the horsesass post prompted the paper to reconsider its decision. And I’m glad that happened.

This is not a case of sliding standards, but rather the result of a wider discussion than what preceded the initial decision in the Times newsroom. And it is an instance where a blog can influence coverage in the old media.

Thanks Dave, I appreciate the compliment, and I hope it doesn’t offend you to know that this was exactly the kind of responsible response I expected from you. Though speaking of wider discussions, it wasn’t just the Times that sat on this story before I forced their hand; the P-I and at least two other WA dailies had the same documents weeks before they came my way, so I hope this incident sparked a healthy conversation in newsrooms statewide. If Sutherland’s actions were newsworthy enough to report after I broke the story, surely they were newsworthy enough to report before I broke it. How and why I got the scoop seems a worthy topic for J-school class.

But that said, I do have to take issue with the thesis that dominates the latter half of Postman’s comments:

There’s no doubt the Sutherland story deserved a place in the newspaper. But the Democrats have established a double standard for this behavior that rises above run of the mill campaign hypocrisy.

To back up his thesis Postman cites the case of former Gov. Mike Lowry, who declined to seek a second term of office in 1996 after a widely publicized sexual harassment scandal. Lowry attempted a political comeback four years later, challenging Sutherland for the then open Office of the Commissioner of Public Lands, and Postman is right that Lowry drew support from the Democratic Party and some of the same environmentalists who continue to oppose Sutherland today. But if this is hypocrisy, I’d argue that contrary to Postman’s assertion, it is indeed the “run of the mill” variety inherent in most political campaigns, and that Sutherland’s supporters are at least as guilty as those of Democrat Peter Goldmark.

The fact is, Lowry’s sexual harassment scandal was a huge issue in the 2000 campaign, aggressively pushed by the Sutherland camp, and widely reported in the media, costing Lowry the votes of many otherwise Democratic leaning, pro-environment women, and likely handing a close election to Sutherland. I can’t blame Republicans for pushing the well documented Lowry sexual harassment story. That’s what I would have done. That’s politics.

And while it is true that the Party and environmentalists backed Lowry in 2000 against a timber industry lackey like Sutherland, it is also true that it was Party leaders and other Democratic constituent groups that pressured then Gov. Lowry to forgo a second term in the immediate wake of the scandal. So in criticizing “Democrats” as being hypocritical when it comes to issues of sexual harassment, which Democrats is Postman referring to? Those running the Party in 1996? 2000? 2008? Because the folks issuing press releases now are entirely different than those at the helm twelve or even eight years ago.

But my main problem with Postman’s hypocrisy thesis is that hypocrisy really has nothing to do with the larger issue at hand. Postman writes that “There’s no doubt the Sutherland story deserved a place in the newspaper…” and Goldmark’s backers did what they had to do to get it there, hypocritical or not. Voters have the same right to know about Sutherland’s indiscretions as they did about Lowry’s, and to deny them that right due to some pecksniffian sense of political propriety, would not only have been a disservice, but just plain dumb politics.

Still, Postman hits the nail on the head near the end of his post:

It doesn’t serve Sutherland well that his defense echoes that of Lowry. Democrats are right that any veteran politician should know what’s appropriate. Lowry should have known that, too. There’s no excuse for a politician to think its OK to rub body parts of a subordinates, make lewd or suggestive comments and then claim they were just trying to be friendly and deliver “atta-boy” pats.

And that, after all, is what the Sutherland story is really about.

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It may be hard to believe from the vile nature of the threads, but yes, we have a commenting policy. Comments containing libel, copyright violations, spam, blatant sock puppetry, and deliberate off-topic trolling are all strictly prohibited, and may be deleted on an entirely arbitrary, sporadic, and selective basis. And repeat offenders may be banned! This is my blog. Life isn’t fair.