HorsesAss.Org

There’s been a lot of talk about transportation “governance reform” in the wake of Prop 1’s failure this past November, and one of the main arguments repeatedly proffered is that a directly elected board of regional commissioners would be more responsive and accountable than, say, Sound Transit’s current makeup of officials appointed by other elected bodies. This is an assumption that has been left mostly unchallenged by editorialists and other members of our media and political elite.

So I thought it might be constructive to test this thesis by comparing the highly publicized recent audit of Sound Transit with its much maligned federated board ($5 million of potential savings out of a $2.5 billion budget), versus that of the Port of Seattle with it’s directly elected commissioners ($100 million wasted, and a criminal investigation.) Um… ouch.

As Seattle Transit Blog points out, “Sound Transit is ‘definitely’ in the ‘good camp’ when it comes to audits”… at least that’s what Evans Anglin, the Accountability Audit manager for the State Auditor’s office told Sound Transit at a Jan 3 presentation:

“I think that you can give yourselves a small pat on the back for doing a good year, and if I may just step outside my boundaries a little bit and just reflect on the fact that I believe your performance audit also came out pretty well, so I think that we’re all aware of maybe a performance audit that came out recently that maybe wasn’t quite so, um, didn’t go quite so well, so I think you can kind of compare and contrast yourselves between those two audits and maybe get a sense of you know, things are going fairly well here from the perspective of the State Auditor’s office. Obviously a large complex organization, there’s always things, but we’re not seeing the kind of systemic problems that perhaps might exist in an organization like this with the magnitude of construction activity that’s going on.”

“Systemic problems”…? Um… like those at the Port of Seattle, with it’s elected commissioners? Anglin goes on to thank Sound Transit for its cooperation:

“Very roughly you might be able to divide the world of the governments we audit into two camps […] this is definitely one of the entities that fall into the good camp. Our audits are always well received, the recommendations that we make are always taken seriously.”

You know, unlike the folks at the Port of Seattle.

Compare and contrast operations at the Port of Seattle and Sound Transit, and there is absolutely no evidence that a directly elected commission is inherently any more accountable than a federated board. Indeed, anecdotally, one might reasonably conclude just the opposite. And yet “accountability” continues to be a rallying cry of the anti-rail schemers who look to governance reform as a means of lopping the head off of Sound Transit, and with it, the pro-rail/pro-transit aspirations of the majority of Seattle voters.

The folks who really need to be held accountable are the so-called civic leaders and media mucky-mucks who relentlessly malign a well-run organization like Sound Transit in pursuit of their narrow-minded, backwards-thinking, roads only agenda.

Actual voter suppression in the works, thanks to the Bush Court:

There are many ways to lose a Supreme Court case, and by the end of an argument that was before the court on Wednesday, the Democrats who were challenging Indiana’s voter-identification law appeared poised to lose theirs in a potentially sweeping way, with implications for many future election cases.

One of the big problems I have with folks who cry “vote fraud” is that it isn’t nearly as common as voter suppression. Requiring voter ID at the polls, which is what Indiana has done, creates greater barriers to voting, and Republicans push for these laws because they know that Democrats are more likely to not have proper ID with them on election day. Another trick is to put fewer (or broken) voting machines in black neighborhoods. Mix in the occasional purge of the voter rolls in Democratic neighborhoods and you have a recipe for actual, honest-to-God voter suppression. All of this is far, far easier to pull off than some sort of big voter fraud conspiracy.

As John Amato says:

Get off the voter stuff in NH and focus on a real threat to our democracy. With huge turnouts more than likely this election, what will happen at the polling stations when Americans are turned away because of these new rules? We’ve had to fight for our right to vote and we must continue to do so.

When congressional candidates release their fundraising numbers ahead of the federal reporting deadline, it’s almost always good news, and that’s no exception for Darcy Burner, who just announced record numbers for the fourth quarter of 2007. Burner raised $339,494 — more than $290,000 (86-percent) coming from 1495 individuals. That’s the most ever for a Washington state challenger in any quarter of an off year, topping the $305,000 raised in the previous quarter when Burner benefited from an unprecedented $123,000 netroots fundraiser.

Burner’s 2008 campaign has now raised $858,125 total, finishing the year with an impressive $607,144 in the bank… more than half a million dollars more than at the same point during the last campaign. These results will put her in the top tier of Democratic challengers nationwide, and are a clear sign of a strong campaign and a thirst for change in WA’s 8th Congressional District.

No peep out of the Reichert camp yet on his 4Q numbers. I wonder why?

Mighty slim pickins this a.m., mostly followups on earlier news, such as the Port scandal (plus ca change…) and UW student stabbing (the cops got bupkus). The guv has yet another highway proposal, this for a “520 Lite,” (yeah, that’ll work) and another case of Catholic sexual abuse has hit, this time at O’Dea High School (“O they will know we are Christians” link to Dan Savage TK). The Times lead story is original, about alumni blackmailing the UW to fire the AD and football coach. Somehow I’m not shocked. That’s it, folks, I hereby offer up today’s theme song.

As for extracurricular headlines, fur continues to fly over New Hampshire vote fraud, with MSM like The Dallas Morning News maybe perhaps starting to get interested. My $.02 continues to be data mining. It’s early in this game for conclusion-jumping. I will say that partisanship has nothing to do with voter fraud, which is simply about rigging results to ensure it can be done better next time, and that no one disputes Diebold at all levels (not just touchscreens) is easily hacked. No one with any brains thinks Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 were clean, so why not keep an overzealous eye on the 2008 campaign as it plays out? If you dismiss all voter fraud as conspiracy nuttery, then you’re just another plutocratic patsy. More fodder here and from our own Bev Harris’ Black Box Voting.

Vote fraud in New Hampshire: “Major allegations of vote fraud in New Hampshire are circulating after Hillary Clinton reversed a mammoth pre-polling deficit to defeat Barack Obama with the aid of Diebold electronic voting machines, while confirmed votes for Ron Paul in the Sutton district were not even counted…”

To their credit, some of the normally self-assured TV pundits are saying they don’t know what the hell is going on any more. Until a more believable assessment of the polling disparities is provided, I’ll stick with this.

UPDATE [–Goldy]:
Or maybe, the polls were right… on Sunday. Unfortunately for Obama, the election was held on Tuesday.

UPDATE, UPDATE [–Goldy]:
Or maybe, of course, the electronic voting machines couldn’t have been hacked because, um, there weren’t any.

Gov. Chris Gregoire released a statement late this afternoon, clarifying her position on former Gov. Booth Gardner’s assisted suicide initiative:

“The initiative filed today by Governor Gardner offers a very personal, individual decision for Washington voters to consider should it qualify for the November ballot. I want to clarify that I will not actively oppose this initiative. It is not my place to impose my morality on others.”

So I guess in the battle between me and Lee in parsing the governor’s words, I win. So there.

UPDATE [Lee]: Goldy, you win this round. But everyone here’s a winner when Crackpiper says things this dumb:

By stepping aside, she is imposing her ammorality.

We could probably train a monkey to keep us this entertained, but we’d still have to feed it. Thank you so much, Crackpiper. Everyone else, keep an eye on EffU this weekend.

What?! Lee voted for Dino Rossi?!!! I never knew. I guess that’s just one of those uncomfortable questions that never comes up in polite society… you know, like, “Do you find your sister sexy?” or “Who’s your favorite actor on the sit-com Two and a Half Men?”

As for his anti-Gregoire screed, Lee warned me last night that he had this particular post in the hopper, giving me the opportunity to edit or nix it in advance, but I chose not to even read it before it went live. Lee has the same deal here as the rest of my HA co-bloggers: he can write on whatever he wants whenever he wants, and in exchange, I can yank his posting privileges without warning. Nobody edits me, and I’m not about to edit them. I always knew Lee was one of those weird libertarianish kinda guys, and I never expected to agree with everything he posted, but he’s a sharp analyst and an entertaining writer, and that’s exactly what we shoot for here on HA.

But, you know, it is possible to go too far.

The impetus for Lee’s post is Gov. Gregoire’s comment on former Gov. Booth Gardner’s proposed assisted suicide initiative: “I find it on a personal level, very, very difficult to support assisted suicide.” To Lee, the governor’s position is hypocritical or worse:

I find it extremely difficult to understand how a person can see abortion as a fundamental right, but also see the right for a terminally ill individual to control their own death as being subject to other people’s moral qualms.

[…] As I was researching this post and looking for Gregoire’s past statements on abortion, you’ll find that it’s nearly impossible to find statements directly from her that affirm her support for a woman’s right to choose. In fact, this page reports that she told Archbishop Brunett in the meeting referenced above that as a Catholic, she was “against abortion.” At this point, I have no idea who’s really telling the truth. But what I do know is that if she really is pro-choice, her stance on assisted suicide clearly makes her a hypocrite. If I had to guess, I’d say her stance on assisted suicide is the real Gregoire and her pro-choice position is a pander.

I wholeheartedly agree with Lee in supporting assisted suicide legislation, but I think he jumps to conclusions regarding Gov. Gregoire’s position, and in general fails to display his usual sense of nuance. Gov. Gregoire told reporters that “on a personal level” she finds it difficult to support assisted suicide — but that doesn’t necessarily mean she would actively oppose Gov. Gardner’s initiative. Likewise, I find no hypocrisy in an elected official personally being “against abortion” yet fully supporting a woman’s legal right to choose. In fact, I’ve always assumed that as a practicing Catholic Gov. Gregoire accepts her church’s teaching that abortion under any circumstance is a sin. The significant difference between Rossi and Gregoire on this issue is that he would seek to impose his own morality through force of law, whereas she would not.

Without a doubt, the modern American politician I admire most is former Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, a liberal icon and a devout Catholic who spoke thoughtfully and eloquently on this very issue. It has been well over a decade since I last read the text of the speech he gave at the University of Notre Dame on September 13, 1984 — “Religious Belief and Public Morality: A Catholic Governor’s Perspective” — but with the GOP having since transformed itself into the Pro-Life Party and the defender of a Christianist America, Gov. Cuomo’s remarks are more pertinent now than ever. In this speech the governor reveals himself to be profoundly reverent of unborn life, and yet he distinguishes between his private role as a Catholic and his role as a public official:

As Catholics, my wife and I were enjoined never to use abortion to destroy the life we created, and we never have. We thought Church doctrine was clear on this, and – more than that – both of us felt it in full agreement with what our hearts and our consciences told us. For me, life or fetal life in the womb should be protected, even if five of nine Justices of the Supreme Court and my neighbor disagree with me. A fetus is different from an appendix or a set of tonsils. At the very least, even if the argument is made by some scientists or some theologians that in the early stages of fetal development we can’t discern human life, the full potential of human life is indisputably there. That – to my less subtle mind – by itself should demand respect, caution, indeed…reverence.

But not everyone in our society agrees with me and Matilda.

[…]The Catholic public official lives the political truth most Catholics through most of American history have accepted and insisted on: the truth that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful.

I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose.

We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us.

I do not ask Gov. Gregoire or any other politician to endorse my moral perspective or keep silent on their own, I only expect that they respect my right to act on my perspective freely. Likewise, I don’t expect Gov. Gregoire to hold the same legislative priorities as I do, and given the political reality, even a legislative attempt at codifying assisted suicide would not only be unlikely, it would almost certainly come back to voters in the form of a referendum. Gov. Gregoire was asked about assisted suicide and she honestly answered that “on a personal level” she would find it very difficult to support. I have no problems with that as long as she does not use the power and influence of her office to oppose the initiative.

As for Lee’s further critique, that Gov. Gregoire ran “a hollow campaign with no ideas,” and “nearly always reverts to the most authoritarian solutions”… well… I think he overstates the situation. She did not run a very compelling campaign in 2004 (hence Rossi’s near victory) and she’s not the kind of progressive champion most of us bloggers would prefer. But overall, within the pragmatic scheme of things, she’s been a good governor… and certainly far, far better than the alternative.

Lee voices regrets over his protest vote for Rossi, but says that at this point he can’t vote for Gregoire either. On this point and others, Lee is wrong. But as long as he doesn’t try to impose his beliefs on me, I’ll gladly permit him to continue posting his wrong beliefs here on HA.

Following up on yesterday’s post re Richard Conlin seeking to renew the Pro Parks Levy over the mayor’s dead body, a newly formed coalition is organizing to promote funding of a broad range of green initiatives, from bicycling to tree preservation. The idea behind the Green Legacy for All Levy is to set up a formal citizens committee to oversee financing of green projects including but extending beyond parks, while making the process far less volatile and unilateral than Parks Department jurisdiction of the past. It’s early for details, including the amount sought (Pro Parks was just shy of $200 million), but several community groups have endorsed the spirit of the endeavor and it will get further airing at a number of upcoming events, including a public forum moderated by Open Space Seattle 2100’s Brice Maryman at the downtown library at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 17th. For now the effort is coordinating with Council member Tom Rasmussen, chair of the newly rejiggered Parks and Seattle Center Committee. The vice chair: None other than Richard Conlin.

Jerry Cornfield writes about the effort by former Governor Booth Gardner to bring Oregon’s assisted suicide law to Washington. His “Death with Dignity” initiative will be filed this morning at 10am.

Oregon’s law has functioned as expected since its inception 10 years ago. Despite the howling of those who claimed that the law would lead to mass suicides, only a tiny fraction of Oregonians take advantage of this law each year to legally end their lives on their own terms. Unfortunately, as David Postman reports, this initiative will have opposition from the Governor’s office:

Gov. Chris Gregoire is talking to reporters in Olympia. She was just asked her position on the assisted suicide initiative that former Gov. Booth Gardner will file tomorrow. Gardner, who has Parkinsons, has been a mentor to Gregoire. Gregoire’s voice cracked when she answered the question:

“I love my friend Booth Gardner and my heart goes out to his condition and what he’s had to face. He was my motivation for the Life Sciences Discovery Fund. I pray every day that we will find a cure. But I find it on a personal level, very, very difficult to support assisted suicide.”

That’s interesting, because back in 2004, when she was running for governor, the following appeared in the Seattle PI:

State Attorney General Christine Gregoire, the leading Democratic candidate for governor, said she does not see a conflict between her Catholic faith and protecting abortion rights, said Morton Brilliant, her press secretary.

Gregoire is “deeply faithful and also strongly committed to a woman’s right to choose,” Brilliant said. “And she believes a woman’s right to choice is a fundamental right.”

Directly bucking [Seattle Archbishop Alex] Brunett’s edict, he added that Gregoire does not believe abortion is immoral.

“(Gregoire) does not see her role as governor as requiring her to impose her faith on the entire state,” he said. “Washington is clearly a pro-choice state, Gregoire will not shy away from that belief and will not waver in her support of that right.”

[Emphasis mine]

I find it extremely difficult to understand how a person can see abortion as a fundamental right, but also see the right for a terminally ill individual to control their own death as being subject to other people’s moral qualms.

I catch some grief from my friends for having voted for Dino Rossi in 2004, but it’s days like this (and there have been many recently) that remind me why I just couldn’t fill in that circle next to Gregoire’s name. She ran a hollow campaign with no ideas and has since become a governor that nearly always reverts to the most authoritarian solutions, rather than being concerned with the state constitution, the rights of Washington State citizens, or even the foreseeable results of her actions. In almost everything we’ve seen, she seems more interested in doing the symbolic than the sensible.

As I was researching this post and looking for Gregoire’s past statements on abortion, I found that it’s nearly impossible to find statements directly from her that affirm her support for a woman’s right to choose. In fact, this page reports that she told Archbishop Brunett in the meeting referenced above that as a Catholic, she was “against abortion.” At this point, I have no idea who’s really telling the truth. But what I do know is that if she really is pro-choice, her stance on assisted suicide clearly makes her a hypocrite. If I had to guess, I’d say her stance on assisted suicide is the real Gregoire and her pro-choice position is a pander.

Dino Rossi is the only openly anti-choice politician I’ve ever voted for in my life, and as the election was unimaginably close, I became overly concerned about casting what was essentially a protest vote over Gregoire’s lethargic campaign that could’ve been the deciding vote in the entire election. After watching the entire Republican Party establishment act like a bunch of toddlers in the months after the election, I seriously doubt I can vote for Rossi again – but at this point, I can’t vote for Gregoire either. As the Bush era collapses into itself and gives Democrats incredible gains in Washington DC, we’re heading into a new progressive era where civil liberties actually matter again to voters, but this November Washington State residents won’t have anyone on the ballot who reflects these values.

UPDATE: Back in October, the Seattle Times had a nice story of someone in Oregon who took advantage of their right to choose.

Once again, the affairs of the world ground to a halt yesterday in solemn observance of a small American state voting for presidential nominees. The results (with 96% of precincts counted):

Democrats

Hillary Clinton 39.2%
Barack Obama 36.4%
John Edwards 16.9%
Bill Richardson 4.6%
Dennis Kucinich 1.4%
Others 1.4%
Mike Gravel 0.1%

Republicans

John McCain 37.2%
Mitt Romney 31.6%
Mike Huckabee 11.2%
Rudy Giuliani 8.6%
Ron Paul 7.6%
Others 2.0%
Fred Thompson 1.2%
Duncan Hunter 0.5%\

Me, I’m getting kind of sick of media’s attempt to create instant, sweeping generalizations on the basis of first Iowa, now New Hampshire. Clinton led NH polls all last year, and McCain was expected to win; now, somehow, they are the “comeback kids.” Clinton “escapes to fight another day” with her “return from the political dead,” even though only an idiot thought that her $100 million campaign would have been finished off by a second-place finish — just as nobody should write off Obama now. And Edwards is now the one being written off, for having finished pretty much exactly where the last year’s worth of polls had him. Bollocks. Same thing on the Republican side, where the Beltway punditocracy has been desperate to portray a McCain “surge” since the barbarian (i.e., Mike Huckabee) won in Iowa. Now that McCain (aka “Lazarus”) has performed as expected, someone, somewhere, will opine that his nomination is inevitable. (One thing’s for sure: Fred Thompson sure doesn’t seem like much of a threat.)

And establishment journalists wonder why the public hates them.

In other, lesser news yesterday, President Bush quietly attempted to remind people that he’s still relevant.

Locally, beyond you-know-what, the P-I brings us the shocking news that area home prices have dropped (shocking, that is, if you’ve been relying on the local dailies for your information for the last six months), and asks the burning question: “Have prices hit bottom?” (The P-I doesn’t risk an answer, so here’s one: No.) The Times also has the story, natch. Bothell’s Best also gives us Nicole Brodeur, with the sort of incisive analysis she’s renowned for: Sometimes pit bulls bite people. Sometimes they don’t.

Local TV is, unsurprisingly, even worse. KING-5 set the standard last night; their top four stories were about crime.

Give the P-I credit, though, for a priceless photograph of Port Commissioner Pat Davis in the blandly titled “Port of Seattle enacts reforms.” Nothing like a criminal investigation to perk ’em up, huh?

With 24% 25% 26% of the precincts counted, Hillary Clinton is leading Barack Obama 40% 39% to 34% 35% 36%. I suppose it’s still early, and Obama could still squeak out a victory… but either way, Clinton wins. The polling over the past few days predicted a big win for Obama, but as Bill Clinton predicted early in the day, it’s gonna be a lot closer than expected. Nobody’s gonna count Clinton out after tonight.

I’ll be live blogging throughout the night, updating well, whenever I feel like it.

UPDATE 6:39 PM:
Clinton 39%, Obama 36% with 48% of the vote counted. Curiously, in checking for the most up to date results I’ve discovered that the TV network’s websites are lagging significantly behind the broadcasts. Hmm. Intentional?

UPDATE 7:32 PM:
NBC just called it for Clinton. So I guess I should replace the question mark in the headline with an exclamation point, huh?

UPDATE 7:34 PM:
Nick just took the remote away from Andrew.

UPDATE 7:45 PM:

Hillary Clinton	67,828
Barack Obama	62,736
John McCain	52,142
Mitt Romney	43,920
John Edwards	29,126
Mike Huckabee	16,233
Rudy Giuliani	12,146
Ron Paul	11,157
Bill Richardson	8,212
Dennis Kucinich	2,478
Fred Thompson	1,696
Duncan Hunter	723

With about 65% of precincts reporting, the big news tonight is in the race between candidates with hot, much younger wives, where Dennis Kucinich clearly kicks Fred Thompson’s ass.

Join us tonight for a fun-filled evening of political pontification and primary punditry under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally.

The official event begins at 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some of us will show up around 5PM to catch the early returns out of New Hampshire.

Tonight’s theme song: Live and Let Die by Paul McCartney and Wings, with a mash-up of a song by Free. (Definitely not All Right Now, however.)

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

New Yorker Political columnist Hendrik Hertzberg writes about the National Popular Vote plan.

The National Popular Vote plan is the state compact that, if enacted by enough states, would have member states award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Essentially, the plan is a constitutional way of creating a national popular vote without the difficulties of amending the U.S. Constitution. The National Popular Vote plan has been championed by Dr. John R. Koza, who is Chairman of National Popular Vote Inc.

Hertzberg looks at Koza’s research into the “wrong winner” problem, in which the winner of the electoral college vote loses the popular vote (like happened in 2000). Koza uses national head-to-head general election polls and compares them to state head-to-head polls. Hertzberg writes:

A 2000-style disaster for democracy could easily befall us again this year, as Koza has just written an interesting analysis to show.

By compiling state-by-state polling data, Darryl Holman, a University of Washington social scientist, has run eight mock general-election pair-ups between Democratic and Republican candidates, showing who would win and who would lose in the Electoral College if the election were held today. What Koza has done is to compare Holman’s findings with a calculation of what the national popular vote would be, using national polls taken in the same time periods.

Koza’s startling finding: In three out of Holman’s eight head-to-head face-offs, the national popular-vote winner loses the electoral vote—and with it, of course, the mock election.

(Hey…I’m glad someone found those analyses useful!)

Hertzberg provides Koza’s entire analysis.

It is hard to argue in favor of our current system of electing our Presidents via the winner-take-all Electoral College approach. (Well…ignoring the “It’s how we’ve always done it!” argument, anyway.) Two hundred years ago the system might have made some sense, but today we really should be electing the President through a popular vote.

One thing is certain though…the Electoral College is not going to go away anytime soon. But since the Constitution give the states control over how electors are selected, the National Popular Vote compact (if enacted by enough states to control the majority of the Electoral College votes) would effectively and legally create a popular vote for President. And with no need to amend the U.S. Constitution.

Think of the advantages to this system…. First, candidates will no longer spend the vast majority of their time pandering to a few important swing states like Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Right now, a voter in Ohio has far more influence in electing the President than you have. It just shouldn’t be so. In an ideal democracy, every person’s vote should carry the same weight.

A popular vote would encourage candidates to campaign more broadly so as to reach as many voters as possible. It would mean that candidates visiting Washington for fundraising would actually engage in this activity called campaigning. Imagine that…Washington state no longer being treated like an ATM machine!

Finally, a popular vote gets rid of the embarrassing (albeit rare) situation—like we saw in 2000—where the loser of the popular vote ends up being President.

The Washington state legislature is about to take up work on a National Popular Vote bill:

The 10 legislative sponsors of the National Popular Vote bill in Washington State include Representatives Joe McDermott, Shirley Hankins, Mark Miloscia, Mike Armstrong, Fred Jarrett, and Tom Campbell and Senators Eric Oemig, Darlene Fairley, Craig Pridemore, and Jeanne Kohl-Welles. The House bill is HB 1750 (Status of HB 1750), and the Senate bill is SB 5628 (Status of SB 5628).

If you like the idea of Washington state participating in the compact, contact your Washington state Senator and Representatives. Here is a good place to start.

To learn more about the progress of the compact in other states, visit the National Popular Vote web site.

(Cross-posted at Hominid Views.)

At yesterday’s reception following his election as president of the City Council, I asked Richard Conlin what his biggest challenge was for the coming year. He cited renewal of the city’s Pro Parks Levy, first passed in November 2000. When I observed that the mayor had shown little interest in re-upping, Conlin said, “He doesn’t like the idea.” Conlin has made no secret of his desire to see more backbone from the Council, and now his undertaking has a hot-button issue.

You don’t have to look very far around Seattle to see the benefits of the $198.2 million levy. Virtually every city park has gotten some enhancement, whether it be murals, new bathrooms or a near-makeover such as daylighting Ravenna. But the process has been frequently contentious, with open-space advocates, civic activists and neighborhood groups butting heads with Parks Department officials over insidious commercialization, including plastic grass, leasing of public buildings to private entities and favoring money-making organized athletics over more traditional but non-revenue producing uses. Parks policies have proven a flash point for community controversy, including tree-cutting in Occidental Park, concerts in Gas Works Park, field lighting and warehouse-leasing in Magnuson Park, fake grass at Loyal Heights and the notorious Woodland Park Zoo parking garage, where Parks was the city’s partner with the non-profit, private Zoo Society.

In many cases, Parks ran roughshod over citizen opinion and was later found to have violated the law or public process. With the departure of longtime director Ken Bounds early last year and overhaul of the Parks Board, fresh air seems the rule of the day. Renewal of the levy, which Conlin expects to see on the November ballot, is a politically bold but risky move. When I mentioned the contentiousness around Parks, Conlin admitted, “It’s something we’re going to have to work with.” Whether the process heals some still-festering wounds, or merely rubs salt in them, will attest to Conlin’s and the Council’s political adeptness. No one wants to see parks fiscally hamstrung, but the levy could provide a negotiating wedge for the public to ensure a transparent and fair, even if rocky, process for determining parks policies.

The move also could highlight Conlin’s own generally underappreciated political skills. While not committing to any particular office, Conlin already has begun raising funds for a 2009 candidacy that his fans hope will be for the mayor’s office. Backing the levy is a brilliant move in that sense. It will provide a high-profile issue and political test-bed for Conlin. It puts the mayor in a tricky position: If he actively opposes the levy he’ll look anti-civic and hypocritical (“Mr. Green Opposes Public-Space Funding”). If he does a 180 all of a sudden he’ll look like he’s not only flip-flopping but merely following Conlin’s astute lead.

A co-founder of Sustainable Seattle first elected to the Council in 1997 on a strong environment/sustainability platform, Conlin also is in a position to challenge some of the mayor’s inconsistencies of promoting unbridled development while pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At nearly every level, from the cars he drives to the trees he cuts down (while announcing massive stick-tree plantings, natch), the Nickels persona is fraught with hypocrisy. A lapdog media airbrushes Nickels’ flim-flammery, but a resilient City Council led by its new president could embarrass the mayor when called for. Significantly, neither Nickels nor a mayoral proxy was evident at the going-away party for Peter Steinbrueck last month, or yesterday’s swearing-in reception.

Beyond any mayoral implications, though, there’s a sense that with global warming and green initiatives driving much of public policy, especially in Seattle, Conlin’s time has come. Over the year’s he’s been a consistent advocate for the environment and the little guy in city politics. He’s done far more behind-the-scenes maneuvering than he gets credit for. He’s shown an ability to work with a variety of constituencies, including downtown developers, in forging effective compromises. And when he’s been crossed, he hasn’t gotten arrogant or rattled. I’ve never seen Conlin get really mad. But I have seen him get even. In throwing down the gauntlet as Council president and coming to the game with certified green credentials, he’s daring the mayor to practice what he preaches. It’s going to be an interesting next two years.

New Hampshire election officials are predicting record turnout in today’s presidential primary; as of noon EST some districts were already concerned about running out of ballots.

“Turnout is absolutely huge and towns are starting to get concerned that they may not have enough ballots,” [Deputy Secretary of State Dave] Scanlan said. “We are working on those issues. Everything else seems to be going smoothly.”

[…] According to Scanlan, the ballot strain seems to be on Democratic ballots, which suggests that the undeclared voters are breaking for the Democratic primary.

It also suggests that energized Democrats are turning out in greater numbers than their Republican counterparts, following the same pattern we saw in Iowa. I know my righty trolls have long consoled themselves that the GOP’s fortunes bottomed out in 2006’s big blue wave, but if these trends continue through November, 2008 is gonna be an awfully bad year for Republicans up and down the ticket. Say what you want about Obama, but he clearly has the potential to unify his party while attracting independents nationwide. Which Republican candidate can do that?

FYI:
The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight as usual at the Montlake Ale House, and I expect a healthy contingent to show up early to watch the results come in.