HorsesAss.Org

Who says the Bush administration doesn’t learn from its mistakes? After being whipped by a public backlash over leaked information about illegal domestic wiretapping, the Bushies have come upon a sure fire solution to all their problems: execute journalists.

The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.

[…]

In a little-noticed case in California, FBI agents from Los Angeles have already contacted reporters at the Sacramento Bee about stories published in July that were based on sealed court documents related to a terrorism case in Lodi, according to the newspaper.

Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation, and that they have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House.

“There’s a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public’s business risk being branded traitors,” said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. “I don’t know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad.”

A tone of gleeful relish over the prospect of imprisoning those perceived to be the political opposition? Man… we’ve never heard that coming from the right-wingers before. Though.

At Langley, the CIA’s security office has been conducting numerous interviews and polygraph examinations of employees in an effort to discover whether any of them have had unauthorized contact with journalists. CIA Director Porter J. Goss has spoken about the issue at an “all hands” meeting of employees, and sent a recent cable to the field aimed at discouraging media contacts and reminding employees of the penalties for disclosing classified information, according to intelligence sources and people in touch with agency officials.

“It is my aim, and it is my hope, that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information,” Goss told a Senate committee.

The Justice Department also argued in a court filing last month that reporters can be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for receiving and publishing classified information.

As if the so-called “mainstream” media hasn’t become timid enough under the yoke of its corporate ownership, now the Bush administration wants reporters to face the threat of being tried as spies. Nurses are being investigated for sedition… reporters are being investigated for espionage… I guess cheap consumer goods aren’t the only thing we’ve been importing from China.

I’m flying in from Philly today (and boy will my arms be tired.) So chew on an open thread in my absence.

You know, I had thought that one of the advantages of being Jewish is that nobody could accuse me of being a traitor to the so-called Aryan race… but I hadn’t counted on our modern, sensitized, 21st century Nazis being so inclusive:

Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 00:32:10 EST
From:
To: goldy@horsesass.org
Subject: RACE TRAITOR

JEW COMMUNIST SCUM, WE ARE WATCHING YOU!!!!!!!

Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments is Racially and Religiously privileged and confidential. It is intended for specific Aryan recipients only and Brothers and Sisters of their choosing. If you are a jew, you can only be in possession through deceit, treachery, guile, cunning, dissimulation and chicanery, and such possession of this e-mail is contrary to law. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail through the error of someone else, you must notify the sender and permanently delete this e-mail and any attachments immediately. You should neither retain, nor copy nor use this e-mail or any attachment for any purpose. Disclosure of all or any part of the contents to any other jew is a punishable offense.

The email went on to helpfully include the addresses of several Nazi websites, but out of deference to the confidentiality notice above, I have declined to promote them here. Out of similar respect, I have also redacted the email address of the sender, but I assure you that googling it would uncover additional useful resources on the American Nazi movement… that is, assuming you consider a handful of ridiculous, drably-costumed nutcases protesting ironic statues, to be a “movement.”

I should note that this is far from the first anti-semitic email I have received, nor is it remotely the most offensive… in fact, these “official” Nazis could learn quite a few tricks from the amateurs. But whether you chalk it up to boldness or stupidity, it is the first overt threat I’ve ever received where the sender apparently did not feel the need to maintain total anonymity.

For years, Dave Neiwert over at Orcinus has chronicled the gradual spread of eliminationist rhetoric from the far right-wing fringe into mainstream discourse. But the flip-side to the mainstreaming of their rhetoric, is that these extremists continue to grow ever more extreme. And bolder. And for this, the high-profile, professional antagonists who make their living parroting this violent hate speech (i.e. Ann Coulter) have at least some moral culpability.

Judging from his email address, my pen-pal fancies himself an elite, SS commando — a twisted, if sadly pathetic fantasy — though in the real world, I’m guessing he’s more beer belly than Beer Hall Putsch.

Whatever. Watch me all you want. (Right now I’m doing my one finger version of the Nazi salute.) Just bear in mind, we’re watching you too.

I haven’t paid much attention to these things in the past, but I’m told the Koufax Awards are pretty prestigious as blog awards go, and well, HA has been nominated for two of them. The first round of voting has just started, and if you think I’m deserving, I’d appreciate you linking on over and casting your vote for HorsesAss.org in the respective comment thread.

Best State & Local Blog

Best Series (on Mike Brown & FEMA)

Show a little love, but vote once, and no freeping. And please feel free to pass this on.

The Seattle P-I’s Thomas Shapley sounds a little pissed….

Keep quiet about legislation pending in Olympia. After newspapers were outraged that a shield bill might be partly hung up over Senate Dems’ fear of a GOP attorney general getting credit for the media-friendly bill, Sen. Erik Poulsen, D-Seattle, told a Seattle paper, “you don’t threaten and insult the party in power and get your bill passed.”

Hmm. Really? So… um… if you want to pressure legislators to pass a bill, you gotta be (shhhhh) very quiet. Wow. Just think of all the money special interests are wasting on lobbying and PR.

Shapley snarkily continues:

That’s as crude as cautioning politicians about messing with folks who buy ink by the barrel.

Touche, but… uh… what’s so special about ink?

See, you didn’t hear much support for this bill from us bloggers, because quite frankly, it specifically excluded us… an exclusion the editorialists seemed well aware of every time they reassured their readers that the bill only shielded those who “earn their living” from journalism. Gee… thanks for the collegiality guys.

Of course I understand the pragmatic need to draw the line somewhere, otherwise anybody could throw just about anything up on Blogspot and cynically claim shield law protections. But it’s hard to argue that what I do — every single day — isn’t journalism. I do research, I conduct interviews, I threaten and insult politicians… and sometimes, I even break stories that influence current events.

And of course, I write. And I write. And I write and write and write and write. I often write more words in a day than columnists like Shapley write in a week.

But unfortunately for me, I’ve apparently violated the cardinal rule of capitalism: I’ve failed to commoditize myself by putting a price on my product. So no matter how professionally I endeavor to conduct myself, no matter how many hours I devote to my craft, unless somebody pays me by the hour I simply don’t deserve the same legal protections afforded professional journalists. Well ain’t that a slap in the face?

Notice, it’s not enough simply to earn a little cash from my efforts; part-time freelancers would have been excluded too. Advertising and donations bring in a little spare change, but no… apparently, I’d have to earn my living from blogging for the law to consider me a real journalist… and even then I’m not convinced the bill’s protections would have applied.

Hmm. I wonder if Seattle Times’ publisher Frank Blethen would fall under the bill’s protection, since in attempting to break the JOA, he has claimed his paper has lost money for years? So how exactly does a newspaper’s owner “earn a living” from a paper that loses money?

Well, not to worry Frank, because the bill was pretty much intended to protect only those journalists steadily employed by media corporations — and those who own them — because… um… you know… when our founding fathers proclaimed the exigence of a “free press,” they of course meant only that press which charged for its services. Which means Frank wouldn’t have to go to jail for protecting a source, but I would.

Well screw that.

To all you whistle-blowers, leakers, and law firm copy boys out there just itching to let the public know what you know we all need to know, whatever the information’s legal provenance, here’s a tip: I wouldn’t trust those pampered, princesses in the paid media as far as I could throw them. Listen to them whine about their precious shield law… what kind of confidence does that give you that they’d be willing to give up their freedom to protect yours?

Us bloggers, on the other hand, we’ve got balls.

Shield law? Shield law?! We don’t need no stinkin’ shield law! If I promise to protect your identity, I’ll protect your identity, whatever the consequences. And you can rest assured that no chicken-shit, lawsuit-shy publisher is ever going to hand over my notes… because I have no publisher. (And quite frankly, I’m so disorganized, I don’t really have notes.)

Why would I martyr myself to protect a source? Well, maybe because I’m a little nuts. And maybe I’m savvy enough to realize that the first local blogger to be jailed for not revealing his source is going to walk out of prison with a national profile.

But mostly it’s because I believe that the only protection against fascism is a free press, and I simply don’t trust the corporate media to fill this crucial role on its own. Sure, I’d rather the shield law be extended to bloggers like me than not — if only out of respect — but if Rob McKenna and the editorial boards and eventually the state Legislature want to measure a journalist’s professionalism in dollars earned, well then, that’s up to them.

Every day journalists the world over risk their freedom — and their lives — in defense of a free press. Now that’s professionalism. Kinda puts the spat over WA’s shield law into perspective.

Carla at Premptive Karma has the scoop:

A DC political operative has told me that Brent Wilkes, one of the individuals charged with bribing Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, has struck a deal with prosecutors to testify.

Wilkes will implicate four more Republicans for possible criminal activity: Richard Pombo,John Doolittle,Duncan Hunter, and Jerry Lewis.

Carla can’t second-source it, but she says it comes from an extremely reliable source who is “highly confident” of the information. She goes on to write:

The same source is also indicating that Republican Congressman Tom DeLay will step down if he wins his primary. This would allow for the RNC to appoint someone new to his seat to run against the Democrat in November.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

[Cross-posted at Daily Kos]

I was talking to The Stranger’s Josh Feit yesterday afternoon, and he was little worried. The folk at Town Hall had moved the Sims v. Hutch debate upstairs into the big room –apparently to accommodate the camera crews — and Josh was concerned that the audience might look embarrassingly small in the thousand-seat auditorium. “What if only twelve people show up?” he asked me. I assured him that I’d be there to make it a baker’s dozen.

As it turned out, I barely got in. A large, raucous crowd filled the auditorium, including an enthusiastic cheering section for Hutcherson’s Antioch Bible Church. I’d never seen so many queer people in one place… and there were a lot of gays and lesbians there too. This was one, pumped up crowd… more like the audience you might expect for a superstar comedian than a political debate. And judging from the audience reaction, The Stranger may have stumbled upon the greatest debating act since Timothy Leary v. G. Gordon Liddy.

They were loud, they were passionate, they were in your face… and that was just the audience. A steady wave of cheers, jeers, hisses, catcalls, laughter and groans rolled across the audience towards the dueling orators on stage. Both men received several standing ovations from their admirers. Both men seemed to genuinely enjoy the fierce debate.

This was politics the way it should be: raw, energetic… and entertaining. If all political rallies, all political events, all political debates were as much fun as this, we’d have 95 percent voter turnout… we’d have the nation’s youth clamoring to get involved. Politics wouldn’t just be more fun… it’d be downright cool.

Anyway, I’m not going to get into the details, but Michael has great coverage over at BlatherWatch, Will throws in a few pithy observations of his own, and the Seattle P-I does its darnedest to make the whole affair sound typically boring. I’m told the Seattle Channel shot the event, and if you get the chance, I highly recommend watching for yourself.

I’ll just sum up the Battle in Seattle by saying that I thought Sims kicked Hutch’s ass. (But then, I’m biased.) The topic was gay civil rights, and Hutch and his “church folk” wanted to make it a theological debate. It’s not, and Sims wouldn’t bite.

I’d love to see both men get a chance to hone their rhetoric by going at it a couple more times, but if all Hutcherson has to back up his public policy is the Christian Bible, then he really doesn’t deserve having his public profile raised any further… and Sims shouldn’t help him raise it.

I doubt many minds were changed last night, but it sure was fun. And that’s something you don’t often get to say about politics.

I’ve been busy. So here’s your open thread, a little early.

UPDATE:
Online polls suck. They’re stupid, pointless and misleading… you know, like the one the Puget Sound Business Journal is running on the Cantwell v. McGavick race. So let’s teach them a lesson and “freep” this poll.

Insurance industry lobbyist executive candidate Mike McGavick called a press conference today to dramatically announce the “central theme” of his campaign for U.S. Senate: civility.

I really believe that when we look to Washington D.C. right now we see a culture in which to many people are caught up in, of permanent campaigning. For every issue is an opportunity to raise money and issue press releases, have petitions that capture more names to raise more money, to issue more press releases but not to get together to have heart-to-heart conversation and try to solve problems.

I think that’s exactly why people are so frustrated with Washington right now – with Washington D.C. right now – [this] is exactly the kind of voice of Northwestern common sense, of Northwestern civility, that I think by being added to the Senate I can help break that down and get Washington D.C. back to solving the problems that confront families.

Of course, when asked by reporters for examples of Sen. Maria Cantwell acting uncivil, McGavick couldn’t name any. Or perhaps, he wouldn’t name any, because that would be… um… uncivil.

Forget for a moment the questionable strategy of adopting a central theme on which your opponent outpolls you by a 44 to 26-point margin. And ignore the fact that it is politically naive to think that a challenger can beat a popular incumbent, without going harshly negative. The main problem with running on a pledge of civility, is that unless the candidate can hold his surrogates to the same gentlemanly standards, this pledge is a complete and utter load of crap.

There is absolutely no way that McGavick can win in November without knocking down Cantwell’s approval ratings, and while he may very well keep his own official campaign on a positive keel, the state GOP, the RNC and other “independent” PACs won’t show as much restraint. Tens of millions of dollars will be spent on this race, and much of it will go to negative advertising. It’s not that McGavick is any meaner than the typical politician, it’s just that negative advertising works, and if he wants to win, he and/or his surrogates are going to have to use it.

And besides… he doesn’t really seem to have any other issues to run on.

Today’s event — like the 25 other campaign kickoff events before it — was almost entirely devoid of ideas. I mean really… what is McGavick’s central theme? That he’s a nice a guy? That he’s smart? Affable? Financially successful?

He may in fact be all these things and more, but he’s also a Republican, and unless he tells us otherwise, we can only assume that he is a Republican on the environment (he’s for drilling in ANWR,) a Republican on foreign policy (he supports President Bush’s execution of the war in Iraq,) a Republican on the economy (he’s for making tax cuts permanent, deficit be damned,) and a Republican on abortion (he opposes it.) And as a Republican, he’s done absolutely nothing to convince voters that, when it comes to the Bush administration and GOP leadership’s right-wing agenda, he’ll be anything but a rubber stamp… if, a civil one.

See, there’s a reason McGavick focuses on style over substance: he beats Cantwell on style. (I admit it… retail politics just ain’t Cantwell’s schtick.) But when it comes to the issues… oh man is he out of step with Washington voters. And so he’s attempting to run another one of those personality-driven stealth campaigns, where an otherwise conservative Republican deliberately leaves himself undefined, in hopes that moderate Democrats and independents will project on him what they want to see in a candidate.

It almost worked for Dino Rossi. It almost worked for David Irons (until voters discovered he was a lying, resume-faking, mother-beater.) But it’s not going to work for Mike McGavick, because if he doesn’t define himself, I’m betting the Cantwell campaign will be more than happy to do it for him.

PARENTHETICAL ASIDE:
I just couldn’t let this go without pointing out the irony of McGavick railing against the “culture of permanent campaigning”… this coming from a man who has held at least 25 campaign kickoff events over the past seven months.

Every issue is an opportunity to raise money and issue press releases, have petitions that capture more names to raise more money, to issue more press releases but not to get together to have heart-to-heart conversation and try to solve problems.

Uh-huh.

In fact, the real purpose of this press conference was to give McGavick the opportunity to claim credit for Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens decision to pull his bill that would have made the Puget Sound a supertanker highway. As the P-I observed:

Stevens’ action and McGavick’s subsequent news conference seemed well coordinated.

The certainly did. But then as McGavick said, every issue is an opportunity to raise money and issue press releases. Hmm. So much for fighting the culture of permanent campaigning.

And to set the record straight, it is Cantwell who deserves credit for killing the bill, not McGavick. Stevens introduced the bill in retaliation for Cantwell leading the successful filibuster against drilling in ANWR, but this bill too was all but dead due to threat of another Cantwell filibuster.

The bill has also proved to be highly unpopular with WA voters, and a drag on McGavicks dragging campaign. That Stevens made the highly unusual (and embarrassing) move of pulling the bill highlights McGavicks desperate circumstances… and shows just how powerful Cantwell has become.

Wrestling greats Ron “King County Executive” Sims and Rev. Ken “the Jews killed Christ” Hutcherson lock horns tonight in a steel cage match at the Key Arena. Um… okay… it’s really just a debate, and it’s taking place in the staid environs of Seattle’s Town Hall. But I expect some rhetorical body slamming nonetheless.

Tickets are $5.00 at the door; fireworks start at 7:30 pm.

Rev. Hutcherson has been one of the most vocal opponents of legislation extending anti-discrimination protections to gays and lesbians, and when Sims joined us this week on Podcasting Liberally, we asked him why he was willing to take on such a pompous, blowhard. Lamenting Hutcherson’s efforts to co-opt a civil rights movement that “people lost their lives over,” Sims said that it was simply time for him to sit across the table and take Hutcherson on:

“He’s trying to steal a movement and limit its effects, and that’s just so wrong.”

Yes it is.

Hutcherson reportedly has a habit of playing the race card when he finds himself on the losing end of an argument, but as Will shockingly learned during our podcast, he’s going to have a tough time doing that against Sims:

“He’s going to argue he’s black, and last time I looked in the mirror, I am too.”

Here’s my debating tip to Sims: you’re first question to Hutcherson should be to ask him how his boycott is going, and then as he fumbles for an answer… hit him over the head with a folding chair. I’m ready to rumble!

McGavick campaign worker shows Dems where they can stick their giant check.

Yesterday was Mike McGavick’s last official day as an insurance industry executive, and to celebrate, the state Dems stopped by to present him with a giant check symbolizing the $4.5 million in accelerated stock options he earned as part of his $15 million golden parachute. Technically, Safeco is constrained by the same campaign finance limits as you or I, but insurance industry lobbyist cum CEO cum senate candidate McGavick is free to spend as much on his own campaign as his new-found personal fortune affords him. How convenient.

Still, after studying the latest Elway Poll, it’s starting to look like no amount of money can buy McGavick this election. The other day I briefly commented on Sen. Maria Cantwell’s impressive 30-point lead, but if McGavick boosters found the headline disheartening, they better flip on their pacemakers before delving into the cross-tabs. I can’t post a copy here (I shouldn’t even have one myself,) but I’m happy to share some of the juicier tidbits.

As I previously reported, Cantwell enjoys a 55 to 25 percent lead over McGavick, but when you break down the numbers McGavick looks even weaker. Indeed, Cantwell’s margin actually improved when matched against McGavick than in the abstract re-elect/replace question. While Cantwell’s support holds steady at 55 percent, McGavick polls seven points behind a generic candidate, and those saying they will “definitely” vote for Cantwell rises from 24 to 31 percent. Of those who originally were inclined to vote against Cantwell, only 66 percent said they would vote for McGavick, with 11 percent deciding they would vote for Cantwell after all.

McGavick fares worse than a generic opponent. Ouch. But Elway tries to soothe the sting:

This is a familiar phenomenon early in the campaign, when the opponent is not as well known. In the abstract, respondents get to imagine their ideal opponent, a standard that real candidates can rarely live up to.

That may be true. But it should be remembered that McGavick first kicked off his campaign back in July… and again in October… twenty-four more times in January… and once again as recently as February 15. Furthermore, the sample was taken well after McGavick’s six-figure introductory TV ad campaign that ran in high profile slots during the Seahawks Super Bowl run. And yet according to Elway, Cantwell leads McGavick in every area of the state, in every demographic except Republicans… and by “significant margins.”

Clearly, whatever McGavick has been doing, hasn’t been working… and so he’s called a press conference for Thursday morning to present to reporters his “central campaign themes”… which if he’s smart, won’t be the same themes he’s stressed thus far.

While McGavick’s early ads tried to sell him as someone who can cut through the partisan strife in the other Washington, voters in this Washington simply aren’t buying it. By a 44-26% margin, respondents said a Democrat incumbent is more likely to reduce partisanship than a Republican challenger, while 45-28% of respondents saw a Democrat as more effective at reforming Congress.

[Cantwell] has a sizable advantage on her issues and she even appears to be beating McGavick on his own issues.

At least 51% of respondents graded Cantwell “satisfactory” or better on each of the 7 issue categories polled, including traditional Republican issues like “government spending and taxes,” “national security,” and “moral issues like abortion and gay marriage.” Um… what the hell is McGavick going to run on?

And all this comes in the context of an absolutely terrible political climate for anybody running with an “R” next to their name.

Winning statewide as a Republican in Washington state has not been easy for about a generation, but it looks especially difficult this year. Nationally, pundits are talking about a “reverse 1994” when the GOP swept the board and took control of Congress. Some Democrats are thinking that it’s comeback time. That may or may not pan out nationally, but in Washington state the early signs point that way.

President Bush’s job approval ratings are about 5:3 negative in WA (compared to 5:4 negative nationally,) with 46% of respondents saying he is doing a “poor” job. Even 22% of Republicans give Bush a negative rating. Meanwhile, Democrats hold a 15-point edge in the generic voting for Congress question (6 points higher than the national average.)

And it gets even worse for Republicans. Half the respondents said divided control of Congress “works best for the country,” and when combined with those who favored Democratic control, 73% were disinclined to vote Republican. Finally…

When asked directly about this Senate race (“If McGavick were to replace Cantwell in the US Senate, that would strengthen the Republican majority in the US Senate”) respondents said that was a reason to vote for Cantwell by nearly 2:1, including a 22-point gap among independents.

In this climate, even McGavick’s strengths seem to work against him, including the classic Republican tactic of running a successful businessman as a political outsider.

Typically, the outsider mantle has been an advantage when voters seem ready to throw the bums out. The voters in this survey, however, by a 4:3 ratio, rated the fact that McGavick was a CEO and not a politician as a reason to vote for Cantwell. She even had a 2-point edge on this point among people employed in the private sector.

Double ouch.

Perhaps the only ray of hope Elway could find for a non-politician like McGavick running against an incumbent, was that voters said “stands on specific issues” and “overall philosophy” were more important than “record and experience,” and that with the exception of the top ranked issue — health care — the other top issues were ones the GOP has run on for years: the economy, war, foreign policy, values and taxes. But Elway throws in a caveat:

The caution would be that 69% of those who said “stands on issues” or “overall philosophy” were not Republicans: 25% were Independents and 44% were Democrats. For the Democrats in particular, what they want to hear about the economy and the war is unlikely to be what a Republican will be saying.

Quite frankly, McGavick’s timing sucks. Republicans have long considered Cantwell to be vulnerable, but her job approval ratings have steadily climbed, even as the political climate for WA Republicans has all but tanked. McGavick has so far failed to gain any traction with voters, but as weak as he is, Cantwell’s strength should not be understated… indeed, her 55% re-elect compares quite favorably with Sen. Patty Murray’s 49% standing in February of 2004. Murray went on to win with 55% of the vote. As Elway notes:

The voters may not be wild about Maria Cantwell, but they like her better than they used to, and they are not greeting Mike McGavick with flowers and candy.

Of course the election is still nine months out, and after a ton of paid media, it’s hard to imagine the race won’t tighten… but if it doesn’t, the repercussions will be felt far outside the U.S. Senate. A Cantwell cakewalk could only help Darcy Burner’s challenge in the 8th Congressional District, extending coattails from the top of the ticket, and freeing up money that might otherwise be spent defending an incumbent senator. The Reichert-Burner race is already shaping up to be a nail-biter, and if McGavick fails to create a little drama, the media will turn its attention to the 8th CD, further enhancing Burner’s profile.

Yeah, it’s only a poll, it’s only February, and this is only some idle speculation. But you can be sure that if these numbers were flipped, it’d be the bloggers on the other side who were doing all the speculating.

Hmm. Did you know that Clallam County locks up 57 percent of its African American population, Walla Walla County 58 percent, and Mason County a whopping 65 percent? Do those percentages seem impossibly high? Well they are, and it all gets back to our state’s policies regarding felons, and the way it distorts state and local politics.

The other day, when I wrote about WA’s felon disenfranchisement laws — which a New York Times editorial calls “morally outrageous” — I ignored the flip side to the political impact of felons: how situating prisons in rural areas exports both money and political power to these regions.

As Steve Zemke explains over at Majority Rules, the U.S. Census counts non-voting prisoners where they are incarcerated, rather than where they lived before imprisonment (and tend to return upon their release.) These census figures are used for drawing congressional and legislative district boundaries, resulting in over-representation in the rural areas where prisons tend to be situated, and under-representation in the urban areas from which the prison population is largely drawn. It also distorts the distribution of federal and state funds tied to population and demographics.

In Washington state and throughout the nation, non-voting prison populations essentially function as “phantom voters,” helping to increase the political clout of Republican-leaning rural districts, while decreasing the power of their urban counterparts. Indeed, researchers have found 21 counties nationally where at least 21 percent of so-called “residents” actually live behind bars.

That explains Mason County’s absurdly high African American incarceration rate; only a handful of these inmates are truly native to the county. In fact, Mason County’s permanent (though rotating) non-voting prison population inflates its census count by about 5 percent… essentially stealing both tax dollars and political power from the urban areas exporting the prisoners. Meanwhile, upon release, these prisoners return to their urban homes, impoverished and disenfranchised.

In opposing efforts to bring WA’s laws more in line with the rest of the nation by making it easier for ex-felons to regain the right to vote, Republicans like to spout moralistic homilies about doing the time if you do the crime, and stuff like that. But in truth, their stubborn support of the status quo is mostly based on their perception that it grants them a political advantage.

What we have now are social, economic, political and legal policies that, intentionally or not, work together to permanently disenfranchise minorities and other disadvantaged groups. We have structural social inequities that conspire to condemn whole segments of minority communities to near permanent underclass status. (How else to explain multigenerational pockets of poverty without resorting to racialist theories?) We have a so-called “war on drugs” that disproportionately imprisons minority and lower income citizens, felon voting laws that disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, and census and redistricting policies that distort the representational balance between urban and rural districts.

None of these policies, laws and institutions may have been devised with the purpose of granting Republicans an electoral advantage, but that clearly appears to be the result, and thus the state GOP will always oppose any reform they perceive might shift the balance the other way. And while the larger social injustice is certainly more egregious than mere partisan electoral inequities, it is the latter that makes the former so much more difficult to correct, for those who would benefit most from reform are those who have no voice.

When we imprison and disenfranchise an ever growing number of our urban citizens, it not only provides a direct economic benefit to the conservative-leaning rural districts where we locate our prisons, it also grants them an unfair electoral advantage by distorting the population figures used for redistricting. And one cannot understand the opposition to reforming our felon voting and other related laws, without understanding this simple political reality.

As has long been the norm in Seattle, whenever a local elected official has a big-vision issue to promote, the first constituency he must sell it to are the ornery, partisan drunks. But since the county council wasn’t available last night, King County Executive Ron Sims dropped by Drinking Liberally instead, and eloquently pitched his vision of a re-imagined Seattle Center.

Ron worked the appreciative crowd with his personal mix of schmoozing, hugging, and bully pulpit thumping, and then set the standard for all savvy politicians by joining us for our weekly podcast… now available for your listening pleasure.

It’s not quite our usual freewheeling conversation — we stuck mostly to local issues — but neither is it your typical interview with an elected official… and I’m guessing Ron had a lot more fun (and a couple more drinks) then he usually has with KUOW’s Steve Scher.

Joining Ron last night was Molly, Gavin, Lynn, Will, and of course, me. And thanks once again to Gavin and Richard for producing the show; please check out their suffix and prefix-less podcast, Confab.

Conventional wisdom says that nearly all initiatives dramatically lose support the more voters learn about them. For example, last year’s Initiative 912, which would have essentially repealed the state’s transportation improvement package, enjoyed a 15 point advantage in June, but lost by 10 points in November… a twenty-five point swing in only five months.

Most consultants will tell you that unless your issue polls upwards of 75 percent, you shouldn’t waste your money… thus one of the first things most prospective initiative sponsors do, is commission a favorably worded poll to prove to potential backers that they have overwhelming support.

And that’s exactly what the Washington State Farm Bureau did last fall in preparation for I-933, when it crafted the following loaded polling question:

“If there were an initiative on the ballot that would require state or local government to pay a property owner if a government action damaged the value or use of their property, would you vote yes to support the initiative or no to oppose the initiative.”

Well, gee… an initiative requiring compensation if government damages your property? Well that sounds good. (Actually, it’s already in our state Constitution.) No wonder the question reportedly polled at 79 percent.

But of course, you can’t expect such favorably loaded wording when the Attorney General’s office writes your ballot title. Or can you…?

Concise Description:

This measure would require compensation when any government regulation damages the use or value of private property, forbid regulations that prohibit existing legal uses of private property, and provide for exceptions and conditions.

Uh-huh.

Gee… when I filed my initiative, Deputy Solicitor General Jim Pharris wouldn’t even write me a ballot title that described what the initiative did… and then sought an injunction against me when I challenged the title in court.

But Pharris not only gave the WSFB a ballot title with the most favorable wording possible — using the loaded word “damage” — he apparently relied on their focus group and polling data to craft it. This is a ballot title the WSFB might have written itself. (Perhaps, it did.)

Not that any of this is a surprise. Pharris has long suffered from “Stockholm Syndrome,” identifying with the likes of Tim Eyman after being forced to defend so many of his unconstitutional initiatives. Intentional or not, he routinely gives anti-government initiatives favorable ballot titles.

Neither would it surprise me if Attorney General Rob McKenna — proudly in the pocket the Building Industry Association of Washington — took a personal interest in the Developer’s initiative. The BIAW, a strong backer of I-933, has played a crucial role in developing and supporting WA’s so-called “property rights” movement and its right-wing militia spin-offs. The BIAW also put $275,000 into independent expenditures on McKenna’s behalf in 2004, calling his election one of “the biggest political victories” it has ever had. For his part, McKenna reportedly phoned the BIAW on election night and told them “If it wasn’t for BIAW I wouldn’t have been elected.”

But regardless of the motives or behind-the-scenes wrangling, this is simply a bad ballot title, and I-933 opponents are rightly challenging it in court. Statute requires “a true and impartial description of the measure’s essential contents,” but a brief filed on behalf of the League of Women Voters and other petitioners correctly points out that Pharris’s the WSFB’s wording fails to describe any of I-933’s four main provisions.

Maybe our State’s voters would vote “yes” if the November ballot described this measure’s four basic changes to Washington law. Maybe they would vote “no”. But at the very least, the Concise Description of this measure printed on the november ballot should tell voters what those four changes are. Indeed, Washington’s ballot title statute demands it.

With that, attorney Thomas Ahearne goes on to propose a truly neutral alternative to Pharris’s leading description:

Concise Description:

This measure would require government studies before restricting property use, exempt or pay property owners who object to certain zoning, environmental, and other laws, and prevent development regulations that prohibit previously-existing uses.

Opponents have a single shot at a ballot title challenge; there is no provision for appeal beyond Thurston County Superior Court. If this is an unbiased judge interested in presenting the citizens of this state with an unbiased ballot title, he’ll approve a concise description closer to Ahearne’s than that drafted by the WSFB/AG.

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 tonight, looking forward to an icey cold Manny’s and another hot podcast. We may even have an interesting special guest. No promises, but we’ll see.