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So far, our state’s Capitol press corps has been too busy covering important political stories about furniture restoration to be bothered with wrapping their minds around something as trivial as an unprecedented constitutional crisis, so as a service to my friends in the media, I’ve decided to do a lot of the legal legwork for you, so that you’ll be prepared to cover the story accurately once it explodes beyond your ability to ignore it.

In a nutshell, Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna has refused to comply with Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark’s lawful request to provide legal representation in appealing a lower court ruling giving Okanogan PUD the right to take Common School Trust lands via eminent domain. I’ll get to the specifics of the eminent domain case in a later post, but for now I want to address the implications of McKenna’s extraordinarily broad claim of common law powers, the relevant case law, and the inevitable next steps in a dispute between statewide elected officers that appears to be headed to a historic showdown before the Washington State Supreme Court.

The Attorney General’s office apparently no longer replies to my emails short of threats of violence, but those who have talked with the office about this case uniformly report that McKenna and his cohorts have been, well, cute in their response. On the one hand, they insist that they can’t talk about this case due to attorney-client privilege, while on the other hand they immediately go about disparaging Goldmark and his legal claims, you know, off the record. It’s a media strategy that borders on legal malpractice, but that’s an issue for the Washington State Bar Association to resolve when a formal complaint is inevitably filed.

In addition to disparaging his own client’s case, thus damaging its prospects, McKenna has also privately justified his refusal to file an appeal by claiming a broader common law obligation to protect the public interest. McKenna has apparently insisted that, in addition to the narrow interests of his client, the Attorney General must weigh the potential harm across the state posed by either failure or success in court; it’s not clear which outcome has him more concerned. McKenna has also claimed that he must look out for DNR’s future interests, which could be harmed by the legal precedent set on appeal.

That’s what reporters and other interested third parties tell me McKenna has been saying privately. Publicly, McKenna spokesperson (and former right-wing talk radio host) Dan Sytman merely claims that the Attorney General’s discretion on such matters is presumed:

“Usually, when we’re working with clients and we explain the legal reasoning, they defer to our expertise,” Sytman said. “Generally they’ll defer to us on legal matters, just as we defer to them on policy matters.”

Now, I don’t doubt that it is true that, usually, the client defers to the Attorney General’s expertise on legal matters. And judging from the dearth of prior case law, the rare times such disagreements do lead to a game of constitutional chicken, I suspect the client generally backs down, for practical reasons I will get to later. But while such deference may be common practice, it is not a matter of law, common or otherwise, and as ill advised as McKenna may believe an appeal to be, he has a statutory obligation not only to comply with Goldmark’s request for representation, but to comply with it to the best of his ability.

State law appears unambiguously clear on this matter:

RCW 43.12.075
Duty of attorney general — Commissioner may represent state.

It shall be the duty of the attorney general, to institute, or defend, any action or proceeding to which the state, or the commissioner or the board, is or may be a party, or in which the interests of the state are involved, in any court of this state, or any other state, or of the United States, or in any department of the United States, or before any board or tribunal, when requested so to do by the commissioner, or the board, or upon the attorney general’s own initiative.

The commissioner is authorized to represent the state in any such action or proceeding relating to any public lands of the state.

It is the duty of the Attorney General to represent the Commissioner in any legal proceeding to which he is a party, “when requested so to do by the commissioner.” There are no two ways of reading this. Furthermore, it is the Commissioner — not the Attorney General — who is authorized to represent the state in any action relating to public lands.

This provision clearly defines an attorney-client relationship in which the Commissioner represents the interests of the state in proceedings relating to public lands, while the AG represents the interests of his client, the Commissioner. Further reinforcing this traditional attorney-client relationship is RCW 43.10.067, which explicitly bars state officers other than the Attorney General from employing, appointing or retaining outside legal counsel.

By statute, the AG is not only the Commissioner’s attorney, he is the Commissioner’s only attorney; for McKenna to deny Goldmark legal counsel is to deny him and DNR access to legal representation and access to the courts. That is why disputes of this sort are so unlikely to reach a court: officers like Goldmark have no means of suing the Attorney General.

McKenna appears to claim that despite this unambiguous statutory construction, the Attorney General serves multiple clients, including a common law obligation to serve the broader public interest, and that when the interests of these various clients come in conflict, his primary obligation is to protect the public good. This interpretation would seem to give the Attorney General broad discretion over which policies and laws to defend, and which not, but since such a dispute has never come before Washington’s courts, there is no precedent to back it up. Indeed, such disputes are so rare that relevant case law is scarce in any state, and most of what I’ve found is both ambiguous, and not entirely analogous.

But there is one case from West Virginia that is entirely to the point, and is all the more instructive because our two states share similar constitutional language defining the powers of the Attorney General. And well… it doesn’t look so good for Rob McKenna.

[Read more…]

The Association of Washington Businesses claims its board unanimously endorsed Tim Eyman’s anti-democratic I-1053 at its May 13 board meeting, but after a bit of digging, the folks over at the Washington State Labor Council can’t find a single AWB board member who admits to attending the meeting and endorsing the initiative.

Can this be true? Amid severe recession-related budget cuts to higher education, transportation and other state funding priorities strongly supported by many of our largest private employers, the AWB board voted UNANIMOUSLY for this starve-the-beast strategy to avoid taxes?

Not Boeing.  Company spokeswoman Susan Bradley says the company has no position on I-1053 and had no representative at AWB’s May 13 board meeting in Spokane.

And not Microsoft.  Government Affairs Director Delee Shoemaker, an AWB board member, reports that the company will not take a position on I-1053 at least until it qualifies for the ballot. She adds that she wasn’t at the May 13 meeting either.

And the list goes on: Weyerhaeuser, Avista Corp., Ben Bridge Jewelers, US Bank… nobody would admit to even attending the meeting. In fact, of the AWB board members who responded to WSLC’s inquiries, only one, Safeway Director of Public Affairs Cherie Myers, expressed support for the initiative. But… “I was not there to vote,” Myers told the WSLC.

Huh. Reminds me of a lyric from Les Miserables:

Phantom faces at the window.
Phantom shadows on the floor.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.

The bulk of the board members WSLC contacted wouldn’t respond to inquiries, but there’s a reason why local businesses might be reluctant to embrace I-1053 despite the business community’s natural knee-jerk support for anything that makes it harder to raise their taxes: as WSLC explains, the Californiafication of Washington government simply isn’t good for our state’s business climate:

Our biggest private-sector employers report that one of their greatest challenges is the insufficient number of skilled workers available. Microsoft regularly argues that more H-1B visas are needed to meet its demand for engineers. Boeing’s aging workforce — of both machinists and engineers — is considered a looming crisis.

This problem has been exacerbated by the recession. Plummeting state revenue has resulted in college and university budgets being slashed; University of Washington reports that its state funding was cut by one-third in the past 15 months. College instructors are being laid off, departments eliminated, class sizes sharply increased, and double-digit tuition hikes imposed. And all this is happening as Boeing laments its demand for engineers consistently exceeds the state’s production by a two-to-one ratio, a supply gap that is widening as its aging work force retires in droves.

WSLC includes a list of companies that have refused to respond, and it wouldn’t hurt if they heard from their customers that we don’t particularly enjoy doing business with companies that spend their profits ensuring that a one-third minority of the Legislature has veto power over our state budgets. At the very least, they need to know that they can’t continue to hide behind their empty chairs.

With time running out to appeal the use of eminent domain against Common School Trust lands in Okanogan County, the contentious face-off between Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark and Attorney General Rob McKenna is about to come to a head.

Either McKenna blinks, and accedes to Goldmark’s lawful request for legal representation, a concession that could come as early as today, or he plunges our state into a constitutional crisis by forcing Goldmark to take unprecedented legal actions that could ultimately lead to a Supreme Court showdown, and potential disbarment proceedings against McKenna.

And no, I’m not being hyperbolic.

“I am deeply disappointed that Attorney General Rob McKenna has denied my request to appoint a Special Assistant Attorney General that would allow DNR to appeal the use of eminent domain against the Common School Trust in Okanogan County.

As Commissioner of Public Lands, I have a fiduciary responsibility to defend the trust. It is puzzling that our Attorney General will not allow his client’s argument to be heard in court when he already supported trying it in a lower court.

While I am unsure what changed his mind, I hope he changes his mind again and appoints a Special Assistant Attorney General.

It is uncertain if there is a precedent for denying a request for a Special Assistant Attorney General to an agency headed by an independently elected official.”

Don’t be distracted by the measured wording of Goldmark’s press release; this is clearly a threat, and a clear indication that Goldmark has no intention of backing down in the face of his “fiduciary responsibility to defend the trust.” Just as the RCW mandates that McKenna must provide legal representation to Goldmark, the RCW also bars Goldmark from retaining outside counsel. Within days, both of these statutes may be violated, leading to a messy court fight over a court fight.

As a partisan blogger already focusing on the 2012 gubernatorial contest, I’d personally prefer that McKenna maintain his arrogant, illegal and unethical stance. It would be a dramatic, political misstep… but I’m not betting on it. My best guess is that McKenna will momentarily back away from the dark side and assign a Special Assistant Attorney General to DNR, while publicly criticizing Goldmark for ignoring his legal advice. That would be the smart political move, and up until recently, McKenna has proven to be a smart politician.

But if he doesn’t… well… Katie bar the door. So far the media has largely ignored this dispute — I guess they just can’t be bothered to wrap their minds around such complicated legal issues.  But they won’t be able to ignore what comes next.

According to Josh at Publicola, real estate speculator Dino Rossi is kicking Sen. Patty Murray’s ass… you know, on Facebook:

In two weeks since declaring his candidacy, Dino Rossi boasts that he’s drawn 25,275 Facebook fans to his Facebook page.  And his punch line: Sen. Patty Murray only has 11,796 fans.

Actually, it’s been almost three weeks since he officially declared his candidacy, and while Rossi is still boasting about his Facebook prowess, it’s at least curious to note that he’s no longer publicly crowing about his fundraising totals. Rossi made a bit of a splash by announcing that he raised $600,000 in his first week of campaigning while attracting more than 20,000 Facebook fans. But this Facebook momentum clearly trailed off over the subsequent 12 days; does his silence on the money front indicate that his fundraising efforts have followed a similar curve?

You know, low hanging fruit and all that.

I don’t doubt that Rossi will raise a ton of money between now and the election; I just don’t yet see signs that his support is any broader or deeper than it was in 2008.

On Friday I warned my friends in the media that they were missing the big story in the escalating dispute between Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark and Attorney General Rob McKenna. And after a sunny weekend and no further headlines, I feel compelled to raise the alert one more time.

Hey media… you’re missing a big story!

At issue here is more than just whether Okanogan PUD should be allowed to build transmission lines through state Common School Trust lands, or even the legal question of whether a political subdivision can unilaterally take state lands via eminent domain. (I’ve been advised by experts in the field that case law in WA and other states is very clear that such authority is not presumed; more on that later.)

No, the big story is AG McKenna’s refusal to comply with his statutory obligation to provide the legal representation Commissioner Goldmark has lawfully requested… an action — or rather, inaction — whose precedent threatens to dramatically expand the scope and authority of the Attorney General’s Office, essentially giving the AG veto power over the policy decisions of state legislators, executives and even The People acting through the initiative and referenda process.

As I’ve previously stated, the relevant statute is unambiguous:

RCW 43.12.075
Duty of attorney general — Commissioner may represent state.
It shall be the duty of the attorney general, to institute, or defend, any action or proceeding to which the state, or the commissioner or the board, is or may be a party, or in which the interests of the state are involved, in any court of this state, or any other state, or of the United States, or in any department of the United States, or before any board or tribunal, when requested so to do by the commissioner, or the board, or upon the attorney general’s own initiative.

“It shall be the duty of the attorney general” to defend DNR “when requested so to do by the commissioner.” The word “shall” is understood to mean that the AG’s duty is mandatory; there’s no other way of reading this provision.

McKenna’s spokesman, former right-wing talk radio host Dan Sytman argues that “usually, when we’re working with clients and we explain the legal reasoning, they defer to our expertise… generally they’ll defer to us on legal matters, just as we defer to them on policy matters.” Okay, maybe usually. But his client’s deference is not a statutory requirement, whereas the AG’s duty to defend his client is.

And by refusing to fulfill this statutory duty, McKenna most certainly is intruding into DNR’s business on matters of policy.

The risk is clear. If the AG is given discretion as to which laws and policies to defend, then he essentially holds veto power over any law or policy subject to a legal challenge. For example, should the BIAW sue to overturn storm water regulations, a suit against which the AG subsequently refuses to defend, these regulations will be overturned. Likewise, already on the record with an opinion that an income tax is unconstitutional, McKenna might choose not to adequately defend I-1098 from the inevitable legal challenge should it be passed by voters.

That is why neither the Constitution nor the RCW gives the Attorney General such broad discretion. Rob McKenna is our state’s attorney, and according to RCW 43.10.040, that means “the state and all officials, departments, boards, commissions and agencies of the state” are clients who he is legally and ethically obligated to represent. Outside of an obviously frivolous claim, McKenna simply has no choice but to honor a client’s lawful request for representation. And as I will show in subsequent posts, DNR’s claim is far from frivolous.

What we have here is the makings of a constitutional crisis… a dispute that, assuming neither Goldmark nor McKenna back down, will generate headlines for months to come, and that could possibly haunt McKenna throughout his 2012 gubernatorial campaign.

Like I said… this could be a big, big story. The only question remaining is whether media scrutiny will force McKenna to do his job, or whether McKenna’s refusal to do his job will ultimately force media scrutiny.

I’ve been following the saga of Wikileaks over the past few days. The secretive website’s founder, Julian Assange, has been on the run from the Pentagon:

American officials are searching for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks in an attempt to pressure him not to publish thousands of confidential and potentially hugely embarrassing diplomatic cables that offer unfiltered assessments of Middle East governments and leaders.

Assange is like the kid in school who found the popular girl’s secret diary where she talks shit about the people she pretends to be friends with.

The person who’s believed to have turned over these cables was a 22-year-old Army Intelligence Analyst named Bradley Manning. Manning was arrested last week after admitting to the leak in a series of online chats. Manning also took credit for leaking the video that Wikileaks unveiled in April.

There will be a lot of debate about whether Manning should be considered a whistleblower or a traitor. In leaking the video, he was clearly trying to expose a coverup (Reuters had been unsuccessful in getting the footage showing U.S. troops killing one of their photographers). But with the cables, it’s not clear if Manning was trying to expose any particular wrongdoing or if he was just bent on undermining American foreign policy. Yet even if that distinction matters to some of us, it certainly won’t matter to the Obama Administration and the Pentagon.

While the true nature of what he revealed remains a big unknown, what isn’t a mystery is how this young Army analyst became disillusioned to the point of doing this. In his lengthy online chats with the man who eventually turned him in – a former hacker named Adrian Lamo – he pointed to one specific incident:

(02:31:02 PM) Manning: i think the thing that got me the most… that made me rethink the world more than anything
(02:35:46 PM) Manning: was watching 15 detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police… for printing “anti-Iraqi literature”… the iraqi federal police wouldn’t cooperate with US forces, so i was instructed to investigate the matter, find out who the “bad guys” were, and how significant this was for the FPs… it turned out, they had printed a scholarly critique against PM Maliki… i had an interpreter read it for me… and when i found out that it was a benign political critique titled “Where did the money go?” and following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet… i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees…
(02:35:46 PM) Lamo : I’m not here right now
(02:36:27 PM) Manning: everything started slipping after that… i saw things differently
(02:37:37 PM) Manning: i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…

Even as someone who thought the war in Iraq was ill-advised from the very beginning, and who fully expected an outcome where our occupation would eventually begin imitating the tyranny we’d set out to replace, I still find it fascinating to see this young man running into that glaring contradiction between our ideals and our actions. I have no idea yet how history will eventually judge Manning, but I understand how he ended up doing what he did.

If these cables are released, what will come next? Would it cause the unraveling of key alliances to the point that our national security would be threatened? Or does it merely expose embarrassing things that would only affect a narrow set of people and interests? Either way, the diary of the popular girl may be posted online soon.

The more I think about the escalating spat between the Washington State Department of Natural Resources and Attorney General Rob McKenna over his refusal to provide legal counsel in appealing a lower court decision, the more I think that our local media may be missing an awfully big story in the making. Let’s just say my spidey sense is tingling.

The issue at the center of this dispute is whether a local government agency, the Okanogan Public Utility District, can condemn state Common School Trust land through eminent domain, an action for which there is little if any precedent, but the precedent the Attorney General seeks to set in refusing to represent DNR on appeal could be much more far reaching. Indeed, it essentially boils down to who gets to set policy priorities in Washington state: elected executives like Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark and Governor Chris Gregoire… or the Attorney General himself?

The statute is clear; it is “the duty” of the attorney general to defend the state “when requested so to do by the commissioner”:

RCW 43.12.075
Duty of attorney general — Commissioner may represent state.
It shall be the duty of the attorney general, to institute, or defend, any action or proceeding to which the state, or the commissioner or the board, is or may be a party, or in which the interests of the state are involved, in any court of this state, or any other state, or of the United States, or in any department of the United States, or before any board or tribunal, when requested so to do by the commissioner, or the board, or upon the attorney general’s own initiative.

Yet despite Commissioner Goldmark’s repeated requests for a Special Assistant Attorney General to appeal the decision, McKenna has refused. In a statement, McKenna claims that the decision not to appeal was based on the likelihood of success, but that is not his decision to make. The statute is unambiguous, and McKenna’s refusal to comply may be unprecedented.

Meanwhile, RCW 43.10.067 appears to bar DNR from retaining outside legal counsel, leaving the department powerless to legally defend itself in the absence of adequate representation on the part of the Attorney General.

So what is really going on here? Reading between the lines, Goldmark appears to give a hint in his earlier statement on the dispute:

“By refusing to represent the Common School Trust and the non-tax revenue it generates, Mr. McKenna is choosing to allow the inappropriate use of eminent domain over Washington’s schools,” said Commissioner Goldmark. “Mr. McKenna is choosing to play politics with our state’s heritage.”

This is a case that puts the state in the unusual position of opposing an expansive use of eminent domain, and one can’t help but wonder if McKenna is choosing to sacrifice the interests of one client to what he believes to be the general interest of others (DOT, for example). Yes, in the broadest sense, McKenna represents the people of Washington state, but according to statute the specific duty of his office is to serve as the sole attorney to the state’s individual departments, agencies and commissions.

If the Attorney General is given the option of choosing which laws and policies to defend, then he is essentially put in the position of setting policy, trumping the power of elected executives like Commissioner Goldmark. Which I suppose is why the RCW does not give the Attorney General such an option.

As DNR’s attorney, McKenna is free to strongly advise Commissioner Goldmark not to appeal. But to refuse a statutory request for legal counsel represents an unprecedented usurpation of executive power that could greatly expand the role of the Attorney General’s Office in setting state policy at nearly every level.

And that is a story our media shouldn’t ignore.

Last week I posted a commentary suggesting that “It’s Gov. Gregoire who needs to take the lead in pulling the tunnel cost overrun provision,” not Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn.

My premise was simple. If, as the Governor suggests, Mayor McGinn’s focus on the cost-overrun provision “is just something to hang his hat on” in his effort to scuttle the Big Bore tunnel, and if the cost-overrun provision is as unenforceable as she says it is, and if the Governor is really promising to sign a bill that would remove this provision… then why not just take the lead in doing exactly that, thus swiping the Mayor’s hat peg?

I’m on record as opposing the tunnel, but if the goal is to move forward with this project as quickly as possible, I argued, the Governor and the legislative leadership should just swallow their pride and promise to push through what she claims to be a mere symbolic legislative fix. It was, I thought, a pretty damn constructive proposal coming from somebody on the losing side of the tunnel debate. But you wouldn’t know it from the comment thread, which proved particularly vitriolic and disinformative even by HA comment thread standards.

Indeed, this thread is pretty much emblematic of the “Fuck Seattle” attitude that often seems to dominate political discourse throughout the rest of state. “I hope Seattle fucking chokes on the cost overruns,” one commenter writes, while another insists that Mayor McGinn deserves “a taste of his own medicine.” While I magnanimously proposed a way to politically move forward, my critics clearly remained focused on extracting retribution.

Ah well. So much for attempting to be the voice of reason.

Ironically, in objecting to the advisory vote in which Seattle voters rejected both a tunnel and a rebuild, one of my most vocal critics in the thread inadvertently makes a pretty damn strong case against sticking the city with the cost-overruns:

Get it straight. Highway 99 is not the property of the city of Seattle. It is a STATE FUCKING HIGHWAY. It happens to run through Seattle, and through a hell of a lot of other municipalities. One hell of a lot of people depend on Highway 99 who are not Seattle residents, and their tax dollars damn sure support that highway.

The state built it. The state maintains it. The Legislature controls the purse strings…

Okay, it’s a “state fucking highway.” Great. Then let the state pay for it. Including any cost-overruns. Especially considering that, unlike the existing Viaduct, the new deep bore tunnel will include no exits or onramps.

Did you hear that folks? No exits or onramps! This is a tunnel explicitly designed not to serve downtown Seattle, but rather folks seeking to drive through it, and because of the lack of exits comparable to those northbound at Seneca and Western, and the rush hour traffic backups they create, the tunnel will be much better suited to this particular purpose than any of the other proposed options.

So don’t give me this shit about how if Seattle wants its “gold-plated tunnel” Seattle taxpayers should have to pay for it. Yes, the removal of the existing Viaduct will open the waterfront to redevelopment, but the much cheaper surface/transit option would have done same while providing far better ingress and egress to downtown Seattle than a deep bore tunnel with no exits.

In fact, the only people who will benefit from the tunnel over the surface/transit option will be those seeking to drive through downtown Seattle without being slowed down by the street traffic above.

So yeah, Highway 99 is a state highway, and the state rejected the less expensive surface/transit option in favor of the deep bore tunnel so as to better meet the needs of the thru-traffic driving on it. You win some and you lose some. I can live with that. And I’m guessing, in the long run, so can the Mayor.

But the Governor and the Legislature are making an awfully big mistake if they insist on giving McGinn no political exit.

Google has long offered employees their choice of operating systems, but according to a report in yesterday’s Financial Times, the search giant is ending its OS agnosticism in response to January’s high-profile security breach. New hires are now being offered a choice of Macintosh or Linux PCs; Microsoft Windows is no longer an option.

“We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” said one Google employee.

“Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.

Ouch.

Of course, sources claim the prohibition on new Windows installs is due to security concerns, but I say it’s just payback for a series of really stupid Seattle Times editorials. Way to go, Frank.

Reversing a position he took in the heat of his 2006 reelection campaign, U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert joined 170 fellow House Republicans in signing on to a letter to FCC Chair Julius Genachowski, urging him not to proceed with plans to protect Net Neutrality by reclassifying broadband as a “telecommunications service.”

In a 2006 debate with challenger Darcy Burner, Reichert claimed strong support for Net Neutrality in response to a question from the Seattle Times’ Ryan Blethen:

I also support net neutrality. [The Internet] should be an equal place where people to come, equal companies to come. It should be the choice of the people, when they Google, the biggest company doesn’t come up, but the company that the people have chosen as the most important site pops up. That’s why I supported, and voted for, net neutrality.

Yet now that Reichert feels safely ensconced in incumbency, in an arguably Republican-leaning year, he has apparently abandoned his former stance, and joined colleagues Doc Hastings and Cathy McMorris Rodgers in toeing the Republican Party line against the interests of his Internet dependent district.

Not that such an unprincipled reversal should come as much of a surprise from a congressman who, in the absence of reporters, routinely brags about the calculated manner in which he casts his votes. Did Reichert ever really support Net Neutrality? Did he even understand the issue? Or was this merely a position he was advised he had to take when facing off against the net-savvy Burner in his net-savvy district, and in the midst of a blue wave election?

And given the way Reichert proudly claims (behind closed doors) a “90/10” Republican voting record in what he acknowledges to be a “50/50 district,” voters must wonder if there any issues on which he can be trusted to take an unwavering, principled stand. As Josh succinctly explains over at Publicola:

We’re not rubes, we get how politicians work. However, Reichert’s candor belies the credit he’s been given by Seattle Times for being “principled,” a reason they’ve given their hundreds of thousands of readers to vote for him.

More important, if Reichert isn’t an environmentalist at heart, voters should know that because when push comes to shove on future bills (when he’s more confident with his long term incumbency), he may feel comfy voting his real conscience.

That’s assuming Reichert actually has a “real conscience” on anything other than abortion, the one issue he privately admits drove him into the arms of the anti-choice Republican Party.

So much for his “conscience-driven independent streak.”

Over at Publicola Josh speculates that an intramural brawl with Tea Party candidate Clint Didier might actually help Dino Rossi in November:

Didier is going to make Rossi look good (moderate) to the mainstream public. Instead of alienating the GOP base, Rossi’s scrap with Didier is going to attract moderate Democrats and Independents who want change, but not Krazy change.

Didier will make those important moderate voters feel comfortable with Rossi in time for the general.

Hmm… I don’t think so, and here’s where I think Josh gets a little too clever for his own good: see, voters already know Rossi, and while I suppose he could run to the left of Didier — it’s as reasonable a strategy as any — I’m not sure that convinces moderate voters, especially Democrats, most recently familiar with Rossi from 2008.

About 200,000 more voters cast ballots in 2008 than in 2004, a year in which Libertarian candidate Ruth Bennett took 63,000 votes, yet Rossi only increased his totals by about 30,000 votes in a top-two face-off. And in King County, by far the largest and most Democratic county in the state, Rossi actually received 25,000 fewer votes in 2008 than he did in 2004, garnering less than 36% of the vote compared to over 40% four years earlier.

One can only assume that moderate Democrats and independents got to know Rossi better over the intervening four years, and that they didn’t like what they saw. So I don’t see how a contrast with Didier, however sharp, changes many minds. In some ways, due to his visibility, Rossi is every bit as much of an incumbent as Murray, and with all the strengths and weaknesses that implies.

The other flaw in Josh’s reasoning is that it ignores the fundamentals of this particular political climate, in which the single biggest factor Republicans have going in their favor this cycle is a still somewhat yawning gap in enthusiasm between the bases of the two parties. I think former state GOP chair Chris Vance is at least half right when he says “If the wave is big, Dino Rossi is going to win. If the wave shrinks, he’s probably not going to win.” (Only half right, because I don’t believe even a big wave is a guarantee of victory.)

This election, or at least Republican hopes of substantial pickups, is all about turnout, and state Republicans are just not going to excite their base having Dino running as a RINO. Rossi needs relatively enthusiastic support from the Tea Party, assuming it really exists, if he’s to have a hope of beating Sen. Patty Murray, and I don’t see how he generates this by running to the left of his party’s conservative base.

So while I fully expect Rossi to choose his words and issues carefully, depending on the crowd, I also expect him to attempt to embrace at least the spirit of the Tea Party, if not all of its stupider, Tentherist specifics. It’s a risky strategy in a state in which Democrats enjoy such a strong numerical advantage, but if Rossi’s only hope of victory is a Big Red Wave™, then he’s gonna have to ride it as long and as hard as he can.

Anonymity — or at least, pseudonymity — holds a long and cherished place in American history, dating back well before our nation’s founding.

Benjamin Franklin honed his skills as a journalist writing under a number of pseudonyms, and Thomas Paine’s highly influential and historically revered Common Sense was originally published anonymously in 1776. And then of course there are the Federalist Papers, authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, but published under the pseudonym Publius.

I mean, if anonymity was good enough for our founding fathers, it’s certainly good enough for me.

But apparently, it’s not good enough for Ted Van Dyk, who laments the “negative and sometimes vicious personal attacks” he endures in the threads over at Crosscut, and who wonders if the comments might be more civil “if those making them had to sign their own names?”

Oh, boo-hoo.

Yeah sure, there are those who abuse the privilege of anonymity, as demonstrated by the sewer that is my comment thread, but democracy is a messy thing, especially the nearly inviolable right to free speech that guarantees it. Of course I wish my trolls would put half the thought into their comments as I put into my posts, and their relentless effort to drive my threads off-topic is disappointing to say the least. But if there’s one free market I believe in, it’s the free market of ideas.

There’s a reason why HA quickly rose to prominence and popularity while my trolls, like the barnacles that they are, still desperately cling to my keel, and it sure as hell has nothing to do with the market distorting powers of money and influence.

Yet despite the unprecedentedly vibrant forum the Internet has fostered, in which even the Crosscut Home for Retired Journalists can earn itself a valued role in the public debate, Van Dyk still pines for the good old days when editorial gatekeepers, too cowardly to sign their own editorials, not only got to pick and choose which voices the public would hear, but got to edit them to boot.

“We all are familiar with the old print-journalism procedures,” Van Dyk nostalgically writes, “whereby readers sent letters to the editor and a few, in the end, got published — always bearing the writers’ names.”

And that’s a good thing? Given a choice between democracy and decorum, Van Dyk clearly chooses the latter.

Honestly, could this crusty, old, milk industry bagman get any more old and crusty? Um… yeah:

A related matter, speaking of the online world and its comments, someone has used Twitter — tweeted — using my name and photo, to transmit silly observations, which some of those receiving then attribute to me.

The Twitterer in question has registered as presenting “parody” and thus is within Twitter ground rules. Please know that I do not Twitter and that another person is mischievously Twittering in my name.

Really, Ted? And what was the giveaway? The word “Fake“ prominently featured in our Fake Ted Van Dyk feed’s title?

Reading between the lines, it sure does sound like Van Dyk contacted Twitter attempting to get the feed shut down, so if there really is any confusion as to provenance, perhaps that’s understandable when given the cartoonish nature of his complaint, Van Dyk once again comes off as a parody of himself.

Back in 2005, when local pundits were kvelling over how Mike McGavick, with his mix of political experience and private sector success, was such a savvy choice to counter Sen. Maria Cantwell, I wasn’t so sure:

It’s hard to imagine how the Republicans are going to present a multi-millionaire insurance company executive who proudly advocates shipping jobs overseas, as a “man of the people.” But you know they’re going to try.

I hear some righties snidely claim that they’re going to force Cantwell to run on her record. Well I hate to burst their bubble, but McGavick has a record too, and it ain’t gonna look so pretty by the time November, 2006 comes around.

Substitute “real estate speculator” for “insurance company executive” and you get Dino Rossi circa 2010.

Republicans and some namby-pambies in the press may decry the way the DSCC has been adroitly flinging dirt at Rossi these past few months, but the Dems don’t need to uncover any illegal or corrupt real estate speculation to damage Rossi, they merely have to drive home the point that this is how he makes his living. For in the same way that “insurance company executive” wasn’t exactly the most admired profession back in 2006, “real estate speculator” (or even the less pejorative “investor”) is hardly the best sales pitch to voters in our post real estate bubble economy.

Rossi made his fortune on Western Washington’s prolonged real estate bubble. That’s a fact. And as his own website made clear in the wake of his 2008 gubernatorial loss (and until nearly an hour after it was supposed to flip over into campaign mode), Rossi sought to profit further from the losses suffered by others in the real estate market’s subsequent collapse:

“The next two years will be a terrific time to purchase quality properties at prices that make sense.”

Nothing illegal about that. Nothing particularly unethical, I guess, by capitalist standards.

But there’s nothing particularly honorable about it either.

There will be two candidates on the November ballot, and assuming Rossi makes it past the primary, only one of them will have profited from the real estate bubble, and from its epic collapse that undermined our economy and put millions of Americans out of work.

Huh. “Insurance company executive” doesn’t sound like such a bad resume bullet point anymore, does it?

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer suggests to Obama that he should send aerial drones and helicopters to fight the drug war at the border because of “how effective these assets have become in Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom”. Since her letter doesn’t say so either way, I’m hoping Brewer only wants these aircraft for surveillance purposes and not to rain down bombs on Arizona towns.

UPDATE: Artfart in the comments:

When Obama was heard to say “Plug the damn hole!” was he referring to the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico or Jan Brewer’s mouth?

Politico reports that Dino Rossi is preparing to jump into the U.S. Senate race, and has made his first hire:

Former Washington gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi has enlisted GOP strategist Pat Shortridge to serve as general consultant for his likely campaign against Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, a Republican consultant tells POLITICO, in the clearest sign yet that Rossi is poised to announce his candidacy.

Shortridge, who is based in Minnesota and serving as a senior strategist for Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio, did not confirm or deny that he’s signed on with Rossi, telling POLITICO Monday morning: “I don’t have any comment on that. There’s a time and a place for everything.”

According to a DSCC press release, Shortridge was also a top lobbyist in Enron’s Washington office, where he lauded Enron as “a terrific company, very innovative, very free-market-oriented,” just months before it collapsed in scandal and indictments.

“It’s no surprise that Dino Rossi’s first hire in his Senate campaign is a former lobbyist for Enron,” said DSCC Communications Director Eric Schultz. “Rossi’s consultant is likely well-trained in defending shady deals, questionable business arrangements, and other ethical lapses. At least Dino Rossi acknowledges the baggage he brings to the race and is building a campaign accordingly.”

Kinda fitting.

UPDATE:
The Seattle Times reports a second hire, Tom Goff, who served as Mike!™ McGavick’s field advisor during his failed 2006 challenge to Sen. Maria Cantwell. I’m quaking in my boots.