Goldy

Well, at least one newspaper in Washington state appears to think that a constitutional standoff between the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Public Lands is newsworthy… The Wenatchee World:

A dispute between Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark and State Attorney General Rob McKenna is scheduled to go before the Washington State Supreme Court on Thursday.

At issue is whether McKenna’s office should be forced to appeal an Okanogan County judge’s decision that allows the Okanogan County PUD to condemn state land to build a transmission line from Pateros to Twisp.

It’s not much of an article, and the World apparently didn’t assign a copyeditor to check for typos, but at least they assigned a reporter, and that counts for something. So watch out Seattle Times, you’re about to get scooped on a precedent setting case by more than just a foul-mouthed blogger.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell has announced her support for the final version of the financial regulatory reform bill, despite concerns that the legislation still did not go quite far enough, after tough new regulations on derivatives were added in conference.

“I will vote in support of the conference report because it makes great strides toward our ultimate goal:  bringing all standard derivatives onto exchanges and clearinghouses, with aggregate position limits and strong anti-manipulation tools…”

Get that? I sure don’t. And that’s one of the things I love about Sen. Cantwell: she’s a wonk’s wonk, and she’s not afraid to flaunt it. Isn’t it comforting to know that there’s at least one person in the Senate who apparently understands the financial legislation they’re writing?

Anyway, Cantwell’s announcement is kinda big news, as up until now she had been one of the Democratic holdouts. “This legislation is not perfect,” Cantwell admits, and she promises to continue pushing for “bolder actions.” But now that she got much of what she wanted on derivatives regulations, she’s fully on board.

I don’t mean to dismiss Susannah Frame’s series on KING-5 News exposing millions of dollars of alleged waste and mismanagement in the state ferry system, but really Susannah… get over yourself.

When she sat down with Gov. Chris Gregoire to talk about her findings, she was shocked — shocked I tell you — to discover that the governor was briefed, but had not actually watched the segments. So much so that Frame made the governor’s lack of loyal viewership the primary focus and lede of her subsequent report.

Gov. Gregoire’s people apparently complained that her comments were distorted, so KING-5 responded by posting all 15 minutes of the raw interview. I don’t know if “distorted” is the right word — you can watch the two videos and decide for yourself — but when you excerpt less than 40 seconds out of a 15 minute interview you can’t help but lose a little context. (For example, take a look at my own edit above, in which I hope I’m not distorting Frame’s comments.) In fact, Frame’s Gregoire segment devotes almost as much time to shots of a TV monitor playing excerpts from her prior ferry segments as it does to the governor, while a sizable chunk of the interview clips feature Frame herself.

But what really struck me from the raw footage was how many times Susannah Frame expressed surprise or disappointment that the governor hadn’t taken the time to watch Susannah Frame.

In retrospect, maybe Gregoire should have been better briefed, or maybe her handlers should have even sat her down to watch the segments. I dunno. But when KING-5 makes that the focus of the segment instead of the underlying investigative reporting, they just come off as self-serving.

As is my wont, I had planned a more thorough, well researched rebuttal to the Seattle Times latest unsigned editorial dissing Initiative 1098, but suffice it to say that the author is just talking out of his or her ass.

The Times cites absolutely nothing to back up its assertions, though as always, with great authority, instead relying on base fear-mongering (approve an income tax on the wealthy, and soon we’ll all be paying it) and the usual Friedmanesque bullshit (taxing the rich is a job killer).

Again, nothing but foul-smelling, flatulent ass-jabber.

On the first point it should be obvious by now that state Dems are total cowards when it comes to tax increases; why do you think the measure’s backers were forced to rely on the initiative process? Which of course illustrates the huge, gaping, bottomless hole in the anti-1098 campaign’s cynical slippery-slope argument: all substantive tax increases always come before voters. So if our Legislature ever found its nuts and attempted to expand the income tax as part of a broad based tax restructuring, you can be damn sure that voters would have the final say via either initiative or referendum.

And on the job killer argument… well… prove it. Don’t just tie up one of Milton Friedman’s ossified coprolites in a pretty bow and present it as a law of nature. Attempt to explain to your readers why taxing the wealthy, like 45 other states do, is more of a job killer than, you know, actually killing the jobs of the thousands of teachers, healthcare workers, firefighters, police officers, prison guards and other essential government employees for which this tax will help pay?

Betcha can’t. Know why? Because you’re talking out of your ass.

I’ll be on the John Carlson Show on 570-KVI during the 3PM hour this afternoon, talking with John about the beverage industry-backed Initiative 1107, which would repeal recently passed tax hikes on carbonated beverages, bottled water and candy.

No doubt John and his callers will repeat the mantra that we need to further slash state government, not increase taxes to deal with the new economic reality, which is why I’m reposting the chart above plotting Washington state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income from 1977 through 2008, and compared to the national average. As you can see, WA taxes as a percentage of the total economy is near a thirty-year low at the moment, after plummeting dramatically from the mid 1990’s, and is well below the national average.

(And in case you’re wondering where I cherry-picked my numbers, it’s from the conservative Tax Foundation, the same source Eyman often uses to support his preposterous claims.)

Every time I search “Rob McKenna” in Google or Google News, I get a sponsored link to King County Councilman Reagan Dunn’s campaign website at the top of page.

Huh.

Of course, Dunn isn’t up for reelection in 2010. Or 2011, for that matter. Or even 2012.

So why is he spending money now, buying sponsored links on searches on our current attorney general’s name? Figure it out for yourself.

Yup, that’s Sen. Patty Murray asking for unanimous consent on a bill providing aid to homeless female veterans and all homeless veterans with dependent children. And yes, that’s the Republican leadership once again blocking the bill… the same Republican senators who just held a high-priced fundraiser for Dino Rossi.

Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans returning home in the midst of the worst job market since the Great Depression are finding it particularly difficult to get themselves back on their feet, so you’d think if Republicans really supported the troops as much as they like to claim they do, they’d support Sen. Murray’s bill instead of stubbornly blocking it.

And you’d think if Rossi really supported the troops, he’d stand with Sen. Murray on this bill, instead of with his GOP benefactors.

Well, no, Republican real estate speculator Dino Rossi didn’t really say that those of us who vote for Sen. Patty Murray are going to burn in Hell, but it kinda-sorta sounded that way in yesterday’s interview with the National Journal:

Rossi said he would focus on voters who have not made up their mind. “In the old adage, there are saints and sinners and those who can be saved. The saints are with us, the sinners are not. And the ones that can be saved are the ones we will be talking to,” Rossi said.

Yeah, I know he meant it as a metaphor, but you gotta think that for a religious man like Rossi, his choice of metaphor says something about his political outlook. Those of us who don’t vote for him, well, in his mind, we’re all sinners. You know, sinners like the firefighters, sheriffs, police chiefs and veterans (not to mention Rossi’s fellow realtors) who have already endorsed Sen. Murray.

And we all know what the Bible says happens to sinners.

I’ve blogged in the past about the important difference between being serious and being solemn. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing?

Last week on KUOW, Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna defended his refusal to comply with Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark’s lawful request for legal counsel, repeatedly describing an appeal to a lower court ruling as “meritless.”

“The trial record didn’t suggest any basis for appeal,” McKenna told KUOW’s Steve Scher. “We don’t take up appeals that lack legal merit … and this one does not have merit.”

Even when a caller pointed out that the Superior Court judge suggested the case was a toss up that should be settled on appeal, McKenna stuck to his guns, insisting that there was nothing to that effect in the judge’s “written order.”

And to a point, McKenna is correct: there is nothing to this effect in the written order. But what the caller was referring to were the oral statements given from the bench in which Judge Jack Burchard laid out “the Court’s reasonings,” an unofficial transcript of which I have finally obtained. And Judge Burchard couldn’t be any clearer in his introduction:

The parties will eventually present an order on summary judgment but usually these orders don’t contain the Court’s reasoning, and the Court doesn’t make findings of fact on summary judgment because summary judgment is reviewed by the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court de novo, from the beginning, so they don’t really take account of what my view is. And probably most of us know and believe that this won’t be the final stop for this decision. I believe this Court’s job is to make a decision as best I can and do my part in the process.

The emphasis is mine, but the meaning is clear. It’s hard to imagine that Judge Burchard would express the opinion that “probably most of us know and believe that this won’t be the final stop for this decision,” if he believed the grounds for an appeal to be meritless. Likewise, reading through the 13-page transcript, it’s equally clear that Judge Burchard didn’t consider this to be a cut and dry case.

“I believe this Court’s job is to make a decision as best I can and do my part in the process.” And that’s what Judge Burchard did, with the full expectation that the next part of the process would be an appeal.

So not only is McKenna being disingenuous when he repeatedly asserts that the appeal lacks merit, he intentionally deceives Scher and his listeners by pointing to the written order rather than Judge Burchard’s lengthy oral exposition from the bench. McKenna was fully aware of Judge Burchard’s oral statements, and thus fully aware that they weren’t included in the written order.

A clever, lawyerly distinction, for sure. But it’s also just plain dishonest.

As much of the media focused on the political farce that is Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings (Republican senators took it as an opportunity to slam Justice Thurgood Marshall? Really?), I learned everything I need to know about Supreme Court politics from an Associated Press report on a recent court decision:

“In requiring CLS – in common with all other student organizations – to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations,” said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the 5-4 majority opinion for the court’s liberals and moderate Anthony Kennedy.

Let’s be clear: Justice Kennedy is not a “moderate.” He is in many ways a classic conservative. It’s just that he sometimes appears moderate compared to the activist, right-wing, wacko judicial philosophy espoused by his fellow Republican appointees.

And honestly, by historical standards, “the court’s liberals” really aren’t all that liberal either. Justice Breyer, now he’s a classic pro-business/civil-libertarian  moderate, and even Justice Ginsburg, who is now the court’s liberal leader on social issues, is hardly such when it comes to issues of commerce.

Republican presidents succeeded in appointing perhaps the most conservative court since the Dred Scott decision. So please, let’s not water down the political significance of their accomplishment by attempting to define the justices’ true ideological leanings by comparing them to each other, rather than their predecessors.

My only complaint with PubliCola’s reporting of King County Councilman Pete von Reichbauer’s illegal campaign contribution scheme, is that they failed to identify him as a Republican. (Yeah, I know that the Council is now putatively “nonpartisan,” but we all know that’s a load of bullshit. Von Reichbauer is a Republican. Deal with it.)

For his part, von Reichbauer, who was caught soliciting $7,500 in over-limit campaign contributions, had no qualms about generously flinging the party labels:

After being contacted by PubliCola about the matter last week, the state  Public Disclosure Commission contacted Von Reichbauer today and told him he had to return the excess contributions. PDC Spokeswoman Lori Anderson said von Reichbauer, who refused to talk to PubliCola because, as he told the Seattle Times, he believes we’re  an “arm of the Democratic Party,” has agreed to the return the money.

Wait… I thought I was the media arm of the Democratic Party. I feel… I dunno… jilted?

So nice work PubliCola for catching von Reichbauer with his trousers down… but fuck you for stealing my sweetheart.

Having failed to interest our media in the precedent setting legal issues surrounding Goldmark v. McKenna (Attorney General Rob McKenna will lose on his extra-statutory claims), and having no success in enticing the press on the broader policy issue underlying the case (did our legislature really intend to give the Attorney General the discretion to deny state officers due process?), I’ve been reduced to appealing to our media’s political sensibilities.

In other words, I’m playing the Deborah Senn card.

We all know that our media establishment just loves Rob McKenna. Well, no, they don’t just love McKenna, they’re in love with him and his open-records-defending, reporter-shield-law-touting, faux-moderate, different-kinda-Republican, geeky good looks. Through the adoring eyes of our media’s adolescent crush, McKenna is downright dreamy… in that bipartisanship-besotted, we-haven’t-elected-a-Republican-to-the-governor’s-mansion-since-1980 sorta way.

They simply believe McKenna to be the McKenna they want and need him to be. That’s the nature of infatuation.

But as much as they trust McKenna’s legal judgment in this case, and as much as they may even trust McKenna to use his broadly claimed discretionary powers with, well, discretion, it is important to remind my friends in the media that he won’t always be Attorney General. Indeed, if not for a several million dollar smear campaign at the hands of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, our current Attorney General might be Deborah Senn.

And would the thus far silent Seattle Times editorial board, for example, really trust such expansive discretionary powers in the hands of an unabashedly partisan Democrat like Senn?

Would they really trust Senn to solely determine which initiatives to defend, on which elections cases Secretary of State Sam Reed deserves legal representation, and whether State Auditor Brian Sonntag should have access to the courts to compel government agencies to comply with audits? Would they really trust Senn with the power McKenna claims, as the Iowa Supreme Court described it, to deprive all government agencies of access to the court “except by his grace and with his consent”…?

In our society and under our system of law the nature, scope, indeed the very existence of all rights and obligations turn on what would be decreed if those involved went to court. Governmental departments and agencies, in common with individuals, must ultimately resort to the courts and must submit to the court’s decrees to effectuate their acts or to be made to comply with the lawful acts of others. Access to the courts gives life to the affairs of governmental departments and agencies. For government to properly function that access must be unimpeded.

To accord the attorney general the power he claims would leave all branches and agencies of government deprived of access to the court except by his grace and with his consent. In a most fundamental sense such departments and agencies would thereby exist and ultimately function only through him.

I actually like Deborah Senn. I enthusiastically voted for her, and I would trust her to defend the public interest. But even I would be uncomfortable handing her such extraordinary powers, let alone Rob McKenna.

So my question is: if it were Senn, not McKenna, who was making this unprecedented, extra-statutory claim, would our media remain so silent?

Somehow, I don’t think so.