HorsesAss.Org

Yesterday was the deadline for turning in petitions in Idaho, and it didn’t exactly go as pundits expected in this solidly red state. A much hyped initiative to limit property taxes to 1 percent of total assessed value fell well short of the 47,881 signature threshold, while a teachers union initiative to increase education spending 20 percent by raising the sales tax a penny, turned in nearly 80,000 signatures.

That’s right, Idaho voters refused to sign an initiative limiting property taxes, but enthusiastically supported a sales tax increase to raise money for education. Not exactly what us snotty city folk expect from a state like Idaho, huh?

Meanwhile, sponsors claim an initiative to tighten eminent domain laws will easily qualify for the ballot after paying canvassers $2.00 per signature, but Secretary of State Ben Ysursa sounded skeptical:

“I’d be surprised if eminent domain was on the ballot,” Ysursa said.

For its part, the Idaho Education Association successfully used a 14 person staff to organize 3,400 volunteer signature gatherers. If approved by voters, the initiative would raise the state’s sales tax from 5 percent to 6 percent, providing an additional $200 million a year to fund education.

Of course, successful signature drives owe at least as much to the proficiency of the organizers as they do to the issues, so I’m reluctant to read too much into this. But I think it does prove that even traditionally conservative voters cannot be counted on to be reliably knee-jerk when it comes to tax issues. Even in Idaho.

I arrived late to the podcast last night so Will seized the hosting reigns and Gavin warmed my seat until my arrival. (I’d make some joke about Gavin’s hot ass, but people might take it the wrong way.)

Joining Will and me (Goldy) in our weekly, carbon-neutral debate was Mollie, Carl, Nick, Lee… and a little bit of Gavin. Topic’s of discussion included gun control, Mike McGavick: foreign policy genius, the GOP’s stupid, pathetic, pandering $100 gas tax credit, and my trip to the movies last night to see an advance screening of An Inconvenient Truth.

The show is 55:37, and is available here as a 36.2 MB MP3. Please visit PodcastingLiberally.com for complete archives and RSS feeds.

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for producing the show.]

I’m heading to Town Hall this evening to hear Kate Michelman talk about her new book, With Liberty and Justice for All: A Life Spent Protecting the Right to Choose.

Michelman is the former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, and a world leader on reproductive rights. Others who have heard her talk tell me that she is an incredibly engaging and compelling speaker… and with conservative judicial activists on the verge of overturning Roe v. Wade, her life story is more relevant than ever.

Tonight’s talk starts at 7:30, and tickets are only $5.00 at the door. Town Hall is located at 8th & Seneca; please use the Seneca Street entrance.

For another angle on McGavick’s Iranian proposal, check out my guest post on Jesus’ General.

I keep hearing how GOP US Senate candidate Mike McGavick is such a shrewd political operator… how he engineered Slade Gorton’s, triumphant, come-from-behind return to the Senate, and how we shouldn’t underestimate him. And then he goes and does something like this.

Barely pausing to take a breath, Iran announced with defiance that it is pursuing further nuclear capabilities and that it wants Israel wiped off the map.

The international community has rightly turned, for now, to diplomacy, but thus far Iran seems to be growing more defiant. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently said, “Our answer to those who are angry about Iran achieving the full nuclear fuel cycle is just one phrase–We say, ‘Be angry at us and die of this anger.'”

So, what now? More violence? More words? How do we get across to the people of Iran that their government is, by these actions, isolating itself from the world community? How do we make it clear to Iranians that denying the Holocaust is unacceptable?

The answer: soccer.

Don’t bother waiting for the punch line, you’ll never find one. (At least not one McGavick intended.) Writing in The Weekly Standard, McGavick apparently argues that the best way to make Iran “understand the consequences associated with its headlong push towards developing nuclear weapons”… is to ban its soccer team from competing for the World Cup.

Really.

McGavick takes the time to write a major foreign policy piece for a national publication, and this is what he comes up with? The key to heading off nuclear proliferation in Iran is to ban its soccer team from international play? And I suppose, if that drastic measure doesn’t work, then we can resort to nuking them, huh Mike?

McGavick’s proposal not only provides a stunningly simplistic analysis of international diplomacy, it is also utterly ridiculous from start to finish. First, McGavick goes out of his way to reveal that he has played rugby for 25 years… a great line if you’re trying to pick up voters in a bar, but not exactly testament to his foreign policy credentials. Then a full third of McGavick’s 1000-word piece goes on to discuss similar sanctions against South Africa’s rugby team during the 70s — as if that was the key to ending apartheid — while ignoring the fact that the South African sanctions were aimed at the white, minority electorate who held political control, whereas the Iranian people are virtually powerless to remove their hardline mullahs, short of armed rebellion.

But perhaps the most shockingly stupid passage in McGavick’s piece was this:

If they are allowed to play this coming June, Iran will begin the competition in Nuremburg, Germany. Think of it! Nuremburg! In the same stadium, Frankenstadion, where the Nazi youth first practiced how to march in 1931, and right across the street from where the infamous 1937 Nazi political rallies took place, the Zeppelin Field.

It is insane to think that Iran, which has publicly declared that the Holocaust never took place, should play on that field as though nothing is wrong.

Uh… yeah, because you wouldn’t want to um, taint the hallowed grounds of Frankenstadion with anti-semites.

I mean… what the fuck? Sure, it’s not fair to take those couple paragraphs out of context, but they sure as hell come off as a tribute to the glories of 1930s Nazi Germany. You’d think a staffer might have tried to edit this before sending it off to the Standard.

But McGavick’s proposal not only paints him as a foreign policy lightweight (not to mention a lousy writer,) it also suggests a bit of ignorance about international soccer. Iran is currently ranked 22nd worldwide (and on many independent polls, much lower) and had the misfortune of drawing an incredibly tough first-round grouping with both Mexico (6) and Portugal (8).

You want to stick it to the Iranian people? Let them watch their beloved team have their heads handed to them by the Mexicans, followed by a good ol’ fashioned Portugese ass-whooping. The smart money says that two games into the competition, Iran’s World Cup ambitions will be over.

Still, the purpose of art, sports, and cultural exchanges such as the World Cup is to bring people closer together, and McGavick’s call to politicize the games is contrary to the very ideal of international competition. “The goal of Olympism,” explained Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the modern Olympics, “is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to encouraging the establishment of a peaceful society.”

Or, I suppose, we could just follow McGavick’s advice and use it as just another tool in our nearly three-decades-long political spat with Iran.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. I’ll be there a little late, but should make it in time for the podcast. (Sorry Will.)

Last week I suggested that I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or more candidates for the open seat in the 43rd LD show up… and kudos to Bill Sherman for not making me a liar.

And as always, if you’re on the other side of the mountains, please join Jimmy at the Tri-Cities chapter of DL, every Tuesday from 5:30 onwards, Tuscany Lounge, 1515 George Washington Way, Richland.

I stopped by Trader Joe’s last night to pick up a few staples, but walked out with no hummus, no pita, no eggs and no produce. Indeed, there were sparse pickings throughout the half-empty shelves in the baked goods, refrigerated and produce sections.

A sudden run on imported proscuitto and persian cucumbers? No… the checkout clerk explained that they simply didn’t get their usual deliveries, much of which comes from California.

It was, after all, a day without immigrants.

As many as 65,000 people peacefully marched through the streets of Seattle yesterday, while according to private accounts, 20,000 people demonstrated through WA state’s fruit basket, creating a convoy from Prosser over 20 miles long. The Yakima Herald reported that, whatever the final number, the “sleeping giant” had awakened.

“Not even in the time of Cesar Chavez, may he rest in peace, did this many people come out in the Yakima Valley,” youth leader David Gutierrez told the rally. The late founder of the United Farm Workers of America union led a 1986 march in Toppenish that drew some 700 participants.

The Washington Post estimates crowds of over 300,000 in both Los Angeles and Chicago, while protests impacted businesses nationwide.

Demonstrators opposed to strict immigration proposals in Congress staged huge marches in Chicago and Los Angeles, curtailed operations at at least one major port, shut down construction sites in the District, forced the closing of crossings at the Mexican border and halted work at meat-processing plants in the Midwest. Although the protests caught the nation’s attention, the economic impact was mixed, as many immigrants heeded the call of some leaders not to jeopardize their jobs, and businesses adopted strategies to cope with absent employees.

Well I don’t know what about the rest of the nation, but I know what impact the demonstration had on me: I won’t be eating my usual hummus and persian cucumber on pita for lunch today.

Yeah, sure, that’s a petty, trivial inconvenience… but it brings home all the unseen, little ways our immigrant population ends up having a huge impact on our economy and our quality of life. The food we eat, the houses we live in, many of the services we take for granted, are all made affordable through the sweat of our nation’s immigrants.

The United States’ historically rapid rise to the status of economic superpower was fueled by a seemingly unlimited wealth of natural resources, and a genuinely unlimited supply of cheap, immigrant labor. Indeed, our economic expansion has always depended on a steadily expanding labor supply, but lost in all the debate over border security, criminalization, amnesty and deportations is the obvious fact that our current immigration policy simply does not adequately meet our economy’s demand for immigrant labor. If it did, we wouldn’t have an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants filling our nation’s low-wage jobs.

Labor inexorably moves to where the jobs are… that’s Free Market Capitalism 101. Thus any immigration reform package that refuses to recognize the economic reality of labor markets can do little to stem the flow of illegal immigration without doing damage to our nation’s economy.

Tomorrow’s edition of The Hill provides yet more evidence that the Reichert-Burner race has become one of the hottest in the nation:

Demonstrating concern about retaining the majority in November, the office of House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is holding weekly meetings with a handful of staffers of potentially vulnerable Republicans.
[…]
The weekly gatherings are an opportunity for the leader’s staff to walk the rank-and-file staffers through the upcoming agenda and hear from the offices about the political climate in some of the party’s most competitive districts. The member input provides insights and intelligence from campaigns across the country that leaders can use to influence their legislative agenda and strategy during a bitter election year.
[…]
The meetings with the staffs of vulnerable members occur once a week when the House is in session, Boehner spokesman Kevin Madden said, and staff from 12 offices usually attend.

Some of the members involved include Republican Reps. Steve Chabot (Ohio), Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Jim Gerlach (Pa.), Bob Ney (Ohio), Dave Reichert (Wash.), Clay Shaw (Fla.) and Heather Wilson (N.M.). Each of those members’ districts is among the party’s most competitive, according to a chart compiled by The Cook Political Report.

The emphasis is of course mine, but it shows you just how worried the House GOP is about retaining Reichert’s seat. WA-8 has become one of the Republicans’ 12 most competitive races… so much so, that they’re willing to shape the national legislative agenda to help Reichert win.

A few short months ago pundits, poobahs and politicos thought WA-8 was a gimme, but now Darcy Burner’s surging campaign has put the fear of, well… Darcy Burner in them. Somehow, I don’t think anybody’s calling her a “third tier” candidate anymore.

Last year I had the privilege of attending Camp Wellstone, an intensive, three-day training program for candidates, campaign managers and citizen activists. Obviously, the instructors did something right, because fellow classmates Darcy Burner, Randy Gordon, Debi Golden, Eric Oemig and others went on to launch campaigns of their own… while thankfully, I didn’t.

If you fancy yourself having a future in progressive politics here’s your chance to go to camp. Progressive Majority is bringing Camp Wellstone back to Seattle, June 16 to 18, featuring three different tracks:

Candidate. This track covers the fundamentals of campaigns, including fundraising, field organizing, campaign plan and budget writing, volunteer recruitment, GOTV, and media relations. Please email Edie Gilliss, our political director, at egilliss@progressivemajority.org if you would like a slot in this track.
1. Campaign Management. This track covers campaign fundamentals from the perspective of those who make it happen. Participants learn the skills that are essential to putting your candidate or team in the best position to win.
2. Citizen Activism. This track presents ideas and tactics to strengthen issue-based organizing and to develop the capacity of grassroots leaders to build a base, advocate within legislative bodies and build sustainable organizations. This track is recommended for individuals who are interested in moving a particular issue agenda forward.

Last year’s camp filled up fast, so if you want to learn how to kick conservative ass, sign up today.

Go ahead… make fun of me you want. I’m human. I’m frail. So what?

Or you could talk about something important, like the wave of immigration rallies sweeping the nation today.

[NOTE: Read the update below. It appears I was mostly wrong. My bad, but I own it.]

When Rep. Dave Reichert reported about $100,000 in illegal, excess contributions a couple weeks back, did he think nobody would notice?

I was skimming through Reichert’s quarterly FEC report, when I came upon something quite odd. The campaign contribution limit for House races this cycle is an aggregate $2,100 from individuals and $5,000 from PACs for each the primary and the general elections. And yet I found contribution after contribution in excess of those amounts.

In all, I found 47 individual contributions in excess of the $2,100 individual limit — as much as $4,700 each — and most of these individuals had given excess contributions for both the primary and the general elections. In addition, I found 9 PAC contributions apparently in excess of the $5,000 aggregate limit, including notable WA state business leaders like Microsoft, Boeing and Weyerhaeuser.

Add it all up and Reichert’s haul of excess contributions totals over $97,000. And that’s just from donors who contributed during the previous quarter… I’ve yet to go back to earlier reports to see if other donors had already exceeded their aggregate limit as well.

Of course, Reichert didn’t just solicit all this extra cash and figure the FEC wouldn’t notice. The PDFs of his itemized receipts include the following notation:

Limit Increased Due to Opponent’s
Spending (2 U.S.C. 441a(i)(441a-1)

Oh. So there’s an explanation. No biggie, I guess. Until you look up 441a-1 and find that this explanation is a load of shit.

What Reichert is referring to is something called the “Millionaires’ Amendment,” which allows candidates to exceed the normal contribution limits, under certain circumstances, when an opponent spends personal funds in excess of an established threshold. The FEC publishes a brochure, which clearly explains the provisions:

The provisions of the Millionaires’ Amendment may, in certain circumstances, increase the contribution limits for House and Senate candidates facing opponents who spend personal funds in excess of certain threshold amounts. […] For House candidates, the threshold amount is $350,000. 11 CFR 400.9(b). House candidates whose opponent’s personal spending exceeds that threshold may trigger increased limits.

Um… last time I checked, Darcy Burner had spent less than $47,000 of her own money to jumpstart her campaign — nowhere near the $350,000 threshold. And in any case, at the time Reichert started soliciting his excess contributions, Burner hadn’t yet reported $350,000 in total contributions, from any source.

And of course, the contribution limit increase doesn’t just come automatically; there is a process. Candidates are required to estimate in their Statement of Candidacy the amount of personal funds in excess of the threshold they intend to expend, and Burner’s statement estimates exactly $0.00. Furthermore, candidates are required to send a copy of Form 10 to both the FEC and their opponents within 24-hours of exceeding the threshold; of course, Burner has never filed such a form, because she’s more than $300,000 shy of the mark.

And finally…

An opposing candidate’s campaign-related expenditures from personal funds in excess of the triggering threshold do not automatically result in increased contribution limits. The Millionaires’ Amendment also takes into account fundraising by the campaigns. Campaigns must use the “opposition personal funds amount” formula to determine whether an opposing candidate has spent sufficient personal funds in comparison to the amounts raised by the campaigns to trigger increased contribution limits

A candidate with a significant fundraising advantage over a self-financed opponent might not receive an increased contribution limit. In this way, the regulations avoid giving increased contribution limits to candidates whose campaigns have a significant fundraising advantage over their opponents.

Reichert has outraised Burner $1.4 million to $540,000 thus far… so I’m not sure the limit increase would have been triggered even if Burner had hit the threshold.

I’m no FEC expert, so maybe I’m missing something obvious here… but it’s hard to believe that the Reichert campaign itself actually believes that it qualifies for increased contribution limits under the Millionaires’ Amendment. So what could possibly explain this discrepancy?

Well, I suppose it could just be a mistake. Because donors don’t always understand the limits, campaigns inadvertently receive excess contributions all the time, and there’s a mechanism in place for returning them in a timely matter without penalty. But 56 contributions totaling nearly $100,000 in a single quarter? What’s the chance of that?

And, oh yeah… the vast majority of these excess contributions were recorded in the final couple weeks of the quarter, while all nine of the excess PAC contributions were recorded on March 31… the very last of the reporting period.

Coincidence? I think not.

Here’s what I think happened. The Reichert campaign got spooked by what they correctly perceived to be a late quarter fundraising surge by Burner, and so they booked tens of thousands of dollars in excess contributions during the final days — knowing that they would eventually have to refund the money — simply to make the fundraising gap look less embarrassing. The goal was to prevent Burner from gaining the credibility and momentum she had earned.

It didn’t work.

A few weeks back the WA State GOP took another shot at stemming Burner’s momentum by supposedly filing an FEC complaint against her campaign. According to the official GOP press release:

Diane Tebelius, Washington State GOP chairman, asked the FEC to look into alleged violations of federal campaign reporting laws including receipt of excessive contributions and failure to properly report disbursements.

This complaint paints a picture of a campaign that is unable to comply with federal election rules and regulations. Earlier this year Burner pledged to adhere to the highest ethical standards if elected to Congress. This latest revelation makes that pledge sound hollow. “Darcy Burner makes a mockery of her own pledge with her inability or unwillingness to follow even the most basic campaign finance rules,” commented Chairman Tebelius.

The GOP’s complaint was trivial and frivolous, centering on a video, legally produced by a volunteer. But if Tebelius wants to mock Burner for failing to report volunteer work she wasn’t required to report, what can we say about Reichert? His campaign not only failed to comply with federal election rules and regulations, it flouted them, apparently and intentionally soliciting nearly $100,000 in excess contributions, simply to gain a PR advantage.

Reichert wasn’t merely gaming the system… he was lying. And it gives us a good idea of what we can expect from his campaign from here on out.

UPDATE:
As it turns out, it looks like I may have misunderstood the “Election Cycle to Date” field to refer to the election cycle to date, per election. Take a look at this section of the form, and you can see my confusion:

Hmm. Others have suggested this field may actually represent the aggregate across both elections, and looking at the way the numbers add up, I’m leaning in that direction. My bad.

So… the amount of the excess contributions may be much less than I had assumed. Two individuals who have contributed totals of $4,700 and $4,600 respectively (over the combined limit of $2,100) plus two PACs, Microsoft and Boeing, who have contributed an aggregate of $15,000 and $11,000 respective (over the combined limit of $10,000).

I guess I was so caught up in the bogus reference to the Millionaires’ Amendment, that I didn’t see the forest for the trees.

Sure, it’s embarrassing to get things like this wrong, but I’m man enough to admit it. So rather than delete the post, I’m leaving it up here for all to see my mistake and my correction. If anything, this is a great example of the self-correcting feature of blogging, when practiced honestly. This is a kind of open-source journalism, and any time I truly make a mistake, my readers are there to correct me and set the record straight.

Pretty damn funny.

It’s a sunny day, and I’ve got tons of little errands to run, but I just wanted to post a few additional comments on 45th LD Sen. Bill Finkbeiner’s announcement that he would not run for reelection, and Rep. Toby Nixon’s announcement that he would vacate his seat in an attempt to replace him.

Big picture, the state GOP was already in a world of hurt, and this now gives them two more open seats to defend. Ouch. The Republicans now have three open Senate seats, with Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer the odds on favorite to replace retiring Republican Sen. Bob Oke in the 27th, and both the 45th and 47th having a history of electing Democrats.

Changing demographics continue to chip away at Republican support in suburban districts. Combine this with a spate of retirements and the current political climate, and the Democrats have a good shot at expanding their majority in the House and capturing a comfortable working majority in the State Senate for the first time since 1992.

Back to Finkbeiner, I’m sure there were a lot of personal and political reasons for his retirement. His vote in favor of the anti-discrimination bill couldn’t have helped him with the most active segment of the Republican base — the right wing — and no doubt it is time for him to pursue other interests.

But Democratic challenger Eric Oemig deserves at least some of the credit for pushing him out of the race. Finkbeiner’s heart just didn’t seem to be in it, and on top of all his other problems he was now facing a tough challenge from a strong candidate who was willing to spend his personal wealth to stay dollar competitive. Had Finkbeiner faced only token opposition, I’m guessing inertia might have kept him in the race, but you gotta think the prospect of all that fundraising and campaigning factored into his decision. Which proves once again that when Dems put up legitimate challengers, even against relatively strong incumbents… good things can happen.

And how do the Senate Dems thank Oemig for his help? By trying to replace him with another candidate with greater name ID, of course.

Both current Rep. Larry Springer and former Rep. (and failed candidate for SOS and state party chair) Laura Ruderman are being urged to step in… and to be fair, the political calculus is defensible. Last I heard, neither seemed all that willing to jump in, but either would present Nixon with a strong challenge.

While Nixon is good on some issues (labor and the environment come to mind) he is completely out of step with the district on social issues like the anti-discrimination bill and reproductive rights. He has also been a bit of an obstructionist on transportation issues, and a downright frothing partisan on election reform. Oemig, Ruderman and Springer are all more closely matched to the district than Nixon, but the latter two have already proven they can win office.

My personal choice would be for Springer to run for the Senate against Nixon, and for Oemig to move to one of the two House seats that would now be open. This gives the Dems a more experienced candidate gunning for the Senate, while Oemig might be unbeatable going for the House.

A first time candidate like Oemig unbeatable? Well, the Republicans will have a tough enough time recruiting two strong House candidates at this late stage, and Oemig’s personal wealth will surely scare off potential opponents assured of being substantially outspent. If I were a GOP hopeful, I’d go for the other seat, and thus chances are, Oemig would draw the weaker of the two opponents.

Of course, all this is speculation. Neither party has yet to recruit new candidates, and when we last spoke Oemig said he was still running for the Senate. But Finkbeiner’s sudden retirement certainly leaves the GOP in a much weaker position.

Which brings up an interesting question: why did Finkbeiner wait so long to announce his intentions, knowing that it would put his party in such difficult circumstances?

Only Finkbeiner can answer that question, but one can’t help but wonder if it was a symbolic, parting gesture to a party with which he never really seemed to fully fit in.

Sen. Maria Cantwell will be on Face the Nation Sunday morning, 8:30 am KIRO TV-7.

UPDATE:
Anybody who says that Sen. Cantwell isn’t a strong leader, didn’t just watch her segment facing off with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska on energy policy. Cantwell made no bones about what needs to be done: protect consumers from price gouging in the short term, while immediately and aggressively developing a long term energy infrastructure based on alternative technologies.

Oh… and it was comforting to see that even Murkowski thought the GOP’s proposed $100.00 tax credit was a joke.

A few days ago, it was just another DC sex scandal. But now it looks like we may have a congressional Watergate on our hands.

Federal authorities are investigating allegations that a California defense contractor arranged for a Washington area limousine company to provide prostitutes to convicted former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) and possibly other lawmakers, sources familiar with the probe said yesterday.

In recent weeks, investigators have focused on possible dealings between Christopher D. Baker, president of Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc., and Brent R. Wilkes, a San Diego businessman who is under investigation for bribing Cunningham in return for millions of dollars in federal contracts, said one source, who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Baker has a criminal record and has experienced financial difficulties, public records show. Last fall, his company was awarded a $21 million contract with the Department of Homeland Security to provide transportation, including limo service for senior officials.
[…]
Homeland Security spokesman Larry Orluskie said the department does not routinely conduct background checks on its contractors.

Yeah, that’s right… the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t routinely conduct background checks of contractors hired to cart around high level government officials. As Georgia10 points out on Daily Kos, that’s a scandal in itself.

But it’s gonna be fun to see which other congressmen are caught up in this prostitution ring.