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The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Stop on by for some hot conversation and ice cold beer as we head into the stretch run of the election season.

We’ll be playing the Mike! McGavick drinking game during his televised debate tonight at 9PM, and I’m told that Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales might stop by, along with a number of almost-but-not-quite confirmed guests from both sides the aisle. Should be a lot of fun.

Not in Seattle? Washington liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. Here’s a full run down of WA’s ten Drinking Liberally chapters:

	Where:	When:	Next Meeting:
Burien:	Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub, 435 SW 152nd St	Fourth Wednesday of each month, 7:00 pm onward	October 25
Kirkland:	Valhalla Bar & Grill, 8544 122nd Ave NE	Every Thursday, 7:00 pm onward	October 19
Monroe:	Eddie’s Trackside Bar and Grill, 214 N Lewis St	Second Wednesday of each month, 7:00 PM onward	November 8
Olympia:	The Tumwater Valley Bar and Grill, 4611 Tumwater Valley Drive South	First and third Monday of each month, 7:00-9:00 pm	November 6
Seattle:	Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Ave E	Every Tuesday, 8:00 pm onward	October 17
Spokane:	Red Lion BBQ & Pub, 126 N Division St	Every Wednesday, 7:00 pm	October 18
Tacoma:	Meconi’s Pub, 709 Pacific Ave	on hiatus	on hiatus
Tri-Cities:	Atomic Ale, 1015 Lee Blvd, Richland	Every Tuesday, 7:00 pm onward	October 17
Vancouver:	Hazel Dell Brew Pub, 8513 NE Highway 99	Second and fourth Tuesday of each month, 7:00 pm onward	October 24
Walla Walla:	The Green Lantern, 1606 E Isaacs Ave	First Friday of each month, 8:00 pm onward	November 3

I’d heard about state Sen. Pam Roach’s infamous “Roses” speech on the floor of the state Senate, but I’d never actually heard it before I was emailed this audio clip.

Hmm. Did Roach choose the musical accompaniment herself, or was it added in post-production?

We’ve come to expect political nutcases like Roach as a fact of life, but the wonks tell me that her Democratic challenger, Yvonne Ward, may actually be gaining the upper hand. Go show Yvonne some love.

From a NY Times editorial:

Voters in Ohio can be forgiven if they feel they have been beamed out of the Midwest and dropped into a third-world autocracy. The latest news from the state’s governor’s race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality. We’d like to think that his office would not ultimately do that, or that if it did, such a ruling would not be allowed to stand. But the mere fact that an elected official and political candidate has the authority to toss his opponent out of a race is further evidence of a serious flaw in our democracy.

Yeah, well, nothing would surprise me in Ohio anymore.

It’s curious to note that after pulling out of their House, Senate and gubernatorial races, the Ohio state GOP is focusing its efforts on holding the Secretary of State’s office — you know, the Ohio Republican base.

Makes one wonder why King County Republicans are so determined to make the county Auditor an elected office, huh? No wait… no it doesn’t.

I’ve just faxed the complaint above to the Legislative Ethics Board, and if you think this is over the top or in poor taste, I’d just like to point out in my own defense that I never once mentioned the gender of the pigs in question. (Although believe you me, I’ve heard rumors…)

Am I unfairly casting aspersions? Well, go check out Darryl’s post on Hominid Views about the lying piece of shit robo-call he received on behalf of state Sen. Luke Esser:

Recording: An ethics investigation has been opened against Rodney Tom. Rodney Tom took compensation for days he didn’t work. Rodney Tom has one of the worse attendance records in the legislature. Rodney Tom has missed 84 votes. Again, Rodney Tom is being investigated for ethics violations.

In fact, Rodney Tom is not under any sort of investigation, ethics or otherwise, and Esser knows it. What the robo-call refers to is an informal complaint filed by Esser buddy, contributor and former roommate George Aiton — a complaint that served as the direct inspiration for my own malicious missive. (Go check it out.) All I’m doing is following their lead to its logical conclusion.

Apparently, Esser and Aiton’s idea of “common decency” consists of filing a frivolous complaint against one’s opponent, and then dishonestly inflating it into a full-blown Ethics Board investigation. I know such dirty tricks aren’t unusual for Luke Esser or the WA state GOP, but it speaks volumes to his sense of propriety.

UPDATE:
If you’ve got the money to put into an IE on a robo-call in the 48th LD, feel free to use this script:

Recording: An ethics investigation has been opened against Luke Esser. Luke Esser fucked pigs. Luke Esser is one of the worst pig fuckers in the legislature. Luke Esser has fucked 84 pigs. Again, Luke Esser is being investigated for ethics violations.

I suppose it’s pretty damn low and dishonest to accuse Esser of fucking pigs, but well… somebody did file a complaint accusing him of such, so I guess it’s, um, kosher.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
For those of my readers who are too dimwitted, dense or self-righteously prudish to appreciate this post, I believe this brief dissertation on political parody might be enlightening.

UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE:
For your listening pleasure, a recording of Luke Esser’s lying robo-call attacking Rodney Tom. Anybody up for recording my script above?

SEIU president Andy Stern will be stopping by a special Monday night edition of Drinking Liberally, from 5:30PM to 7PM, to talk about his new book, A Country That Works. So please join me tonight at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E, for a pint of beer, free appetizers, and some fascinating conversation with one of the modern labor movement’s most influential leaders.

Don’t know who Andy Stern is, or what the letters SEIU stand for? Check out David Postman’s latest post.

On Saturday morning I issued a bold challenge to my readers to double the number of contributors via HA’s Act Blue page from 234 to 468 by the end of October. I challenged you to leverage the power of the netroots — to reach out to your friends and family, and personally ask them to contribute to Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark.

If only 50 of HA’s thousands of readers respond to my challenge and bring in just five new donors each, we will easily meet our target. If the 234 of you who have already made generous donations bring in only one new contributor each, well… you can do the math for yourself.

Here is what I am asking you to do. I want you to put together a list of like-minded friends and relatives, and I want you to email them and personally beg them to give money to Darcy and Peter. If they say no, ask them again. If they do not respond, I want you to give them a call. I want you to personally plead with them that this election may be our best and last shot at turning our nation around, and that Darcy and Peter will be leaders that will make them proud.

I’m not going to tell you exactly what to write or say; you know these people best, so you are the best person to craft an appeal. But I do want you to set a personal goal

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The Seahawks won, my beloved Eagles lost, so what better way to both celebrate and mourn then to tune in to “The David Goldstein Show” tonight on Newsradio 710-KIRO, 7PM to 10PM.

7PM: Are we in the midst of a netroots revolution? I’ll be joined by netroots pioneer Jerome Armstrong, founder of MyDD, and co-author with Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas of “Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grasroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics,” which has just been released in paperback. Armstrong and I will talk about the rise of the Netroots, how they’re transforming the media and the Democratic Party, and what type of impact these strategies are having on the 2006 midterm election. Armstrong is also a top advisor to former VA Gov. Mark Warner, and we’ll be chatting about Warner’s surprising announcement this week that he will not run for president in 2008.

8PM: Who would Jesus evict? For over 40 years a small community of ministers, missionaries and church workers — mostly now retired — have built homes on small residential lots leased from the Cedar Springs Bible Camp. But after a recent takeover of the Camp’s board of directors, local mega-church preacher and McGavick advisor Pastor Joe Fuiten has sought to terminate these leases, and evict the residents. Camp resident Jim West joins me to talk about the resident’s predicament, and how Fuiten and his attorneys have sought to bleed them dry.

9PM: Are you ready to vote? The absentee ballots drop this week, and 80 percent of WA voters will cast their ballots before election day. Tune in for an election round-up, and let me hear about the races and issues that are most important to you.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

UPDATE:
Darcy Burner needs your help! Click here to learn how and why, or simply give a few bucks directly through my Act Blue page.

I suppose I owe the Seattle Times editorial board an apology. Since almost the day I started blogging, from my early, ponytail-in-inkwell-like obsession with WSJ pod-person Collin Levey to my relentless attacks on the board’s relentlessly selfish shilling for estate tax repeal, I have been one of the Times op/ed page’s harshest and most vocal critics.

I have been snide. I have been mean. At times, I have been downright disrespectful. But this morning, while reading the Times‘ endorsement of Dave Reichert, I realized that I had been underestimating the editorial board all along. While bloggers like me have struggled to define our growing role in the emerging new media landscape while eking out a little hard-earned credibility, if not an actual living, the comfortably paid editorial writers at the Times have soldiered on with a self-confidence that can only come from self-awareness. As a blogger, raised in the shadow of Watergate and Vietnam, an era when current events conferred on journalists near heroic stature, I have been slow to grasp a simple truth the Times‘ editorialists have apparently long understood: they are no better than us.

So, I am sorry Seattle Times editorial board… I’m sorry for holding you up to higher standards than you deserve, higher standards than you’ve obviously set for yourselves. I’m sorry for expecting more rhetorical honesty than I would from, say, Stefan. I’m sorry for demanding that you refrain from wallowing in your own self-serving agenda any more than I would demand a pig to refrain from wallowing in his own shit. But mostly I’m sorry that at some level, a tiny part of me still wanted to believe that even on your opinion pages you hold yourself to a higher journalistic standard than the lowest, muckraking blogger.

I apologize.

That said, it is now possible for me to embrace the Times endorsement of Reichert as the unmitigated, lying load of bullshit it really is — a turgidly written, rhetorically dishonest piece of sophistry more fitting to the pages of (un)Sound Politics than to that of a major American newspaper. Once again failing to distinguish between being serious and being solemn, this soporific and stiffly written unsigned editorial displays the intellectual rigor mortis that has come to define the dying newspaper industry.

The Times congratulates Reichert for showing “a conscience-driven independent streak” despite the fact that he has publicly admitted that the House leadership tells him when to vote against them, and they laud Reichert for opposing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge even though he voted for drilling in ANWR when his vote counted most. The Times points to his experience as a “first-responder,” ignoring his mismanaged, scandal-ridden tenure as Sheriff and his bungling of the Green River Killer investigation, and they highlight his chairmanship of a homeland-security subcommittee… a chairmanship he most definitely will not retain after the coming Democratic sweep.

They claim that Reichert appreciates “nuance,” a word he’d have to look up in the dictionary to spell, let alone define.

How far is the Times willing to go in defense of their endorsement? They even tried to spin one of Reichert’s biggest gaffes into a strength:

He surprised many recently by saying he’s not convinced about how much global warming is caused by human action. We are convinced it’s a substantial contributing factor.

But Reichert says he’s skeptical, so he’s investigating. That’s a better approach than adopting a ready-made ideology.

Global warming isn’t an “ideology,” it’s the scientific consensus for chrisakes! This is the same sort of facts be damned skepticism that freed Gary Ridgeway to go on killing for another 17 years after Reichert dismissed him as a suspect.

But in fact, even the Times has little to say in favor of Reichert, instead spending the bulk of their double-length editorial attacking his opponent Darcy Burner in a surprisingly vicious and dishonest manner.

The Times criticizes Burner’s lack of public service, as if voters are best served by a Congress filled with professional politicians. They belittle her resume and mindlessly repeat NRCC talking points. But what I find most offensive is their blatantly dishonest, one-sided, through-the-looking-glass portrayal of the 8th district race.

Still more disappointingly, Burner has run a mean-spirited campaign that would make Republican spinmeister Karl Rove proud. In The Seattle Times/KUOW-FM congressional debate last week, she accused Reichert of “lying.” She called him “unprincipled” and “politically crass.”

Those charges ring particularly hollow considering one of Burner’s approved campaign ads shamelessly obfuscates the truth about Reichert’s support of veterans funding.

To this there is only one reasonable response: FUCK YOU! As a Democrat I have spent much of the past decade being vilified by the Republicans, being branded as an immoral traitor and a coward, and of being an enemy of the state. I have watched Karl Rove and his cohorts swift-boat a war hero, and morph a patriot who left three limbs on the battlefield into Osama bin Laden.

And the Times has the temerity to tar Burner with the Karl Rove brush? They attack Burner for running a negative campaign when every single mailer and commercial coming out of the NRCC and the Reichert campaign has been an attack ad? This, after Reichert aired an ad that actually fabricated a quote from the Times? Have they no shame? Are they entirely fucking clueless?

I would be more offended… I would be angrier than I am… I would even take back my earlier apology if not for the fact that with this endorsement the Times editorial board has demonstrated once and for all how entirely irrelevant they have become. Sure, they still have a couple hundred thousand readers, but few will manage to wade past the sports section and the comics and the Sunday circulars to get to today’s op/ed page, and fewer still will take this endorsement seriously. The Times incessant shilling for estate tax repeal has so strained its credibility and bored its readers that its endorsements have become more an exercise in narcissism than civic engagement. The vast majority of readers who still bother to read newspaper editorials understand that the opinions expressed by the Times editors are no more well thought out, no more legitimate than, well… mine. And they’re damn less entertaining. Sure, newspapers still have more influence than bloggers, but it’s waning, and they know it.

Which I think helps explain the nasty tone and dishonest logic of this particular editorial, for in attacking Burner they are also attacking us bloggers and the Netroots Movement that helped propel her from a virtual unknown into one of the most hotly contested races in the nation. The Times‘ influence or lack thereof can be measured against their established record of endorsing losing candidates and causes. But a Burner victory would be seen as a huge victory for the netroots, and a clear sign of the growing influence of the barbarian blogger hoards amassing outside the gates of the traditional media.

In this light we can see the Times endorsement for what it really is. It’s not just a defense of the kind of status quo politics they find comforting. It’s not just a defense of a politician they can trust to fight for their pet issue of repealing the estate tax. In some way, at some level, this endorsement can be seen as a defense of the Times editorial board itself.

In such a close election, perhaps what little influence the Times editorial board still has with voters could be enough to swing the victory to Reichert. But if so, it will be a Pyrrhic victory, for by so distorting both the candidates and the tenor of this race to suit their own narrow objectives they have proven themselves to be no more credible and no more relevant than your average, run-of-the-mill blogger like me. And at least I’m not boring.

According to the latest FEC filings, the National Republican Congressional Committee spent $425,000 attacking Darcy Burner… yesterday alone. This brings the NRCC’s grand total to over $1.3 million dollars in WA-08, all of it spent on attack ads.

Darcy could potentially become a victim of her own success. This supposedly “third tier” challenger is now drawing first tier attention from the NRCC, which has made her one of its top ten targets over the past few weeks.

The good news is that this is a clear demonstration of the netroots’ “50-State Strategy” at work. Ten months ago the NRCC wasn’t expecting to spend much money defending Dave Reichert’s seat, but Darcy’s strong challenge has forced them to pull money from other races, leaving the door open for challengers like Peter Goldmark to sneak up on incumbents like Cathy McMorris in Washington’s 5th Congressional District. The bad news is that unless Darcy has the resources to respond, and Peter has the cash to out-flank the R’s out West, both Reichert and McMorris could eke out victories.

That’s where you come in. Darcy needs to raise $500,000 during the month of October to stay competitive, and Peter’s budget requires bringing in about half that. So to help them meet their goals and bring a Democratic majority to Congress, I’m asking you to join me in a bold and innovative fundraising experiment.

Since March, 234 of you have contributed over $17,000 to Burner and Goldmark via my Act Blue page, a truly amazing performance that gives the HA community one of the highest dollar to reader ratios of any blog in the nation. On several occasions I have personally asked you to give to these two campaigns, and you have responded. I promised you that these races would become competitive, and with your help they have.

I am now asking you to make the same sort of personal appeal to your friends and family, not just in Washington state, but throughout the nation. The goal: to double the number of contributions via HA’s Act Blue page between now and October 31.

If only 50 of HA’s thousands of readers respond to my challenge and bring in just five new donors each, we will easily meet our target. If the 234 of you who have already made generous donations bring in only one new contributor each, well… you can do the math for yourself.

Here is what I am asking you to do. I want you to put together a list of like-minded friends and relatives, and I want you to email them and personally beg them to give money to Darcy and Peter. If they say no, ask them again. If they do not respond, I want you to give them a call. I want you to personally plead with them that this election may be our best and last shot at turning our nation around, and that Darcy and Peter will be leaders that will make them proud.

I’m not going to tell you exactly what to write or say; you know these people best, so you are the best person to craft an appeal. But I do want you to set a personal goal — say, 10 new contributors — and specifically ask your friends and family to help you reach your target. I also suggest that you emphasize that any amount will help, even as little as $10.00 — although experience shows that most people will give more.

Finally, I want you to embed in your email the following link — http://actblue.com/page/horsesass?refcode=OctDrive — to facilitate giving, and to keep track of our progress. And if you want, you can replace “OctDrive” with an alphanumeric string of your choice to identify your own efforts, and at the end of the month I will list the fundraising results for each of you. Think of it as a friendly competition.

Darcy and Peter personally reached out to me. I have personally reached out to you. And now you need to reach out to your friends and family and personally ask them to make that final effort to put us over the top this November.

We are counting on you. We are counting on us.

Three different readers forwarded me the same email this morning, originally sent to the Washington State Trial Lawyer Association’s listserv. The email was authored by attorney Stan Rumbaugh, the moderator of KBTC’s public affairs program, The South Sound View, and reproduced here with his reluctant permission.

From: WSTLA EAGLE
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 9:21 AM
To: WSTLAEAGLE@LISTSERV.WSTLA.ORG
Subject: Re: [WSTLAEAGLE]

Good Morning,

I am doing a series of interviews for PBS on a few of the more contested races. Reichart/Burner, Owen/ Johnson and Roach/Ward are featured. When interviewing Pam Roach for my TV special, all was a little tense. She is clearly a lawyer hater, and arrived at the interview with a list (big one 500+ names for sure) of lawyers who contributed to “her opponent”. The interview went reasonable smoothly, after I assured her that Yvonne had not attempted to directly disparage her during the morning filming of Yvonne’s interview. Pam also knew the interview was live to tape, since everyone cannot be scheduled all in order.

After the interview concluded, I was taping the segue to Yvonnes interview, saying something to the effect of “next, we will hear from Senator Roach’s opposition, stay tuned”. No sooner had the lights gone dark than Pam Roach jumped up, directly in my face, and screamed “you’re a fucking liar, you told me Ward had already been on and didn’t trash me, and now I find out she is coming up next, you are a god damn liar”. Nearly an exact quote.

It was a surreal moment and, needless to say I was a bit put off. The film crew could not believe what they were seeing, and I patiently explained to Pam how TV magic puts taped interviews together. She apologized, and I asked her if she thought she had received a fair chance to respond to the issue oriented questions. She said she had, and I said ok, then that’s it. Goodbye.

On the way out, she again apologized to my producer, and said that she was just so frustrated because her opponent was “such a bitch” that she was not thinking right. In the end, everyone associated with the program (South Sound View) agreed that Pam needed some heavy medication, and had no place in the State Senate with that kind of behavior.

If anyone else is as offended as I am, dig deep and send Yvonne a check for whatever you can afford. Pam Roach is vindictive, and unfit to serve.

Stan

Uh-huh. So if Yvonne Ward is “such a bitch,” what does that make Pam Roach?

Looks to me like the pressure of a dead heat race is beginning to get to Roach. So please help make Roach even more nervous, and give what you can to Democratic challenger Yvonne Ward.

SEIU President Andy Stern is coming to a special Monday night edition of Drinking Liberally, October 16th, 5:30PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th AVE. E. Stern will be there to talk about his new book, “A Country That Works: Getting America Back On Track.”

SEIU will provide some appetizers, and everybody is invited to join Andy for a pint, and talk face to face with one of the leaders of the modern labor movement. (Oh… and as far as I know, the regular Tuesday gathering is still on too.)

Momentum is slowly building behind a story I first broke back in August about mega-church preacher (and close McGavick advisor) Pastor Joe Fuiten, and his cynical efforts to steal the homes out from under a community of retired ministers, missionaries and church workers at the Cedar Springs Bible Camp. The plucky Lake Stevens Journal has continued to cover the controversy despite thinly veiled legal threats from the Fuiten camp, and last month KIRO-TV’s Deborah Horne aired a nice segment on the residents’ predicament.

But recently I had begun to despair that the residents would get the justice they deserve.

The Bible Camp sits on 150 acres of prime property near Lake Stevens, and Fuiten recently took control of its board by assuming $150,000 of debt, promising to run the camp without major changes. This was an absolute steal for Fuiten, who recently hocked just a small parcel of the property to back a $1.12 million loan. But avarice knows no bounds, and Fuiten has methodically set out to evict the Camp’s small residential community from homes they built on plots they have leased from the camp for the past forty years. Unable to move these permanent structures, and with Fuiten being the only possible buyer, their houses are now worthless.

So while media interest in the story has slowly built (I know of at least two journalists at major newspapers who are pursuing coverage,) I had begun to worry that Fuiten would successfully run out the clock. As pastor of the largest mega-church in the state, and perhaps the most powerful clergyman in WA Republican Party politics, Fuiten has deep pockets and aggressive attorneys. Fuiten’s strategy was to drag the dispute out as long as possible, bleeding the residents dry — a strategy that preyed on the residents own faith, for they entered negotiations expecting to be treated in a Christian manner by a pastor from their own denomination, the Assembly of God.

Fuiten’s strategy was also aided by the passivity of the residents’ own attorney, who has allowed the proceedings to drag on for months while billing them tens of thousands of dollars, and strongly urging them from going public with their complaints.

Well… no longer.

I was relieved to get a call from resident James West yesterday telling me that attorney Knoll Lowney had agreed to take on their case. In Lowney, Fuiten and his attorneys have drawn a fierce opponent who is more than willing to play the kind of legal hardball Fuiten has been flinging at the residents for months. Lowney also has well-earned reputation for effectively engaging the media in defense of his clients… which is really what Fuiten and his people have feared all along. They don’t mind stealing houses from a community of retired ministers, missionaries and church workers. They just don’t want anybody to know about it.

If you want to know more, tune into “The David Goldstein Show” this Sunday night at 8PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO. I’ll have Bible Camp resident James West on to talk about the dispute and take your questions.

The Reichert folks are getting scared. From Friday’s Washington Post:

Republicans are also increasingly nervous about the seat held by Rep. David G. Reichert (R-Wash.). Darcy Burner, a former Microsoft executive, has pounded Reichert for voting with the GOP majority in Washington, hoping to capitalize on widespread frustration there. In a sign of nervousness, the NRCC recently increased its spending on television ads in the district.

Burner wants help from the DCCC. “Anytime you spend millions of dollars communicating with voters, it is going to have an impact,” Burner said.

Burner is definitely getting some help from the DCCC, but she can’t be guaranteed all she needs. Two years ago Dave Ross was comfortably up in the polls a couple weeks before the election, and just as the DCCC confidently pulled out, the NRCC aggressively moved in, plastering the airwaves with attack ads. Ross simply didn’t have the resources to respond.

The best way to avoid a repeat of 2004 is to directly give Burner the help she needs. That means you.

In a state whose politics are virtually defined by over-reaching, ill-conceived initiatives, I-933 stands out as a poorly written pro-developer measure that even most developers can’t bring themselves to actively support. And in an initiative process ruled by self-serving, dishonest sociopaths, the Farm Bureau’s I-933 front-man, Dan Wood vies with John Bircher Dennis Falk (I-920) and professional liar Tim Eyman (I-nothin’) for the title of WA’s Biggest Hypocrite.

I-933 is intended to dismantle WA’s land-use regulations. Not just some of them, like King County’s controversial Critical Areas Ordinance, but all of them. Completely. The poorly written initiative will surely be a windfall for lawyers as property owners, developers and governments battle to figure out exactly what it means, but one thing is for certain, it’s “pay or waive” provision will cost taxpayers billions will undermining some of government’s most fundamental regulatory authority. You know, the basic zoning, environmental and health and safety regulations that we all take for granted.

And Dan Wood thinks this is a good thing. Here’s what he said back in January when he filed I-933:

Wood said broad government regulations have made it increasingly difficult for farmers and ranchers, and other property owners in Washington, to use and enjoy their land in reasonable ways.

[…]

“The bottom line is that government agencies need to respect individual property rights,” Wood said. “Our initiative will go a long way toward ensuring that property owners can continue to use their land in reasonable and productive ways, without excessive, burdensome and unnecessary government regulations.”

Dan Wood hates government regulation. That’s why he’s sponsoring an initiative that would make it virtually impossible to enforce new land-use and environmental regulations, while rolling back existing regulations to 1996 and beyond.

And yet, Wood seemed to express a different sentiment back in August of 2005 when he testified before the Hoquiam City Council in favor of regulations on a local fish meal plant, because the stench was reducing his property value:

Dan Wood, a former county commissioner, has been trying to find renters for his property a few blocks downwind from the plant. He says the smell is “everywhere — in the bathroom, living room, dining room and kitchen.”

“I don’t want Ocean Protein shut down. I want them to provide the jobs but I do want them to be neighborly,” he said at a recent City Council meeting. “And if that means a temporary shutdown on a voluntary basis from their end, that’s what a good neighbor would do.”

The Olympic Region Clean Air Agency has been monitoring the plant since it opened and has filed at least 14 notices against the company because of the smell.

Attorneys for the agency plan to ask a Grays Harbor Superior Court judge for an injunction Aug. 8 to halt its operations.

Uh-huh.

The beauty of this snippet is not only that it paints Wood as the self-serving hypocrite he apparently is, it also perfectly illustrates the ideological fallacy that permeates nearly all of I-933’s literature — that by doing away with or severely restricting government’s regulatory authority the initiative protects property owner’s rights… when in reality, the opposite will more likely be the result. That’s because, as Wood’s fishy-smelling rental home clearly shows, how you use your property can severely impact how I use mine.

I’m not sure what was the final result of local regulatory efforts to get Ocean Protein to clean up its act, but if I-933 passes the fish meal processing plant will be free to blanket the surrounding neighborhoods with its foul-smelling odor, or force the local government to pay for the cost of the clean-up. Woods rental property could become virtually worthless.

And I’m not just blowing smoke here. The Hoquiam ordinance regulating air quality (10.05.120) was passed in 2000, and fish processing was already a permitted use of the Ocean Protein site back in 1996, the year to which I-933 is retroactive. Thus any attempt to restrict or regulate the plant’s activities would most definitely be subject to I-933’s “pay or waive” provision, regardless of when the regulations were first passed.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what type of impact this can have on property owners statewide. We all bought our properties with the expectation that zoning and other regulations would protect our investments, but I-933’s provisions throw all that stability out the window.

And of course, the impact of one’s land use can impact property owners far beyond one’s local neighborhood. Agricultural runoff and industrial discharges pollute all our waterways, clear cutting critical areas can destroy our vital watersheds, and in addition to destroying the natural splendor at the core of the Northwest quality of life, unrestricted development can clog roads, overburden utilities and dramatically increase costs for local taxpayers.

There is a broad social compact that has governed our nation for hundreds of years that recognizes that individual property rights do not extend unfettered all the way to the property line. This is a social compact that I-933 seeks to break to the detriment of us all… including its backers.

UPDATE:
The Sightline Institute just released a new report, “Property Wrongs: Lessons from Oregon for states considering property ballot measures in 2006.” This is a must read for anybody truly interested in learning about this issue.