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I’m not sure what’s more frustrating: Democrats’ inability to use the power voters handed them, or their refusal to?

Take for example state Rep. Jamie Pedersen, who as chair of the House Committee on Judiciary has the power to kill any bill coming before his committee, simply by refusing to bring it up for a vote. Some might find that a little undemocratic, but that’s the way our legislative system works, and that’s why winning and holding majorities are so important — the majority party gets to appoint the committee chairs, and thus control the agenda.

And regardless of party, committee chairs tend to be pretty damn thorough in asserting this power. If you don’t enjoy the support of the chair, your bill is dead. Simple as that. But not, apparently, if the chair is Rep. Pedersen, at least when it comes to HB 2507, special legislation limiting asbestos related claims against a single, out-of-state corporation.

According to the House Bill Report, HB 2507 would have the following effect:

A corporation that assumed or incurred asbestos-related liabilities before January 1, 1972 as a result of a merger or consolidation with another corporation has limited asbestos-related liability. The cumulative successor asbestos-related liability is limited to the fair market value of the total gross assets of the predecessor corporation.

In reality, this bill was narrowly crafted to benefit only one corporation, Pennsylvania based Crown Holdings, a company with 2008 revenues of over $7.7 billion, and annual asbestos liability expenses of only $53 million, worldwide. If enacted, the bill would exempt Crown from any further liability stemming from its 1965 merger with Mundet Cork Corporation, and that company’s asbestos insulation that was widely used at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and other Washington state facilities.

The bill would cost our state’s workers compensation fund about $600,000 between now and 2015, while denying any future claims from workers who were harmed by the product. With Washington ranking 7th in the nation in asbestos related deaths, and King County ranking 4th nationally on a per capita basis, that would leave untold numbers of local workers unable to recover damages.

But that’s neither here nor there. This kind of corporate favoritism is common in both parties (just take a look at our state’s tax code), the common good be damned. But what’s not so common is the way Rep. Pedersen, as chair, has publicly postured his opposition to the bill (he voted against it) while allowing it to pass his committee.

In an email to a constituent, Rep. Pedersen voiced his concern that the bill would reduce compensation to injured workers, yet explained his actions as such:

A majority of members of my committee (seven of eleven) support the bill.  So I concluded that I would not stand in the way of a vote on the bill and would let its fate be decided by the larger body.  If it is any consolation, I think it is extremely unlikely that the bill will pass out of the Senate.

Yes, a majority of his committee supported the bill, including all three of the Republicans present, but a majority of Democrats did not. And yet Rep. Pedersen allowed the bill to pass this major legislative hurdle.

One can only assume that either Rep. Pedersen is a crappy politician when comes to effective execution of political power, or that as a corporate attorney himself, he’s actually being a bit disingenuous in stating his opposition to the bill.

Either way, he doesn’t come off looking so good.

The Republican mantra is that the real problem with the state budget is that state employees simply make too much and enjoy far too generous benefits. If we could just get rid of those damn public employee unions, we could balance our state budget merely by slashing the health care benefits and reducing the pay of state workers.

That’s the type of “fiscal conservatism” we’ve come to expect from Republicans. You know, like Republican state Attorney General Rob McKenna:

Total bonus payments within the Attorney General’s office exceeded those of any other state agency. Of the $1.9 million awarded as bonuses to state employees during FY 2009, nearly one-third – $599,000 – went to members of the McKenna’s staff (McKenna has been Attorney General since 2005).

The AG’s office awarded larger than average bonuses. While the average performance award for a state employee was $204, members of the AG’s office were awarded bonuses averaging $664 with 55 staffers getting bonuses of $3,000 each.

Bonuses were widespread. The AG’s office awarded a total of 901 bonuses to its staff of 1321 staffers, including 55 awards of $3,000 each.

Most awards were given during the economic downturn. In fall 2008, Governor Gregoire advised agencies to withhold performance recognition awards, and most agencies complied. However, the AG awarded the vast majority of his awards in February 2009, just as the Legislature was making draconian spending cuts to education and public health programs in an effort to balance the state budget.

Do as I say, not as I do, and all that.

“Remember, it’s 51 votes for passage. They have to filibuster. Make them filibuster.

[…] Here we have a chance to do something historic. And if it means some of us are going to lose because of that, so be it. At least you’ll have lost your office fighting for something and accomplishing something.”

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a former DNC chair himself, may be an asshole sometimes (okay, most of the time), but he’s our asshole, and that’s why we love him. Indeed, Democrats could use a few more assholes like Ed in both Washingtons.

About ten years ago, shortly after his return to Apple, Steve Jobs gave this motivational speech defining the company’s core values. (Via Gizmodo.)

“Marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world, it’s a very noisy world, and we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.

Our customers want to know, who is Apple, and what is it that we stand for? Where do we fit in this world? And what we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some cases.

But Apple is about something more than that. Apple at the core, its core value, is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better. That’s what we believe.”

Substitute “politics” for “marketing,” “party” for “company,” and “Democratic Party” for “Apple,” and you’ve got a clear values statement and messaging strategy for getting the American people behind our efforts to move this nation forward. Even “making boxes for people to get their jobs done” is an apt metaphor for what the Democratic Party does, if only that.

You also have a clear answer as to why the Democrats, with our large post-2008 majorities, have failed to rally the nation behind our agenda: because the American people have no idea what we stand for.

Hell, I’m not sure even most Democrats have a clear idea what we stand for.

I’ve long said that the biggest difference between Democrats and Republicans is that we believe in government, while they do not. But Jobs says it much better. Indeed, apply his “people with passion can change the world for the better” to a national context, put a Boston patrician accent on it, and it would sound downright JFK-esque.

Republicans don’t really believe this. Sure, they’ve got their blind faith in the efficiencies of an unfettered free market that they like to promote as a defense of rugged individualism, but it’s really rooted in a sorta value-neutral if not mean-spirited social Darwinism that pretty much advocates every man for himself. Survival of the fittest, and all that. If the rich exploit the poor, the strong exploit the weak, well, that’s the natural order.

And while I suppose Republicans might even seek to twist Jobs’ value statement to fit their own philosophy, remember, Jobs was talking about the values of a company — an organization… a collection of individuals working together toward a common goal — in the same way that Democrats should be talking about the values of our nation.

Democrats too believe that people with passion can change the world for the better, both acting collectively through government, and individually through our market economy. That is the core belief that binds us together, and like Apple, our primary goal should be to provide the opportunity for people with passion to do what they do best.

Politics, like marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world, it’s a very noisy world, and we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No party or politician is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.

The American people want to know who is the Democratic Party, and what is it that we stand for? Where do we fit in this world? And what we’re about isn’t making policies for people to get jobs, although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some cases.

But the Democratic Party is about something more than that. The Democratic party at the core, its core value, is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better. That’s what we believe.

And it’s time for the Democratic Party to get behind such a simple, coherent message.

I agree with Danny Westneat:

Let me repeat what he said, because you don’t hear it often: We don’t mind some reasonable tax increase.

I think that’s true. I’d guess people want to see more cutting, first. But they also would rather pay a little more, across the board, than see the schools or safety net or criminal-justice system go all to hell.

So, legislators, just do that.

Even with one of the highest state tobacco taxes in the nation, I don’t mind seeing it rise a little higher. Smoking is a dangerous habit that shortens lives and costs businesses and government billions of dollars in lost productivity and higher health care expenses. Increase the cost of smoking and fewer people will smoke; that’s a clear social benefit.

But as a primary means of addressing our state’s interminable budget crisis, well, that’s just plain cowardly and dumb.

Legislators love to over-rely on sin taxes because they tend be relatively politically palatable, but they’re also the most regressive, and by far. A $3.00 tax on a $1.00 cigar translates to a rate of 300%, whereas it only amounts to a 10% tax on a luxury cigar that would otherwise retail for $30.00. It’s easy to figure out which income groups are impacted the most by such a tax.

But just as importantly, from a budgetary perspective, sin tax increases just don’t produce enough revenue, and simply aren’t sustainable.

One of the arguments in favor of increasing tobacco taxes is that higher costs decrease consumption, undoubtedly a social good, but that also means that from a revenue perspective, higher taxes also produce diminishing returns. Combined with the fact that the real-dollar-value of unit-based excise taxes inevitably decreases over time as it is eaten away by inflation, and the economics simply don’t allow for the state to wring significant new revenues from an already highly taxed commodity.

So while from a social engineering perspective I’ve got nothing against raising tobacco taxes, Democratic legislators who think that this might somehow answer constituent demands for new revenue to fill a significant portion of the state’s current $2.6 billion revenue deficit, well, they’re smoking something else entirely.

On the heels of last year’s devastating all-cuts budget, another mostly-cuts budget simply isn’t a reasonable alternative to anybody interested in maintaining a level of government services and investment necessary to sustain the quality of life in Washington state, while moving our economy forward. And even if Washington receives the additional $700 million in one-time federal funds Gov. Gregoire’s proposals anticipate, that would do nothing to address the budget crisis looming in the next biennium.

As politically painful and unpopular as it may appear to be, legislators need to start debating a broader based tax increase that can produce significant new revenue now, and for the foreseeable future. And barring the courage (and time) to wade into the billions of dollars a year in under- and non-producing tax exemptions, the only realistic option for substantial short term revenue is a general sales tax increase, and/or an expansion thereof to additional goods and services.

A general sales tax increase and/or expansion must be on the table this session, and by “on the table” I mean publicly discussed and debated. Yes, this too would be regressive, an impact that could be partly addressed by fully implementing the Working Families Tax Credit. But at the same time we’re talking about a sales tax increase, we also seriously need to discuss and debate an income tax as part of any long term solution.

A bold, courageous and creative Legislature could simultaneously pass both a sales tax increase and the income tax that would supplant it. For example, a temporary, half cent increase in the state portion of the sales tax from 6.5% to 7.0% would generate an additional $500 million a year in new revenue almost immediately, but a high-earners income tax, which would take at least a year to implement and muddle through the inevitable constitutional challenge, could replace the sales tax increase while impacting only the top two percent of households. Raise the income tax a little higher, and we could even knock the state sales tax down to 6% or less.

There are budget solutions beyond endless cutting and praying for federal bailouts. We just need a few legislators willing to lead the way.

This week, both of the progressive marijuana bills introduced in the State House this session were voted down by the Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee. This wasn’t a terribly surprising outcome, as the Committee continues to be led by former police officer Chris Hurst (D-Enumclaw), who killed the decriminalization bill last year as well. Despite the outcome, having an actual legalization bill introduced was another big step forward towards ending the disastrous prohibition of marijuana.

Making that even more clear are the results of a SurveyUSA poll, which finds that 56% of Washington adults think that legalizing marijuana is a good idea (vs. only 36% who think it’s a bad idea). On top of that, the only demographic that remains strongly opposed is the 65 and over crowd. Even among those aged 50-64, SurveyUSA found that 63% think legalizing marijuana is a good idea. And even in Eastern Washington, they found that 52% think it’s a good idea.

Those numbers alone won’t make the laws change though. It still requires either the legislature and the Governor to care about overwhelming public support for reforming the laws (not going to happen any time soon), or it will take a voter initiative. On the latter front, Sensible Washington is gearing up for the 2010 ballot with an initiative to remove the criminal penalties for marijuana. According to Sensible Washington, they aim to have the initiative language hammered out by March 1, and will be collecting signatures through July. They need over 240,000 to qualify for the November ballot.

What ends up being the most frustrating aspect of this effort, though, is that there simply isn’t a sensible reason for Democrats in this state (or in other more progressive states) to get on board. In fact, Ben Morris makes this connection with respect to the defeat of Martha Coakley in Massachusetts. Coakley was a vocal opponent of the decriminalization initiative that Massachusetts voters approved by almost a 2 to 1 margin. Yet everyone was scratching their head as to why progressives and young voters didn’t show up to vote for her.

Whether Democrats like it or not, drug law reform is part of the “change” that people want right now. And while drug policy isn’t as high profile an issue as health care or job creation, the frames that exist to drive voters perceptions of candidates are often greatly influenced by things like a vocal opposition to a commonsense drug policy measure – especially for young people, for whom the issue is often far simpler to grasp. It’s really hard to convince young people that Martha Coakley is the person you need to vote for to bring about “change” after she spent 2008 supporting absurd reefer madness crusades in an attempt to defeat the ballot measure. The fact that Democrats even here in Washington can’t look at these polls and put 2 and 2 together doesn’t make me very optimistic about their chances this November.

UPDATE: Seattle Weekly has a Q&A with Douglas Hiatt of Sensible Washington.

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky, who got the correct answer of Fort Washington, MD.

This week’s contest was suggested by a reader (who is not allowed to win). :)

This might be harder than it looks, good luck!

1 Timothy 2:12
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

Discuss.

A longtime reader writes TPM with their personal sob story:

My story: My father is dying of Huntington’s disease. Before he dies in 8 to 10 years, he will need anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and drugs that fight dementia and his tremors and convulsions. He’ll need multiple brain scans and physical therapy sessions.

Current medical treatments can’t save him, but they will give him a few more years before the slow death strips him of his memories, personality and control of his body.

There’s a 50 percent chance the same slow motion death awaits me and each of my three siblings. If I ever lose my job I’ll become uninsurable, permanently. My sister already lost her insurance.

That means whatever treatment is developed for Huntington’s will be unavailable to us. There’s simply no way we could afford it. Not only high tech gene therapies or other interventions, but the medications and treatments that exist now that would buy us enough time to see our kids’ graduations or weddings, and would give them hope of not suffering their grandfather’s fate.

For all of its faults, the Senate version of the health care bill includes provisions that would prevent health insurance companies from denying such people coverage, or canceling their policies. The House could pass this bill as-is, and send it to the President to sign. Or, they could start the reform effort over from scratch and attempt to negotiate with the 41 Republicans in the Senate, who have already said that they would not support such provisions.

After all, most of us did not make the poor personal choice to be born to a father with a terrible hereditary disease like Huntington’s, so really, why should we or insurance company shareholders be asked to share the costs? That would be socialism, right?

[via TP]

The Seattle Times editorial board argues for “Zero tolerance for cyberbullies,” and while I’d agree that schools have rarely taken bullying nearly seriously enough, just the mention of the phrase “zero tolerance” gives me the willies.

McClure, like all Seattle Public Schools, has a zero-tolerance bullying policy. Cruel remarks and threats posted online may be someone’s idea of free speech but they violate school safety policies.

In recent rulings the U.S. Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that students don’t currently enjoy First Amendment protections even for off-campus speech (unless, of course, they incorporate), an unfortunate precedent that has emboldened school officials in the exercise of their authority. And as a former student myself, I just don’t trust that kind of authority.

First we had zero tolerance for drugs, a policy under which a 13-year-old girl could be strip-searched on suspicion of bringing ibuprofen to school. Then we had zero tolerance for weapons, a policy that inevitably lead to a 14-year-old girl being expelled from school for accidentally bringing in a butter knife.

Really. A butter knife.

And now we want zero tolerance on speech?

As ridiculous as the two examples above are, a pill is a pill and a knife is a knife, and I suppose if you want to be an asshole or an idiot about it, both violate the schools’ zero tolerance policies, and well, a rule is a rule. But if even things as concrete and well defined as physical objects can be taken out of context, just imagine the mess school officials can make applying a zero tolerance policy to words.

No context, no subtext, no reading between the lines unless school officials choose to read between the lines, regardless of what the student really meant. If a teacher overhears a student responding to abuse in kind, that’s a violation of the zero tolerance policy, regardless of whether the real bully was the unheard instigator. And if a school official chooses to misinterpret the typically cruel, mutually abusive teenage banter that often passes between friends, that’s a violation of the zero tolerance policy too.

Do I want schools to crack down on bullying? Absolutely. But do I want my own daughter to be subjected to a zero tolerance policy on something as inherently subjective as speech? Hell no!

A zero tolerance policy is the lazy way out of a complex social problem. It’s the cowardly way out. And it’s no excuse for diminishing the rights of students any further.

About two years ago, coyotes started to become a frequent sighting in Seward Park, and cats started disappearing from the surrounding neighborhood. I saw the “lost cat” posters popping up on nearby telephone poles, and heard the grisly stories of mangled cat parts found scattered through nearby yards, but living almost a mile from the park and just couple blocks up the hill from busy Rainier Avenue, I didn’t pay it that much attention… until our cat nearly fell victim to an apparent coyote attack.

Shortly thereafter a coyote casually crossed our path less than fifty feet ahead of us on a trail in Seward Park, in the middle of the day. And only about six months ago, I drove up to my house around dusk, just in time to see a coyote stroll out of my yard and down the sidewalk. (Fortunately, our cat was safely indoors at the time.) Meanwhile, lost kitty posters continue to be a mainstay on neighborhood telephone polls, along with the occasional flyer bemoaning a missing small dog.

When neighbors have called animal control to complain about the perceived threat (real threat, if you’re a cat), they’ve generally gotten the same muted response. Coyotes are part of a natural, healthy, urban landscape, and the city has no plans to trap or kill them. We should celebrate their beauty… and keep our cats safely indoors.

So I was a bit surprised to read that authorities have decided to hunt and kill the coyotes that have recently been making the news in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood:

The state has identified two problem coyotes. “We’ve had some unsettling reports of aggression,” he said. “There’s been lost pets, small dogs and cats, and this has caused us some concern.”

Uh-huh. So why is it that lost pets in Magnolia are such a concern to local officials, yet lost pets in Southeast Seattle are not? What… my cat’s life isn’t as valuable as the life of a Magnolia cat? Is it because of where we live? Is it because he’s black?

Southeast Seattle residents have long complained about getting the short end of the stick when it comes to city services compared to our North end counterparts, and this sort of double-standard doesn’t help. I’ve closely followed the coyote reports coming out of Magnolia, and they’re no different from what’s going on down here. Small pets fall prey to the Seward Park coyotes on a regular basis, and I can testify from my personal encounters that the coyotes showed little fear at my presence. Yet for some reason the Magnolia complaints seem to be taken more seriously.

Personally, I agree with the advice we’ve received from animal control. The coyotes are beautiful to watch, and I take great pleasure in seeing wildlife thrive within such an urban setting. We’re a lot more careful with our cat these days, who no longer spends the nights prowling outdoors… though that probably has more to do with his own changing 11-year-old habits than with our discipline. The coyotes have also performed a notable service, effectively controlling a rabbit population in Seward Park that had threatened to grow out of control without predation.

If city or state authorities proposed trapping and relocating the Seward Park coyotes, I doubt there’d be much opposition from local residents, but hunting and killing them? That just seems a bit extreme, considering the minimal level of threat they pose. Fortunately, I doubt it will come to that, as clearly, our concerns aren’t taken nearly as seriously as those of Magnolia and other North end neighborhoods.

UPDATE:
One of the Magnolia coyotes was trapped and killed this morning on BNSF property.

He said the coyote was caught in a leg trap about 5 a.m. today and was euthanized with a shot to the head.

Caught in a leg trap and then shot in the head. How humane.

FYI, this is what a dead, snared coyote looks like:

And this is what that coyote looked like back when it was puppy.

22-year-old Rebecca Solomon was passing through security at Philadelphia International Airport, when a TSA worker motioned her toward him.

Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on – the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.

She remembers his words: “Where did you get it?”

Two thoughts came to her in a jumble: A terrorist was using her to sneak bomb-detonating materials on the plane. Or a drug dealer had made her an unwitting mule, planting coke or some other trouble in her bag while she wasn’t looking.

She’d left her carry-on by her feet as she handed her license and boarding pass to a security agent at the beginning of the line.

Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK.

Solomon, 5-foot-3 and traveling alone, looked up at the man in the black shirt and fought back tears.

Put yourself in her place and count out 20 seconds. Her heart pounded. She started to sweat. She panicked at having to explain something she couldn’t.

Now picture her expression as the TSA employee started to smile.

Just kidding, he said. He waved the baggie. It was his.

No biggie. He was just kidding. In fact, he was training other TSA workers how to detect contraband. The fact that he reduced this poor woman to tears, well, I guess that’s the kinda sacrifice we all have to make to win this war on terror.

But now that I know that TSA workers have such a great sense of humor, I’ll have to perpetrate a practical joke of my own the next time I go through airport security.

Air America Radio shut off its microphones today and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. It will continue to provide affiliates with “encore” programming through 9PM Monday, January 25, at which time its programming will end for good.

I suppose you could call Air America a failure, and from a business perspective it certainly was. It never operated in the black, and seemed to be in the midst of financial and management turmoil since before it launched in April of 2004.

But it helped catapult Al Franken into the U.S. Senate, and launched a then unknown Rachel Maddow on the path toward her own show on MSNBC, and will leave behind dozens of thriving progressive talk stations nationwide. And without the ecosystem that Air America spawned, Ed Schultz and other successful progressive talkers might never have had the opportunity to reach a national audience.

That’s a pretty impressive legacy, and one for which I at least am grateful.

Just to be absolutely clear, I think it is safe to argue that if there’s one thing on which a majority of Americans agree, it’s that corporations don’t have nearly enough influence in state, local and national politics. So we should all thank the courageous justices of the United States Supreme Court for correcting this imbalance.