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The Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI) has been a strong voice in the progressive activist community in the Northwest for over seven years. One of their early projects was a set of tools for progressive bloggers that enabled them to connect, share ideas and information, and disseminate their work. In past years, they have put together a number of influential workshops that brought bloggers together and put bloggers in touch with politicians (I’ve attended a number of them). NPI has also been a strong, consistent voice against Tim “Biggest Lie of my Life” Eyman’s abuse of the initiative process in Washington.

On Thursday, April 28th, NPI is holding its Spring Fundraising Gala at the Community Center at Mercer View, 82346 SE 24th Street on Mercer Island (map). The reception begins at 6:30 PM and the main program begins at 7:15 PM.

This is your chance to hang out with other folks in the progressive community over a buffet dinner. There will be music by Don Mock. Featured speakers are Rep. Jay Inslee, State Rep. Reuven Carlyle, Timothy Ford, Peter Steinbrueck, and Scott Macklin. And Bob Ferguson will be the Master of Ceremonies.

You can find information about tickets and whatnot on the NPI web page.

In my post on I-1053, I wrote, “I’m not a fan of the initiative process, but I think we do need to respect the will of the people.” This post will expand on that a little. Initiatives are simply a tool to make laws. We shouldn’t treat them as anything more or less.

The biggest problem is that they are a blunt tool. The legislative process has hearings and amendments. Better (or worse) ideas make it into the final product. With initiatives, the final outcome is the same one people were collecting signatures on months and months prior. It doesn’t take into concern the opposition. You don’t need to talk to attorneys to see if it passes constitutional muster, or look into other ways of doing something. It is all or nothing.

And this all or nothing approach tends to hamper debate. If an initiative passes, then it’s the will of the people. This despite the fact that the people didn’t get any alternatives. Their will was based on if they approved the language of the initiative or not, not on what their most preferred alternative might have been. That has real value, and should be respected, but we should also keep it in perspective. And when an initiative fails, it often kills momentum for whatever was being worked for, like the income tax (although, I’m not sure how much momentum it actually had, and oddly it hasn’t done much about liquor privatization).

Another problem is the influence of money. Most of these Eyman initiatives in recent years have got on the ballot with the financing largely of one man. Of course, most normal people can’t afford to do that. And when they do get on the ballot, even political junkies like me get sick of seeing all the ads and getting mailings. Money does play too large a role in the initiative process. Still, money also plays too large a role in the legislative process. The rich and powerful will use their power in the crafting of laws, no matter how we make those laws.

Because of all this money, often the more grassroots voices the initiative process was envisioned to give a voice get shouted out. It’s tougher for grassroots signature gathering efforts to get a foothold amid the paid signature gathering. It’s tougher for the opposition to raise the money to compete with some of the corporate campaigns we’ve seen recently.

Still, even for all the faults in the process, people still do get to vote on specific issues, and that is rather remarkable. So, how do we judge an initiative? The same way we’d judge any law: who wins, who loses, who it helps, and who it hurts.

– Speculation probably does play a role in high gas prices. But the fact that it’s a finite resource that we’re using more and more of probably has more to do with it.

– Birtherism qua birtherism is really, really dumb, but as always Shakesville has an interesting take.

– I didn’t realize people vote straight ticket more often either, but I guess it makes sense as the line between Democrats and Republicans has sharpened.

– I’m amazed we didn’t do this already.

– The Seahawks’ schedule looks tough. Still, as we learned last year, you don’t have to have anything as fancy as a winning record to make the playoffs.

Oh look, here’s a press release from Representative Katrina Asay. Enjoy.

Last fall, voters overwhelmingly approved Initiative 1053 (I-1053), which requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to approve tax increases. Voters in the 30th Legislative District approved I-1053 by more than 66 percent.

Yes. I think it was a mistake. Did voters realize what would be cut if the legislature passed a no new taxes budget? Did they make a guess about the revenue forecasts that have come in since then? Would they vote for the kinds of cuts that Republicans (and too many Democrats) want if those cuts were on the ballot? I’m not a fan of the initiative process, but I think we do need to respect the will of the people. However, I don’t think we can divine the will of the people about this budget by any Tim Eyman initiative. And I certainly don’t think we can figure out the will of the people with regard to local tax revenues.

Voters have approved the tax constraints found in I-1053 several times, most recently with Initiative 960, which was thrown out by the majority party last year. This allowed the majority party to increase taxes with a simple majority vote, or 50 plus one. In no mood to be taxed even more in this battered economy, voters in November quickly repealed a host of tax increases put in place by the majority party in the 2010 legislative session.

I know what Rep. Asay means, but that first sentence seems to imply that I-960 happened after 1053. Also, the will of the people is Democratic control of both houses of the legislature. Has been for a decade. Yet, oddly I don’t see Republican press releases demanding whatever Democrats want in the legislature.

That’s why I was so disappointed when majority Democrats in the House passed an amended version of Senate Bill 5457, the so-called “congestion relief bill.” Despite the catchy title, I voted against this bill because, as it was changed in the House, it does an end-around the voter-approved two-thirds vote requirement to increase taxes.

1053 didn’t say anything about counties or municipalities. We’re now divining the will of the voters based on things they didn’t vote for or against. That simply wasn’t on the ballot. In fact, King County was pretty close to evenly split. I’d bet Seattle and some suburban cities opposed it. Does that mean that their city councils should have majority rule like the framers of the state constitution envisioned?

Senate Bill 5457, as amended, would authorize a simple majority of King County Council members to impose up to an additional $20 in annual car-tab tax to help maintain Metro transit service. From all reports, the King County executive, once the bill is signed into law, will ask for the full amount of the tax. This would raise an estimated $25.5 million for each of the two years the tax will be in place.

Awesome. As a King County resident and a car owner, I’ll gladly pay my share. If enough people don’t like it they can either try to block it at the ballot like many of the state taxes last year, or if they don’t like it but not enough to do that, they can vote out the people who agree to the taxes. Democracy. Awesome.

What makes Senate Bill 5457 so offensive to me is that while the voters approved I-1053 to ensure any tax increase would be required to receive a two-thirds supermajority vote to be approved, the measure violates the will of the people by allowing a simple majority on the King County Council to approve the additional tax.

Again, NOBODY VOTED ON IF KING COUNTY SHOULD HAVE A 2/3 MAJORITY TO PASS ANYTHING. It wasn’t on the ballot. You can’t call the will of the people on an at best tangentially related question. This is crazy.

I see this as a way for the majority party to raise the ante when it comes to how many shenanigans voters will put up with when it comes to how new and increased taxes are approved. I feel as though they are basically telling citizens that while voters clearly and unequivocally directed the Legislature to have a supermajority consensus to increase taxes; they can snub that directive with a simple majority vote of legislators. Now, we are faced with a bill that could allow local governments to skirt the newly-approved mandate from last fall.

Local governments aren’t skirting anything. The mandates were to the legislature. And they were dumb. But even if they were the most sensible policy ever, they have nothing to do with King County.

If there is a good case to be made for higher taxes, let those who are asking for them convince others to support the idea. It’s that simple.

You mean like a majority of the King County Council, the King County Executive, enough voters not to sign a county wide referendum or initiative on that, or if there is a referendum to vote on it? You mean convince those people? Because there are already plenty of checks and balances in the system.

Additionally, and not to be lost in this debate, is that voters approved Initiative 695 specifically to ensure car tabs would cost no more than $30. Whether you like the idea or not, it’s what the people of this state approved. However, each year the Legislature has offered local governments the opportunity to add $20 here and there, weight fees and now this. Senate Bill 5457 is another example of why voters again decided to put such strict standards in place to raise taxes.

695 was ruled unconstitutional. So basically, we have to uphold the will of the people to support one unconstitutional thing, possibly another unconstitutional thing (the previous 2/3 rules have all been on standing, not on the merits). Also, 695 failed in King County. So by this logic, the will of the people is that they have higher car tabs. Why do you hate the imagined will of the people based on something that they didn’t really vote on, Katrina Asay?

This bill is a bad deal for taxpayers and breaks faith with voters. Because the House amended a Senate bill, it must now go back for the Senate to approve or reject the change. For all of our sakes, I can only hope the bill is set aside. It’s the right thing to do to maintain the integrity and spirit of I-1053.

It gives the voters plenty of say. As does every question before a legislative body in Washington. And it helps Metro get through tough fucking times.

HA has been experiencing server difficulties for, what…two weeks now?

The ISP has pinned the blame on a rogue router. They replaced it this afternoon. So no more problems, eh?

– Sensible Washington is having 4/20-related events around the state, including a press conference and rally tomorrow starting at 1pm in Westlake Park.

– Seattle city officials sent a very strong message today to both the State Senate and Governor Gregoire that passage of the medical marijuana bill is vitally important to ensure we have a well-regulated system for handling medical marijuana.

– Glenn Greenwald on the bizarre priorities of our government.

– Charli Carpenter writes about the opportunity that we’ve been wasting for the nearly ten years we’ve been in Afghanistan.

It’s finally starting to feel like spring around here! And maybe it is just me, but it sure feels like political passions are beginning to stir among us liberals. Let’s talk about it.

Please join us tonight for an evening of electoral politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but feel free to join some of us for an earlier dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 222 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

Sweet Jesus! You know the Wingnuts have huddled on the right-most precipice of crazy when Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has to step in as the voice of moderation:

Calling it “a bridge too far,” Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Monday vetoed the state legislature’s controversial “birther bill” and also rejected a bill that would have permitted guns on college campuses.

The bill to permit guns on college campuses wasn’t so much about moderation as it was about poor authorship:

The bill would have initially allowed guns to be brought into classrooms, but was revised to limit gun possession to sidewalks and roads on campuses.

Brewer told Fox News that while she is usually a supporter of pro-gun legislation, she vetoed the bill because it “was just very poorly and sloppily written and it just was not defined in the manner of which people could interpret it or could it be enforced.”

In smacking down Teh Birfers Brewer expressed some concern…

“I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for president of the greatest and most powerful nation on earth to submit their ‘early baptismal or circumcision certificates’ among other records to the Arizona secretary of state,” she said in the letter. “This is a bridge too far.”

Huh? So Arizona lawmakers wanted the presidency limited to folks who have undergone genital mutilation and practice a subset of religions that baptize infants?

For infidels who are neither circumscribed nor baptized as infants, perhaps an original invitation to the placenta feast would work?

Well…good on Jan, although she may have ulterior motives—I just guessin’ she does not have an official Certificate of Circumcision Circumcision Certificate.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who really wasn’t born in the United States, applauds.

But Teh Crazy is being upheld by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal:

Gov. Bobby Jindal would sign a bill requiring presidential candidates to provide a copy of their birth certificate to qualify for the Louisiana ballot if it reaches his desk, a spokesman said Monday.

A spokesman says Gov. Bobby Jindal will sign a bill to require presidential candidates to provide a birth certificate as proof of citizenship.
“It’s not part of our package, but if the Legislature passes it we’ll sign it,” press secretary Kyle Plotkin said.

(And if the birfer legislation is part of the package, one must wonder if the candidate’s package would be part of the legislation.)

And Indiana is considering joining the Birferati:

Indiana Senator Mike Delph is seeking a summer study committee review of whether Indiana should require Presidential candidates to prove they meet the constitutional requirements of age, residency and citizenship.

(And The Donald is just getting warmed up, while awaiting the results from his investigative teams in Hawaii and Kenya.)

So…maybe not such a bad day for Birfers. In fact, it is turning out to be a downright joyous day, since a new Public Policy Polling poll of Iowa Republicans found:

There is a significant birther presence in Iowa- 48% of Republican voters say they don’t think Barack Obama was born in the United States…

I hear placenta makes an excellent pizza topping.

– I love, love, love that there are things that scientists discover that have been right under their nose for a long time.

– Here are some reviews of Atlas Shrugged. I assume they are more fun to read than the movie is to watch. Or, for that matter than the book is to read.

– Has the tunnel debate become too classy?

That’s my 6 word summary of what people want based on the comments at this thread. Well, I don’t know how to up the quality of our trolls, but here’s a post about Washington with swearing:

Hey assholes, turds, jackasses, fuckers, and various shits for brains! Are any of you as pissed off about some Democrats’ (and more Republicans, but they don’t control anything) attempts to fuck with teachers?

As amended by a coalition of eight Senate Democrats and 22 Senate Republicans, the bill now would require school districts facing layoffs to first get rid of teachers who have received the lowest evaluations. That would replace the standard method of using seniority only – the last hired would be the first fired.

Look, there are bad teachers who probably deserve to get fired. If district administrators want to work with the teachers unions to figure out the best methods to fire those teachers, I’m all for it. But it should be part of collective bargaining, not imposed on districts by the legislature. I just realized this paragraph hasn’t had any swear words, so: blumpkin. In any event, those evaluations had better be pretty rock solid if legislators want the state to impose them on school districts.

Gregoire said she doesn’t expect the layoff change to pass the entire Legislature. But if it does, she will not support it. That’s because the state is in the midst of a process to improve the way teachers are evaluated because the existing system doesn’t work.

Well shit, I hope at the very least, that there’s some compelling reason to make this change now.

Numbers collected by the state show that fewer than 1 percent of all teachers have received unsatisfactory grades while all others have been deemed satisfactory. The percentage of principals graded unsatisfactory is less than one-half of 1 percent.

So, if these legislators get their way, the state is going to fuck with collective bargaining to impose a system on districts that mandates hiring and firing based on a system we’re trying to fix. And if you do trust that system, there already is a better than 99% satisfactory rating for those teachers. Thanks, fuckfaces.

The Republicans are sure waging a shit-load of wars against Americans.

Consider just last week. First the House Republicans:

…approved two resolutions that would amend the FY 2011 spending bill to block funding designated for Planned Parenthood and last year’s healthcare law. But House passage is largely symbolic, as the Senate did not pass either of the bills.

After that, House Republicans passed Rep. Ryan’s budget bill that privatizes Medicare, radically cuts the federal contribution to Medicaid, creates even more tax cuts for the rich and some corporations, and repeals health care reforms. The bill is DOA in the Senate, not to mention the Oval Office. And it should be DOA to most Americans.

One half the population ought to be outraged at the Republican’s War on Women. And add to that a lot non-women folk who like to fuck without making babies. Many of these non-women appreciate that Planned Parenthood provides help with that. In other words, a big chunk of young voting-age (or almost voting-age) Americans should be repulsed by these senseless political attacks on Planned Parenthood.

It is hard to imagine that senior citizens can be big fans of higher out-of-pocket insurance costs proposed in Ryan’s Medicare privatization bill to fund tax cuts for the rich. Some Seniors must find Rep. Dave Reichert’s War on AARP a little unsettling.

The poor, the disabled? I cannot believe they enjoyed being screwed by the Republicans.

All this comes on top of prior alienation. African Americans? Pretty much lost to the G.O.P. already. Hispanics? There was a small blip in increased support in 2010, but still down about 22% on average. And union members? Yeah…like they’re going to forgive and forget the War on Workers playing out in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Maine, Michigan, etc. The LGBT communities? Not really big supporters.

Republicans have lost the old, the young, the poor and disadvantaged, women, workers, and the nation’s largest minority groups. So who’s left?

Rich White Guys. That’s who.

Oh…yeah. Corporations, too.

But Republicans are not going to be voted out of office en masse. Even if a huge majority of Americans would be financially hurt by G.O.P. legislation, and even if they are morally opposed to the extremist agenda of the current crop of batshit crazy Republicans, Americans will still vote against their economic self-interest and moral principles. The Republicans will offer to rape them; they will assent.

Why? Some people are not paying attention. And other people are easily swayed. There is almost no harm that can be proposed or undertaken by Republicans that cannot be undone with enough money in the weeks leading up to an election.

Apparently Republicans have done this calculation, and they have concluded that the money infused by Rich White Guys and Wealthy Corporations over the next few elections will overcome the losses incurred by their all-out assault on most Americans.

Have they erred in their calculations?

I want to apologize for the truly excessive number of marijuana posts recently. This has been quite a week and month for drug law reform, and as I’ve found myself with lots more free time than I’m used to having, I’ve been ramping up my volunteer time with some local organizations. As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m leading the monthly Cannabis Defense Coalition public meetings (next one is Monday, May 2 at 7pm). I’ve also recently agreed to play a bigger role with Sensible Washington, helping them out with both media relations and tech stuff. Between that and the Gregoire veto threat, for the first time in about two months, I have no idea what the hell is happening in Libya right now (although I’m having lunch with my Libyan friend tomorrow).

I’m hoping things get back to normal here soon, but I also wanted to throw in my two cents on Carl’s post from yesterday. First and foremost, I’d like to see more writers here. I’ve privately recommended adding some new front-pagers. I’ve done that in part because I realize that I’m easily the biggest culprit in the lack of topic diversity. And as awesome as Darryl and Carl are, we’re all greatly limited in the amount of time we can devote to posting. The best way to overcome that is to have more people posting here. And I think we have a couple of people in our online community who would be amazing additions to the blog.

In the meantime, there are a number of stories that I’m hoping to catch up on this week. There’s the DOJ attack on online poker, the inexcusable treatment of Bradley Manning, the uprising in Syria, the tension between Israel and the new leadership in Egypt, and perhaps scariest of all, the fact that Donald Trump is both insane and leading the 2012 GOP field. What else has been happening while I’ve been knee-deep in pot news?

Last week’s contest was won by wes.in.wa, who made it four in a row. It was Bodie’s Corner in Baltimore, one the many filming locations in that city for The Wire, but one of the few that hasn’t been torn down.

Here’s this week’s contest, a random location somewhere in Washington. Good luck!

Following up on Friday’s post on the medical marijuana bill, there are a few additional items I wanted to comment on:

– In this AP report from Gene Johnson, I completely agree with Governor Gregoire’s comment at the end:

“She’s making a mistake,” said Morgan Fox, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project. “The letter from the U.S. attorneys says that they can prosecute, not that they will prosecute. In Maine, in Rhode Island, in New Jersey, those states all went ahead and set up dispensary system. They haven’t received any threats or reaction from federal law enforcement.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, which has promoted the state’s legislation, echoed that.

Gregoire said it didn’t matter: “I don’t care what any other state does.”

This is unquestionably true, because if the Governor actually cared about what’s happened in other states, she would know that she’s about to make the same crucial mistake that allowed California’s system to become such a mess. Because it’s a large state with a lot of patients, California was the first state to have an underground dispensary system supplying patients and striving to do it in a legal way. At the time, the Bush Administration was absolutely clear about the issue. They would go after anyone trying to produce or sell medical marijuana. As a result, the state of California balked at establishing state-wide measures, and a bill was passed that allowed cities and counties to regulate it.

Many of those cities struggled to make regulations and they ended up with situations like Los Angeles – where they couldn’t establish regulations and ended up with over a thousand dispensaries throughout the city that they later tried to shut down – and like Morro Bay, where an honest dispensary operator who had the blessing of its community was railroaded by the feds. Even today, California’s system has problems and cities are still struggling to come up with appropriate regulations. One of the reasons that the Obama Administration changed their policy to take a more hands-off approach towards the state medical marijuana laws was so that this situation could be avoided and states could be free to regulate this better. They don’t like coming right out and saying that, so when they’re asked directly about their policy, they couch their response in language that explains that they “could” go after it without making it clear that Obama has specified that they won’t. And Governor Gregoire could easily figure this out for herself simply by looking at the other states that are regulating medical marijuana at the state level using state employees (like New Mexico, Colorado, New Jersey, and Rhode Island). But as she’s clearly stated, she “doesn’t care what any other state does”. And it will be us who pays for the Governor’s willful ignorance.

– Ironically, members of the Cannabis Defense Coalition also continue to support a veto of the bill. A big part of their opposition is from late amendments that strip away some protections from being searched and arrested and from greater emphasis on having people sign up in a patient registry, which is extremely unpopular among the organization’s members. No formal vote has been taken by the group, but I’d be surprised if even 25% of CDC members want this bill to pass. With that said, I want to explain my rationale for continuing to support the bill despite these amendments.

These amendments aren’t great (and I don’t like the registry), but they’re more illogical than dangerous. In the past, law enforcement have generally gone after patients for one of three reasons: 1. Because the patient is growing for himself or herself and law enforcement is convinced that they’re growing too much for it to be for one person. 2. Because law enforcement will see a patient as an soft target to roll over on a provider. 3. Because law enforcement simply doesn’t care about medical marijuana and sees all use as illegal.

Even though the late amendment from Rep. Christopher Hurst gives law enforcement greater ability to search and arrest people, the other parts of the bill cut off much of the rationale for law enforcement to go after patients for the first two reasons above. For instance, in the Snoqualmie case, a patient like Jeff Roetter (who died of an epileptic seizure as Snoqualmie police were squeezing him to testify against his provider) doesn’t have to be at risk of being used like a pawn in order to get to a bigger fish if he’s getting marijuana at state-licensed dispensary. And for people who live in areas where growing is still very risky (like the Olsons in Kitsap county), they no longer have to take that risk.

Even if this bill were to pass, though, I’d still expect a very small number of law enforcement officials in the state to go after patients for the third reason – purely out of a belief that medical marijuana is invalid and that patients are criminals. The initial bill had fines for law enforcement officials who did this, but those were stripped out right away. This is a problem that isn’t going to go away with any bill, at least not one that could pass the legislature. There are other potential problems with the bill (and they’re listed out here), but I still think the best approach is to pass this bill and fix those problems after we get a lay of the land rather than scrap this bill and try to start from scratch again.

– Finally, the Tacoma News Tribune’s latest comedic output is here. I could write a rather lengthy post pointing out all the factual inaccuracies and flaws in their logic, but I’ve done that before and don’t need to do that again.

I just want to cut to the heart of the matter, since the major difference between the “responsible medical marijuana bill” they touted on March 10 and the “Legislature’s plans to expand medical marijuana far beyond the voters’ original mandate” they referred to it as on April 17 is that dispensaries can now be for-profit. The only other major difference that I’m aware of is the supremacy of the state regulations, something that the city of Tacoma supports and which is vital to keep Washington’s system from looking more like California’s. So the question is, why is it such a problem for a marijuana dispensary to operate for profit? And why does this expand it beyond the voters’ original mandate? I realize that the Tacoma News Tribune probably isn’t interested in serious debate on this topic, but I know there are a lot of residents down there who are, and they’re not being served by a paper that hasn’t been willing to be serious on this topic for as long as I’ve been following it.

Malachi 2:2-3
If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor my name,” says the LORD Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me.

“Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it.

Discuss.