So, I know I only got 1/3 of the way through Lou Guzzo’s book if that (and it’s tiny). But I was walking through Elliott Bay Books the other day and I passed Mitt Romney’s book. Torn between buying it and trying to slog through it here on the one hand or not doing that, I eventually put it down. But if you guys are interested, I might pick it up next time.

– Goldy lays out the costs of an arena to SoDo.

– Europe is working how Europe was designed to work.

– Why was the reaction among liberals to Wisconsin so different from the reaction to North Carolina?

– This investigation is not about wayward US nuns. It is the last gasp for control by a dying breed, wrapped in its own self-importance.

– Charges dropped against 16 occupiers of abandoned Capitol Hill building

– I think there is something to mourn as newspapers switch from paper to online only.

– Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

– I would totally like to read baby names for bad parents.

I like Joel Connelly, but in his coverage this back and forth between the Association of Washington Business and the Inslee campaign, he misses the larger point.

“As you can imagine, accepting $100,000 from a major oil company openly supporting Mr. McKenna leaves the impression that the money is intended for eventual use on behalf of Mr. McKenna against Jay Inslee,” Shimomura wrote to the AWB.

“This raises serious concerns for us, and we imagine it will raise concerns for many viewers and voters as well.” Shimomura urged the Association of Washington Business to “return Tesoro’s contribution.”

One problem: Tesoro and Equilon (Shell) were using the AWB PAC not to support McKenna, but to pass through money to Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1185. Seattlepi.com and Northwest Progressive Institute both posted stories May 11 on the pass-through. Eyman, too, explained the arrangement in a letter to his followers.

Four big oil companies, BP ($100,000), ConocoPhillips ($100,000) Tesoro ($100,000) and Equilon ($50,000) are underwriting the I-1185 signature campaign while Eyman delivers populist sound bites. BP and ConocoPhillips gave directly to the campaign.

Maybe. But I think the larger point is still holy shit, the global warming industry is throwing around how much money, again? The fact that these companies — and they are anti-Inslee companies — freely spend this much money is a huge problem. For huge companies to spend more than what most people make in a year like it’s Monopoly money is a disgrace. I realize Joel covered it before, but for that to be an aside is taking your eye off the ball.

I don’t want to be too cynical about Operation Blade Runner (except the name, insert replicant joke here). I mean obviously, it’s the job of the police to go after street dealers. And I’m certainly one of the people who has complained about the open air drug markets.

Still, as long as there’s a demand and it’s illegal, I don’t see the problem going away. New people will take over these places or there will be new places where people buy and sell drugs downtown.

– Oh good, I can add sewage overflow to my list of worries.

– Even the sportswriters are acting like Politico.

– Shiny objects.

– I like the idea of the price per parking spot of the Northgate parking garage. [h/t]

– Why do 13% of NRO readers hate America?

– I keep forgetting to post this, but I didn’t realize that dragon flies had a migration.

Free markets are often times the best policy. But so far (and yes, it’s early days) with liquor privatization, prices have gone up. Now if you think that markets are inherently good philosophically in all cases (or in this case) then the prices being up may be fine. And in the long run, maybe they start high but eventually go down or in the long run they won’t go up as much as if the state controlled distribution.

But I think if you’d told people a bottle of Jameson will go up couple bucks, and that’s generally true the initiative would have a lot less support. I mean whenever I was in Costco during the signature gathering and the campaign there were signs saying how much cheaper alcohol was in California. And attributing all of that to market forces over the big bad state government.

But market forces haven’t worked that way, at least not yet. And so while Costco will probably make a profit, the people who supported it at the ballot box may rightly be upset that they didn’t get the result they wanted. It may feel like more freedom to ideologues and people who make a greater profit. But for people who pay more, it’s just paying more.

We were told capitalism would bring down prices, and so far capitalism failed at that. I hope the next time we have a discussion of how to have markets in Washington, the proponents of more market solutions (and I may be one of them) will have the decency to use better logic than trust the market.

– Jamie Kilstein challenges Jonah Goldberg to a fight. [h/t]

– Bain Capital Owns and Controls Clear Chanel

– Thomas Jefferson famously defended religious liberty by saying, “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” But what happens when your neighbor says that his 20 gods or God or no God requires him to pick pockets and break legs?

– There are upcoming campaign kickoffs for Rob Holland and Hans Dunshee

– The Westboro Baptist Church is going to be in Olympia.

– It may be that President Obama’s evolution on gay marriage upsets fundamentalists more because they don’t believe in evolution than they don’t want gay people to have rights.

The Seattle Times has an editorial about the Initiative 1053 ruling.

We do not argue that Heller is legally mistaken. The Washington Constitution does not allow an initiative to raise the threshold for passing a law. Nor does it disallow it. Given that the Supreme Court can decide either way, we believe the court should let the people have what they want.

If it doesn’t allow it, it’s kind of the definition of beyond the prevue of the initiative process. And as Goldy notes, the state constitution is clear about what requires more than 2/3 to pass. And it’s not taxes.

But whatever, this is a particularly poor way of putting it but the logic that a majority vote should trump the constitution is pretty pervasive. So in the spirit of goodwill, here’s a list of other potential initiatives we could have that modify what the state constitution does without, I guess, bothering to modify the state constitution. These are all things I’d support in theory, but should be overturned if they passed as an initiative. I’m not sure any of them would pass, but you never know until you try.

– Obviously, a requirement that it takes a 2/3 vote of the legislature to cut social services and education. They’ve been cut to the bone, and beyond. If that passed, maybe we could have a reasonable discussion about tax policy versus spending. Obviously, I support this in a world where there’s a 2/3 requirement to cut taxes, not in the ideal world.

– Severe gun control measures. Sure, the state’s version of the second amendment (article 1, section 24) is stronger than the federal one. I think there are some reasonable gun control measures that can be passed, but would run into that if we go too far. But never mind that if 50% + 1 voters say it’s a good idea, we can outlaw firearms.

– A parliamentary system. Sure, sure, our constitution is pretty clear about us having a bicameral legislature and an executive. But if the people vote for a different system, why go through the hassle of changing the constitution?

– Or we could maybe change how legislators are elected. A lot of democracies have the percent of the vote be the distribution in the legislature. If 50% +1 want it, no need for a pesky, difficult to get constitutional amendment.

I still think a closed primary is better than an open one. But I’m coming around to the system we have. So reading my friend Ray’s piece on the California top 2 system, here are some rambling thoughts on the process here.

The goofiness of having Democrats run against Democrats in a general election is both the main hurdle to acceptance and what I’ve come to like about it. So, yeah, it makes it tougher for Democrats to elect the most liberal person in liberal districts. And it makes it tougher for the Democrats to control who is their nominee.

On the other hand, we’ll have campaigns in 2 of Seattle’s Legislative Districts doing independent GOTV. It can help statewide elections to have local elections that matter. And, I like having some choice in November.

I’d prefer if we went back to the old system, or better yet had a primary where Democrats couldn’t help pick the Republican nominee or Republicans pick the Democratic nominee. But I’m not as opposed to the system as I was when we got it.

– These people aren’t advocating for “life.” They are advocating a political strategy that stigmatizes a legal medical procedure in order to punish those they see as sexually transgressive with either death or the financial instability that follows from a lack of reproductive choice. [h/t]

– The gun violence problem is in Seattle. The solution is in Olympia. Maybe, but let’s not ignore what Seattle can do and let’s also not ignore the gun violence in the rest of the state.

– Chart of the day.

– Lord knows I’m a terrible speller. But Amercia?

– I found this piece on dead pigeons quite fascinating, but note there were some graphic videos/pictures.

– Sometimes I listen to Mariners games on the other team’s feed (you get a different assessment than from the Seattle announcers). Early this season, when they were playing the A’s, the radio guy said that there was another event at the same time as the game the following day, so everybody take public transportation. It wasn’t a wishy-washy you might want to consider type of thing. I don’t know if we need a system as comprehensive as BART before we can not be worried about getting stuck in traffic when we build sports stadiums.

– Honk if you love Jesus

As I was leaving work today, I was told to be careful. The implication, I suppose, that because of the awful things that had happened earlier today that with the suspect then still on the loose, that I should be afraid walking home. That perhaps I shouldn’t go out for dinner if I was planning it. That maybe I shouldn’t go out for a bike ride after work even if it’s nice out, because who knows?

And I appreciate the concern. I get the fear. But you can’t wall yourself off from life because of some slim possibility that something will happen. You can’t hide from fear. For those of us who live or work or play in Seattle, well, it’s our city.

It’s not the city of the gunmen. It’s not the city of the drug dealers or the gangsters. It’s not the city of criminals. It’s our city.

Obviously, none of this is to say that we should ignore crime or murder on a policy level, or that there aren’t policies that we should implement to prevent future tragedies of this nature. I hope this prompts us to look at our gun culture and our culture of violence. What it should mean is that we can still live our lives in our city.

These anti-choice acts of violence that have nothing to do with any other act of violence have come fast these last few days.

A New Orleans women’s health organization was destroyed last week by an unknown arsonist, becoming the latest target of attacks on women’s health clinics in the south.

The organization, Women With A Vision, was likely singled out because it offers AIDS prevention help, HIV testing, and substance abuse assistance to sex workers, transgender women, poor women, and women of color. The clinic also does community outreach and education on those issues. Like two incidents in Georgia last week, no one was injured in the fire, but the clinic lost a good share of its resources.

This incident and the countless — unrelated — ones like it that have nothing whatever to do with the political rhetoric that opposing women’s rights to control their own bodies. It certainly has nothing to do with a climate of violence.

[h/t]

– If you drove hundreds of miles out of your way for booze this weekend because of the transition between state and private stores, it may be because you’re a lush.

– Washington state politics are this fucked up.

– I think this sort of writing about race–and really about American politics–as though history doesn’t exist is a problem. Specifically, journalists are fond of saying “racism is only one factor” without realizing that any racism is unacceptable.

– I’m not saying the fact that Nickleback is Rob McKenna’s favorite band should disqualify him from being governor (that’s what his policies are for) but it’s certainly a mark against him.

– How the GOP is fighting for you.

Over at Shakesville, there’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. It’s part of an announcement that you can enter yourself to win a dinner with Donald Trump if you donate a small amount of money. I can’t imagine wanting to have dinner with Donald Trump, but whatever. That’s not the thing that I find amazing.

Lots of candidates have that sort of thing. Obama has the same thing for his supporters.

No, the amazing thing is you’ll also win a trip from the airport in “the Trump vehicle.” I mean, I know he named most (some? all but The Apprentice?) of his business ventures after himself. Business people do that. No he named his car after himself. The only other wealthy business person who names his car after himself that I know of is Batman.

And he’s fictional. Also, he has the good sense not to call it the Waynemobile.

As I discussed a while ago, I’m sending out these questions to various Democratic candidates for contested races. I’m being somewhat more selective than I was with City Council where I just asked both people going on no matter how serious people might consider their candidacy. So no questions for Inslee’s or Cantwell’s Democratic primary opposition. Also, no Kastama since it’s Democrats only. I also didn’t do the 1st Congressional District since it’s being fairly well covered, and I didn’t do Superintendent of Public Instruction since it’s non-partisan and I may do some more of these for the general.

These will go Monday, so it’s your last chance to get something in. It’s the same question to every candidate, and it has to be fairly general, and since it’s email there won’t be follow up; if people give bullshit answers, you should feel encouraged to call bullshit in the comments.

Sec of State

1) How will you make sure elections are fair?

2) The last Democratic Secretary of State retired in 1964. What makes you think you’re going to finally flip that?

3) Sam Reed has been pushing to count the ballots that are received by election day (like in Oregon) rather than the ones postmarked by election day. Do you support or oppose this?

4) What legislation, if any, will you lobby for as Secretary of State?

Auditor

1) How will you use the performance audits as a tool to improve governance.

2) What in your background would make you a good auditor?

3) What legislation, if any, will you push as auditor?

36th and 46th Legislative Districts

1) The state’s paramount duty is education. Do you feel the state is living up to that duty? If not, what needs to happen to live up to it?

2) Washington State voters recently rejected an income tax. Most of the revenue that the legislature might be able to pass is quite regressive. Will you push for revenue, and if so, how will you make sure the burdens don’t fall on the poorest Washingtonians?

3) There is a good chance that the State Senate and/or the Governor’s Mansion will be controlled by Republicans after the next election, and certainly most legislators will be more conservative than people who would be elected in a Seattle district. Given that how will you get your agenda passed?

4) You’re running in a race with many Democrats who share similar positions. What separates you from the rest of the field?

5) Seattle and King County give more to the state than they get back. Part of this is reasonable things like the cost of providing education and social services in rural and suburban areas, but part of it is a lack of respect for Seattle and King County with the legislature that treats us as an ATM. How will you make sure your district gets its fair share of revenue without harming education or social services throughout the state?

…And they’re sent. I edited them a bit from when I first posted them.