This is usually Lee’s beat, but I’m at Seattle City Hall and I’ll be live blogging a debate between John Toker of Sensible Washington and Alison Holcomb of New Approach Washington. They’ll be debating if I-502 is the right way to legalize marijuana. Also, a quick note about the link: it says to come in at 4th Ave, but the only entrance that was open was 5th; come on down if you’re interested.

6:58 We’re a few minutes away, and the room has a couple dozen people. More empty chairs than people. I don’t see Licata (who is moderating). Toker isn’t sitting at the table up front, but I wouldn’t recognize him if he is in the room.

7:01 Licata is here, and someone has come up to the podium and said we’ll be 10 to 15 minutes late for “hippie time.” Good to get the nonsense stoner jokes out of the way before the debate starts.

7:10 Looks like 40 or so people now and the room is fairly full in front. We’re going to start soon.

7:16 Each side will do opening arguments and then a response. Licata will then ask questions of the presenters that came from people and then audience questions.

7:25 Holcomb is first: Could be an incredibly historic moment. The debate isn’t about how we’re going to legalize marijuana. We only get the choice of yes or no on I-502. There is always a process and evolution, and we’re at a moment in time where we can sling a sledgehammer at the wall of marijuana prohibition and crack it open. The discussion of how do we legalize is academic until one state actually passes one. We can continue talking about it or we can continue talking about it. We can debate the specific compromises and provisions, but it is important that we not lose sight of the forest while we’re examining the trees. We’ve had an explosion of incarceration in the war on drugs in the country. Washington has moved in the right direction: Hempfest, the King County Bar, Sensible Seattle have pushed toward legalization. There will not be a marijuana legalization initiative in California, so it isn’t going to be an option this year. It did better than Meg Whitman at the ballot. Exit surveys discovered that had it been on the ballot this year, it would have been statistically tied. We have to think about why that is and we need to vote yes on 502 to take a step forward.

7:34 John Toker: yes that’s my name. I really wanted to support I-502. How can you come out against legalization? The simple answer is that it doesn’t legalize [corrected later, the original said legalizes, Carl] cannabis in Washington state. When you legalize, you can have as much as you want, you can share it, you can plant it. But I-502 decriminalizes without penalty. If you pass a joint to a friend, it’s still a class C felony. Pseudo legalization is better than what we have, but it’s not a good foundation. We’re not going to have storefronts. The federal government is going to come in and make storefronts stop. I don’t anticipate a single license being issued or see a dime. DUI provision is a problem. There isn’t a clear connection between THC in the blood and impairment, so we don’t want to put that into law. Your crash risk at 5 nanograms is the same as 0. This is bad for patients, but also for heavy users. You’re not going to get an impairment standard off the books once it’s on the books.

7:37 Holcomb’s rebuttal: If you have a proposal where I as an adult will be able to use, and buy that’s legalization. We can talk about Gregoire and we can talk about Arizona where the federal government has never said they’d arrest state workers. On the DUI issue, when you get to 5 nanograms or higher, you are at a higher risk to crash, and the reality is nobody wants impaired drivers on the road, and the voters are not going to ignore that.

7:40 Toker: please read up on the science. Alcohol effects the body in clear ways, and with marijuana we don’t know. Until we know how to measure that, we shouldn’t be going to courts. I’m not going to vote for 502 because I can’t look at patients and take away their driving privileges so I can feel safe with my ounce at home. I would love to come to a store and buy a tin of doobies, but we have attorneys from the US Government who say it isn’t going to happen. Let’s not tell the rest of the nation this is how you get it done.

7:42 Licata is asking questions on the DUI. New Approach WA fact sheet says there’s no impairment at 5 nanograms. Holcomb says it’s more to do with the way the graph looks like, but less than 5 nanograms is the same crash risk, and it goes up at 5 nanograms. This is better than 0 tolerance laws. Toker says evidence is not as good for a numerical limit as for alcohol.

7:48 There was a question about informed consent of a blood or breath test and if that’s going to change under the law. Holcomb says now if officers think impairment is alcohol they can’t do a blood test. We’ll probably move from blood tests to saliva swabs either way as they’re doing in other countries.

Toker says field sobriety test is still the best way to measure impairment. But this is problematic because it assumes you can see impairment from the blood.

8:00 Another question on DUI: Why not include an exclusion for patients. Holcomb: The science doesn’t support that distinction. Not all patients use cannabis the same way, and since not every patient is a heavy user. The political reality is The Seattle Times, The Tacoma News Tribune will say it’s a get out of jail free card for DUI.

Toker: The reason you see the inclusion is in the aftermath of prop 19 where the fear mongering around drug driving sunk it. It’s a political appeal to the middle. This is polls trumping policy. As patients, and as advocates when we’re explaining, we’re winning.

8:03 There are access questions, and Holcomb is making the point that the law doesn’t change medical marijuana, just people selling to adults. Toker says it doesn’t matter because licensing won’t happen. Holcomb says we will have dispensaries at the state, and even if Gregoire could do away with them, we’ll have licensing at the local level even if the state doesn’t.

8:12 We’re having audience questions. Wouldn’t repeal be better? This is a narrow decriminalization. Why cling to the idea that misinformation is the best way to write the law. Holcomb: The short answer is you have identified the problem: we have a culture that has been misinformed for decades, and that’s the population we have to ask to do something new. Most voters in 2006 didn’t realize we had a medical marijuana law and they didn’t know we had misdemeanor laws on the books. We did education all up until this year, and voters have moved a great deal, but where we are right now 55% support ballot title for 502. That’s not 70%, and the voters aren’t ready for full repeal. That’s how we did alcohol, but that’s not the culture. We’re not in the same place as we were with alcohol.

8:21 Chuck from Cannabis Defense Coalition. Asking about taxes. With the tax structure that 502 builds, the state will collect twice as much as the grower, and there will be a raise in price. You’re going to have 2 price points for medical and recreational marijuana. Holcomb: the tax structure is by percentage. The cost is high because there’s a risk cost so the prices will come down. You’ll see growers adjust their prices down because we’re in a capitalist society. Toker: I don’t think this means prohibition goes away, so prices won’t go down.

8:32 Mimi asked about patients who wants to drive. I am not impaired. I will be over the limit, but I am not impaired. A lot of patients don’t have bus service, and can’t walk. What’s the plan for people who aren’t allowed to drive? Holcomb: There have been marijuana users for a very long time. The law is that you can’t be pulled over if you’re not exhibiting impairment, and that won’t change with 502. A police officer can’t look at you to see your THC count. They’ll still have to have reasonable suspicion. People are in prison for less than 5 nanogram per millimeter. We have had 0 tolerance THC laws in this country. If we could expect a rash of people for cannabis DUI, we would have seen that by now.

8:42 Why is it a felony for two adults to pass a joint if it’s legalization? Holcomb: when is the last time you heard of someone arrested for passing a joint in Washington? The delivery offense is already on the books because people are selling marijuana. No police officer is going to waste time on people passing a joint.

8:47 A patient who was raided in 2010. The laws are not applied in the same manner in East and West in this state. Why should we believe it will be any different? Holcomb: Right now medical marijuana doesn’t make it legal to poses. After you’ve spent a night in jail, you can present an affirmative defense. It doesn’t play that way in Seattle, but it does in Okanogan County. The code needs to change, so people can posses anywhere in the state.

8:51 Closing arguments. Holcomb: These issues are going to be continued to be debated up to and after November 6. But ask yourself will you be in a better position to advocate your point of view if Washington State has said yes to legalization or not. There isn’t another option after 502.

Toker: It’s pretty clear we’ve already lost if you vote yes or no with the DUI clause. We’re not going to get the chance to really change things. It’s prohibition 2.0. You’re going to have to say to patients you’re going to have to sacrifice your driving rights for me to have an ounce. Alison has put out a good faith effort: There are good steps forward, but there is a step backward.

9:02 Hopefully I did a good job conveying this. I’m glad we’ve been able to have the conversation. A quick reading back over this, I think I gave Holcomb more time than she took, and that’s not me editorializing but the fact that she often spoke first, and I can’t type as fast as they spoke. I came in leaning toward the initiative, and I’m still there.

Another advantage of mass transit.

Since the opening of Beacon Hill Station, many people who ride bikes have figured out that for a couple bucks, Link Light Rail will make one of Seattle’s mightiest hills disappear. Just hop on at Pioneer Square Station and two stops and an elevator later you are at the top of the hill.

Michael van Baker at the SunBreak asks: Will University Link do the same to Capitol Hill?

It is another thing that makes bike riding easier. I’m more a tootle around town person than a go for a 40 mile ride person. So I can usually get up the hills. But it is another nice option to have. Also, if you get caught in a storm, you have aren’t stuck in the middle of the rain.

I get why The Seattle Times Editorial Board wrote this piece. And I tend to agree: get rid of the Secret Service members who frequented prostitutes. Still, they seem far too excited about firing people.

THE 11 Secret Service agents who were part of the president’s advance security detail were hired, trained, armed and paid well for their judgment. They failed miserably. Fire them.

Take a couple of their supervisors off the payroll as well. The numbers involved in this scandal suggest a failure of command and control in a go-along, get-along culture without any professional oversight.

Well it’s probably a good idea to have an investigation first. We have a right to know what happened. Anyway, as bad as it was, you can count on The Seattle Times taking their metaphor too far.

In fact, the behavior is closer to the Army’s Abu Ghraib debacle or the Navy’s Tailhook scandal, where no rules applied and no one was apparently in charge. The heady arrogance exposed is as intoxicating for participants as the vast quantities of alcohol consumed.

Well no. Sexual assault and torture aren’t the same as members of the Secret Service visiting prostitutes. It’s illegal and they should be fired. There should be an investigation to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. If it impeded their ability to do their job perhaps there should be harsher sanctions. But honestly, Tailhook and Abu Ghraib are much, much worse. Why include them at all?

– Jonah Goldberg is super smart, and knowledgeable, you guys.

– Permanent Defense has a tool to report on signature gathering for Eyman initiatives.

– Maybe Mitt Romney has something to hide?

– Seamus didn’t enjoy being on the top of the car. I don’t understand why the Romneys keep bringing it up.

– A UFO in Seattle Center.

– I don’t follow hockey at all, but fans making fun of Tim Thomas is pretty funny.

– Seahawk’s Schedule

But it looks like there are several Catholic parishes that won’t collect signatures for R-74.

The congregation at Seattle’s Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church gave the Rev. Tim Clark a standing ovation Sunday when he announced that the parish would not gather signatures for a referendum to repeal same-sex marriage.

The parish became the sixth in Seattle to opt out of the petition drive for Referendum 74 that has been endorsed and foisted on parishes by Archbishop J. Peter Sartain.

“I am happy to report that Our Lady of the Lake parishoners have been overwhelmingly and, thus far, unanimously supportive of the decision I made NOT to gather signatures in support of this Referendum,” Clark wrote in response to an e-mail.

“The standing ovation experienced during one of the Masses says less about me and much more about the health of this parish. I only wished the archbishop could have experienced the sustained applause — the ‘sensus fidelium’ — of the people. He needs to listen to this ‘voice.’ That is my prayer.”

Other parishes to shun the signature drive have includes St. James Cathedral, St. Joseph Church, St. Mary’s Church, St. Patrick Church and Christ Our Hope Catholic Church.

Obviously, the Church collecting signatures at all for this referendum is a problem. There were exemptions carved out for them, and other religious organizations that didn’t want to perform same sex ceremonies. And yet, they can’t just live and let live with the law. Still, the parishes not participating is a great (even if small, and possibly overrepresented as a story) part of the story.

I don’t want to overstate this, because the Roman Catholic church remains very much a not-democracy, and the Archbishop Peter J. Sartrain, who has been foisting this petition drive on his parishes, sounds like a real not-peach. He’s been trying to muster Catholics in favor of Referendum 74, which would block Washington’s new same-sex marriage law.

But this outright refusal to accede to the Archbishop’s wishes touches on a post I made back in February arguing that the Conference of Catholic Bishops’ attempts to mobilize a “Catholic voting bloc” a la the conservative evangelical Protestant vote, would backfire badly. Yes, on paper the Church is very hierarchical; in practice, Catholic voters are much more diverse than the Bishops would like to admit

First Governor Gregoire and now Rick Larsen have endorsed Suzan DelBene. I’m not sure how much endorsements matter, but these are good ones to have. Her campaign also has raised the most money.

So it seems like the establishment support is coalescing around her. I don’t know if there’s anything other than money that makes her more establishment than Ruderman etc. She’s a fine candidate, and was willing to take on Reichert in a year that was going to be tough for Democrats. If Democrats want to give her another shot, that’s cool. But Ruderman stepped aside in 1998 to clear the field for Jay Inslee, and then actually won an election for legislature.

The main thing seems to be that she can (and has shown she’s willing to) self finance. If she needs the money, the Democrats won’t have to bail her out when Karl Rove spends literally infinity corporate dollars in the district.

– Congrats to Eli Sanders.

– Our shitty discourse.

– I think the usual things that affect the female vote, especially a since of compassion and fairness, won’t be moved by the Good Housewives vs. Dirty Sluts narrative the Republicans are trying to establish.

– Joel Connelly has a great piece summarizing Super PAC’s. It’s mostly info you already knew, but it’s good to have it in one place.

– Okay, Lord Player is clearly the best phrase ever said in any context ever.

– Fuse has a petition for Amazon to stop funding ALEC.

– Broccoli

I was at a candidate’s forum for the open seat in the 36th district and it was pretty standard for one of the most liberal districts in the state. They all support marriage equality and an income tax. But one thing that Sahar Fathi said in passing was that we could have a local option income tax. I wish the forum allowed for a follow up on that, but it seems like a reasonable thing to have, but how would it work?

I’d assume you would allocate a certain amount to the counties and a certain amount to the cities. It would presumably be the sort of thing that could be done either by a city or county council or by a vote of the people.

While, I would prefer a statewide income tax, that was rejected at the polls recently, so it probably won’t happen for a while. We can at least enact it in places where it’s popular and either generate more revenue or make the local tax structure more fair. And that money would stay in Seattle or King County.

– Am I the only person who thinks Dennis Kucinich shouldn’t come to Washington to run for Congress, but is fine with it if he does?

– Father Michael Ryan, head of St. James Cathedral, tells parishioners in a letter that gathering signatures for Referendum 74 would “prove hurtful and seriously divisive in our community.” (h/t to Howie on Facebook)

– Bravo! Welcome to the proper side of this debate!

– Obama wins the WA Caucus.

– New menu items at Tutta Bella.

– Kings of the AL West’s second tier is maybe all the Mariners can hope for.

If you’re interested in nominating Obama and improving the Democratic platform, Saturday Sunday is the first day in the process.

Those of you who were able to resist attempting mischief in the Republican caucuses and thereby retained your eligibility for the Democratic caucuses can collect your reward this Sunday, as Washington Democrats begin the process of selecting 130 folks to represent us at the Democratic National Convention.

Even though Obama has already accrued enough delegates to get the nomination, it’s nice to be able to voice your support. I’ve never caucused for a winner, so maybe I’ll go just for that. But the other thing is to improve the platform. The big push by activists will be for a marriage equality plank.

I’ll be caucusing Sunday afternoon, and running for delegate to the LD/County level with a pledge to support the nomination and re-election of President Barack Obama and the inclusion of explicit marriage equality language in the county, state and national platforms. I’ll be asking for a similar commitment from those who seek my vote for delegate to any level as the process advances.

If anyone knows of any other planks activist groups are pushing, I’d love to hear about them in the comments. Universal single payer health care and an end to the drug war are two ideas off the top of my head that would probably benefit from a platform fight, but I don’t know of any activist groups pushing for them in the platform.

Anyway, you can find your caucus here. Good luck.

It’s not too surprising.

State Rep. Roger Goodman (D-45, Kirkland), one of six candidates who announced for the First District Congressional seat being vacated by US Rep. Jay Inslee (D-1)—Inslee, of course, is running for governor—announced today that he’s dropping out of the race. Goodman’s decision comes on the heels of what he himself called an “anemic” quarter of fundraising, which prompted rumors last month that he planned to withdraw from the race.

It’ll be interesting to see if this puts any pressure on any of the remaining non-Darcy Burner candidates to drop out and coalesce around an anybody but Darcy candidate, or if the rest of the pack stays in. It’ll also be interesting to see (if you can with small numbers) where his support goes. As I’ve said, I like all the candidates I know in the race.

– Once you write the fragment “it’s based on speculation rather than inside knowledge”, it should be clear that you would be providing your readers with a more useful service if you were to close your laptop, head to the nearest public park, and enjoy the nice weather. Why not do that instead?

– Misplaced priorities indeed.

– I’ve never thought much about Ashley Judd beyond the blandest adjectives—she’s pretty, she seems nice, her pores look really small—but it turns out she’s also a smart, bold, kickass feminist.

– Our awesome legislature.

– Who Seattle parks were named after. (h/t)

Atrios is right that the housing market isn’t going to recover while the crooked, thieving banks are all crooked and thieving.

I’m not sure how anyone expects “the housing market” to “recover” when buying a house now involves handing a bunch of money over to a bank which will then proceed to steal your house from you.

This behavior will continue until lots of people go to jail. And that, apparently, is off the table.

Of course there is another option. And that’s to make it impossible for the banks to steal your house from you. And it seems the simplest way to do that is by putting a moratorium on banks foreclosing until the documentation gets sorted out. It might increase the cost of lending since there are a number of legitimate foreclosures that wouldn’t happen.

Ideally this would happen at the federal level, but I don’t think it’s something you can get done with the current House of Representatives. So, it can happen at the states. It’s 4 years past time, but I’d like to see some creative state legislator here in Washington propose it in the next session.

Democrats have pushed the fact that Senator Zarelli wants to eliminate Disability Lifeline, but is on a different disability program. I’ve never been a fan of accusing people of personal hypocrisy because they live differently from how they govern. So someone supports public transit, but drives a lot doesn’t concern me; I’ll take the transit, and if other people want to drive a lot with these gas prices, go for it. People who take farm aid and oppose it don’t concern me. And Zarelli opposing disability programs is much worse than the fact that he opposes the program while he benefits from a similar program. But the Tacoma News Tribune feels the need to not only defend him, but to make strange metaphors.

The two kinds of disabilities involved aren’t merely apples and oranges; they’re apples and zebras.

Are apples and zebras the most dissimilar things the Trib can think of? I mean you could eat both of them, for example. Here’s one of my nonsense lists to help them out the next time they want to grope for a metaphor about how things aren’t the same:

• Apples and plastic
• Apples and the concept of fear
• Apples and explosions
• Apples and cars
• Apples and people with black mold in their brain who benefit from the program that Zarelli wants to cut
• Apples and the people who Zarelli would make homeless with his awful budget
• Apples and the people who’ll die if we pass Zarelli’s budget
• Apples and declining state revenue as a share of the economy
• Apples and the concept of time
• Apples and mustaches
• Apples and TV shows
• Apples and Higgs particles
• Apples and corporations
• Apples and Unnecessary Capitalization
• Apples and Mispellin the word Misspelling

– Just put a school downtown.

– It’s not a future many in the Northwest had considered in the past. A region that prides itself on green energy, new economy jobs, and a clean environment is about to crown a new king—coal.

– Republicans on Twitter have found the real racists.

– The best encapsulation of every problem with Slate.

– Because we were in Iraq promoting freedom (h/t).

– Whatever you think of Obama’s policies, this GIF of him reading Where The Wild Things Are is pretty great (h/t).

– Middle aged is different for sports stadiums than for people, but I think the Safe is going to be around for a while.