At least in Seattle, and probably in other municipalities* in Washington, there’s an election February 12. Seattle has 2 levies. They’re an operations and a capital levy. They renew levies that will expire, so it’s not new money. I suspect Seattle will pass it easily, but I’m still mailing mine in. Taking no chances and all that.

If you’re not sure how to vote (and please, vote for them) the voter’s guide is adorable. It’s so tiny, I love it. Itty bitty teeny tiny l’il voter’s guide.

If you didn’t vote in the Presidential election a couple months ago but would like to vote for an operations levy (or if you’ve moved), Monday is the last day to register. You have to do it in person at your county because we can’t adjust to the fact that people use the Internet in 2013. The Secretary of State’s blog has a link to a map of where you can go to register.

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I assume this bill that Pam Roach introduced is just her acting out (h/t).

(1)State employees shall be truthful and forthright when providing information or answering questions related to the scope of their employment, the performance of their duties, and the operations of the agency at which the state employee is employed.

(2) State employees shall be truthful when providing information of any kind.

Oh, see, those state employees who accused me of losing my temper at staff, and the witnesses were clearly lying. Why I’ll write a law that gets them fired if they keep saying things about me. Yeah that’s it.

Senator Roach is probably unaware of the first rule of holes. I mean, given her caucus abandoning her for some time, given the settlement, and given the second case, it’s pretty clear who was lying in that case. I don’t think you’d have even had much disagreement among Republicans until they needed her to make a majority.

Or, perhaps she’s just looking forward to a time when she can ask who moved her roses. And the state employees will have to tell her the truth. Maybe, I guess.

Or come to think of it, she can ask all the state employees who leaked the second report of her abusing staff. If any of them know, they’ll have to give it up or risk disciplinary action. In any event, I’m sure this law will be bad news for whistle-blowing government employees. If that’s a feature or a bug of the law, you can decide for yourself.

One last thing, I see one of the few co-sponsors is Rodney Tom. Makes you wonder if “prefers Democratic Party” counts as not being “truthful and forthright when providing information or answering questions related to the scope of their employment,” when he goes and caucuses with the GOP and votes for their budgets.

– I’m glad the teachers refusing to administer the MAP test is getting national attention.

– This stereotyping is why I’m not comfortable with American elites like Packer and Wills talking about the South. Even if, like Wills, they have southern roots, they ignore the basic fact that racism and right-wing politics are national problems.

– There is nobody more surprised than me that my first reaction to hearing that sequestration might lead to the cancellation of the Blue Angles was “oh, sad.”

– While Hadiya Pendleton went to a good school and was shot in an upper middle class neighborhood not far from the president’s Chicago home, her assailants are reportedly gang members, and the plague of gang violence — which springs from generations of chronic, festering and unanswered urban poverty and violence – has been ignored for too long because it rarely touches the people deemed to matter in our country.

– If there’s a toll, Mercer Island will be the next Alcatraz. You know, you have to pay a modest toll to leave.

Were you aware that rape in the third degree isn’t a crime in Washington if it’s done to a married partner? I was not. I had just assumed that by 2013, someone would have fixed that. Fortunately, Roger Goodman is offering a bill this session to make spousal rape a crime in all circumstances.

Washington is one a handful of states where marriage remains an absolute defense against allegations of some forms of rape and sexual assault, and lawmakers considered a proposal Tuesday that would change that.

House Bill 1108 would remove the spousal exemption from both rape in the third degree – in which no physical force is used – and from taking indecent liberties.

“There is no such thing as legitimate rape,” said Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland. “We have to get rid of this marital rape exception and catch up with the rest of the country.”

According to the article, he thinks it has a good chance of passage. I hope so, but I don’t see a Senate version (it could be that I missed it, the legislative search isn’t intuitive, at least to me). The Senate has promised no social issues this session, but this is the sort of social issue that the legislature needs to solve, like right fucking now.

So this seems like the sort of bill that public pressure could make sure to push to the governor’s desk. If you want to thank Roger Goodman for sponsoring it, you can here. If you want to find info on the bill, including the other co-sponsors, you can here. If you want to write your legislator, you can find them here. My email to my legislators is below the fold.

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– I’m not thrilled with Hagel, but oh my God, how disingenuous is his GOP opposition?

– Sure, or there’s a more general correlation between seniority and wanting to preserve Senate traditions. And when the next group becomes the senior Democrats they might also be opposed to filibuster reform.

– The worker comp system is designed to help injured workers get back on the job. But the Republicans’ changes only make it harder for middle class workers to regain their health and get back to work.

– The Clinton-Obama interview on 60 Minutes was nice.

– King Tom

– As a last resort, Janet asked me to go with her to get an illegal abortion in Cicero, a suburb of Chicago, known mostly as the birthplace of Al Capone. She’d heard about “the doctor” from her uncle, a lawyer who practiced in Chicago and was the family’s black sheep. Although I wasn’t keen on going, I felt someone needed to accompany her.

– What comes within 1/2 a mile of the coal trains in Seattle (pdf).

I just don’t know what to say:

There was a shooting at Twilight Exit last night.

The gun buyers on surrounding streets underscore the case for Congress and the Washington Legislature to act get cracking on gun safety legislation, McGinn argued. “That’s one of the loopholes we need to close,” he said. “One person can sell another person a gun on the street and it’s absolutely legal. Do you see anybody out there doing a background check?”

Shirley Chambers has lost 4 children to gun violence in Chicago since 1995.

All the soundbites about how it isn’t guns who kill people, and all the victim-blaming that has been and will be heaped on Shirley Chambers and her children, and all the rationalizations about people with mental illness, and all the Othering of poor black people who live in cities, and all the sanctimonious hand-wringing about “cultural degradation,” and all the excuses and justifications and cynical rhetorical flourishes in the world will not change this fact: Shirley Chambers’ children are dead. All of her children are dead.

There is really nothing left to say that hasn’t been said before. I guess it’s once again the wrong time to talk about these things lest we offend some of the worst political actors out there. What we certainly won’t do is stop the next horror. We won’t do anything to stop the time after that or, or, or.

Looks like the first gun buy back event in King County in decades was a success except that more people wanted to turn in their guns than there were gift cards available. So they had to end early. Still the program got hundreds of guns — all unwanted — off the street.

Now, I don’t know how much is a feel good measure and how much it actually will stop gun crime. Those guns won’t be used in crimes, but the county is still awash in guns. And a voluntary program probably isn’t going to keep the guns out of the hands of the most paranoid or the most dangerous people, or the people who are planning to use a gun in a crime. Still, it’s better than nothing.

Maybe what’s most telling is the people trying to buy guns for more than the gift cards:

The gun buyers on surrounding streets underscore the case for Congress and the Washington Legislature to act get cracking on gun safety legislation, McGinn argued. “That’s one of the loopholes we need to close,” he said. “One person can sell another person a gun on the street and it’s absolutely legal. Do you see anybody out there doing a background check?”

The fact that most people turned in their guns instead of selling them to someone offering more money speaks to the fact that this wasn’t just get a gift card and go. Even if the people offering money for guns didn’t understand that.

Oh look what Rodney Tom’s majority is looking to do now:

SB 5156 would completely repeal RCW 9.02.100, otherwise known as Washington’s abortion law. The law was adopted by public vote in 1991 to shore up state law with the US Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade (so that if Roe were ever overturned, Washington women would still continue to have the same rights and protections. It states, among other things: “Every woman has the fundamental right to choose or refuse to have an abortion.”

The bill would also repeal in its entirety 9.02.110, “The state may not deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion prior to viability of the fetus, or to protect her life or health.”

Allen says that Planned Parenthood’s legal team is still trying to suss out how, exactly, this bill’s passage would affect women’s access to abortion providers in Washington state, given that Roe is still the federal law of the land. Regardless, it’s troubling: Washington voters have repeatedly confirmed women’s right to make their own pregnancy decisions, beginning in 1970, when voters approved Referendum 20 and legalized abortion in the early months of pregnancy.

“We don’t believe it’s an accident,” Allen says.

It’s hidden in a bill that’s ostensibly about parental notification, and you can read at the link why that’s fucked up enough on its own.

Of course even if it passes the Senate, it’ll never see the light of day in the House. And if it somehow got to Inslee’s desk he’d veto it. And even if it somehow became law, Roe is still the law of the land. But still, we were told that this session the Senate would be all about kicking poor people off social services and hating teachers. And that we’d avoid social issue fights. “You are going to see individual members do what they want to do, but what we have said is, we’re not going to let social issues divide our focus.” Whoops.

The results of the one night count are in, and they’re bad.

The One Night Count of homeless people in King County took place early this morning. We are incredibly grateful to the many volunteers and supporters whose careful work made this a safe, respectful, and accurate Count.

At least 2,736 men, women, and children were found sleeping on sidewalks, under bridges, in their cars, on public transit, and in temporary structures and makeshift campsites. This is 142 more people than our volunteers counted outside one year ago.

We’re failing as a society when the number increases. We failed as a society 2,736 times last night. While many of us were comfortable in our beds, 2,736 of our neighbors had to brave the cold night in one way or another.

I don’t know if there’s anything I can add to the disgust felt at Tucker Carlson’s tweet.”The administration boasts about sending women to the front lines on the same day Democrats push the Violence Against Women Act.”

If this was an indictment of the fact that anyone is in combat, I guess you could make a case that it wasn’t terrible (although opposition to the VAWA is still bad on its own). But given that he supported the Iraq war, it’s tough to make that case. But women volunteering for combat, knowing the risks is somehow equivalent to domestic violence. It’s sickening. We should both pass the VAWA and let women serve in combat. Jesus.

I think it’s instructive that people who are anti-tax like Rodney Tom usually run on we can magic up solutions. They’ll talk about reform or combating wastefraudandabuse. So it leaves the impression that you can lower taxes and at the same time keep our programs in place.

So they don’t seem to ever campaign on dismantling the social safety net. But when they get to Olympia, it turns out that — whoops — they’re doing just that. So we get to Tom trying to repeal the never even implemented family leave law.

Braun’s bill has 10 co-sponsors, including two Democrats who have joined with Republicans to form a new coalition this legislative session. The measure has its first public hearing Monday. Braun called Keiser’s counter-bill one of “good intentions, but good intentions aren’t always affordable.”

“We already have a program on the books that we can’t fund,” he said. “Expanding it seems contrary to public interests.”

Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, D-Medina, voted in favor of the paid family leave law when he was in the House, but he is now signed on to Braun’s repeal bill. He said some companies already are moving in the direction of paid family leave, but that taxpayers and businesses wouldn’t support a tax increase for a statewide program.

When he voted for it initially, it’s presumably at least because he thought his constituency supported it. So when he talks about the will of his constituents to not raise taxes, that has to be counterbalanced against the fact that his constituents probably want to live in a state with a strong safety net. So maybe when people like Rodney Tom run for office next time, they can be honest and instead of reforming education they can talk about how they’ll make schools more overcrowded. And instead of finding waste they can talk about destroying the social safety net. Because that’s the choice he and the rest of the GOP majority want. Maybe when that choice is laid out, their constituency won’t be so happy with the low taxes they keep promising.

Hey, remember back in December when I said I’d be switching to Monday-Tuesday-Thursday open threads in the new year? OK, me either, but that’s how it’s going to be for a while.

– Problems with the tunnel machine.

– Thank you not just for your work, but for your service to all women and families. You’re making the world a better place. Perhaps you already knew that. But I think it’s worth saying.

– Only one side hates science.

– Build better bike infrastructure for the SoDo arena.

– It doesn’t even rhyme.

– Some modest goals for a 2nd term.

Oh God.

Three veteran King County Sheriff’s detectives have filed a lawsuit against the county, alleging years of sexual harassment from two supervisors in the department’s Special Assault Unit.

…

Among the allegations, statements from other detectives accuse Provenzo and Mahlum of making repeated comments about the size of female detectives’ body parts and that Provenzo “regularly talks about the size of his penis” in front of co-workers: “On more than one occasion, Provenzo took a plastic penis and hung it out of the bottom of his pants.”

The complaint also alleges the sergeants made light of sex abuse victims, instructing the female detectives to “say it slower, so I can close my eyes” when they were discussing the facts of a case. Provenzo regularly told one of the plaintiffs not to investigate rapes on the Mukleshoot Indian Reservation because such crimes take place there “all the time.”

I don’t even know how someone with that attitude becomes a police officer. If there’s a lot of a type of crime, that’s a reason to step up enforcement, not to ignore it. I don’t even know what to say except if the allegations are true, I’m sorry my tax dollars were poorly spent hiring, training, and paying him.

(see also)

I meant to get around to this Joel Connelly piece earlier. I had earlier accused him of being unhelpful in a writing a piece about states seceding that, whoops, he didn’t write. This one about Texas though is all him. I’ve double checked the byline.

So no, Texas shouldn’t leave. Those of us who aren’t from Texas and are less than thrilled with the politics and politicians coming out of Texas should figure out ways to empower the more than 3 Million Obama voters, and engage the countless Texans who didn’t vote at all. That doesn’t mean that we should ignore our values to court Texans, it means there’s a large base of support there (and in every state) that already supports Democratic values.

Goldy reports on Rodney Tom’s (among others) attempts to kill the state’s GET program.

“We don’t need to be in that business,” state senator Rodney Tom (R-Medina) insisted about the program while speaking at a January 10 Associated Press forum in Olympia. It was a sentiment with which Senator Steve Litzow (R-Mercer Island) and Representative Ross Hunter (D-Medina) later agreed. That’s three lawmakers from two of the wealthiest zip codes in the state dissing a program that has been a boon for the real middle-class families statewide.

Talk about being out of touch.

Lawmakers instead appear eager to implement “differential tuition” pricing, permitting universities to charge more for certain majors, like engineering and business management.

If you’d like to contact Rodney Tom and let him know that you don’t think the state legislature should be dismantling public education, or middle class access to public education, you can do so here. If you want to let the members of the House and Senate Higher Ed committees know you want to preserve access to higher ed, you can let them know at the links. If you’d like to find your own legislator and let them know, that’s great too.

My own plan to save GET is here.