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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.

Last week’s contest was won by uptown. It was Love’s Travel Stop along I-40 east of Oklahoma City, which was destroyed in last week’s tornadoes. Here’s a page showing what’s left of it.

If you haven’t been by for the contest in a few weeks, each contest picture is now related to something in the news, and the image might not be at the default orientation (facing north). As always, you can click the picture to go straight to the Bing mapping site. Here’s this week’s, good luck!

Last week, an investigation into a Tacoma medical marijuana dispensary (which is still illegal in this state) led to three raids by the West End Narcotics Enforcement Team – also known as WestNET. Two of the raids were in Tacoma, while a third was in Olalla, just west of Vashon Island. The Seattle Weekly reports on the Olalla raid:

Christine Casey, patient coordinator of North End Club 420, tells the Weekly that the detectives from the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNet) who came to her house in Olalla (west of Vashon Island) handcuffed her 14-year-old son for two hours and put a gun to his head. They also told the kid to say good-bye to his dad, Guy Casey, because the dispensary owner was going to prison.

And as the detectives looked for cash to prove that the dispensary was illegally profiting from pot sales, Casey says, they confiscated $80 that her 9-year-old daughter had received from her family for a straight-A report card. Where did they find it?

In the girl’s Mickey Mouse wallet, according to Casey. She also claims that the cops dumped out all her silverware, busted a hole in the wall, and broke appliances. She alleges too that the cops finger-wrote “I sell pot” in the dust covering the family’s Hummer, which the cops then seized. (WestNet did not return repeated calls seeking comment.)

It’s worth keeping in mind that WestNET is the same agency that allegedly tried to poison Bruce and Pamela Olson’s dogs before raiding their home in 2007. The dogs required $2,000 in vet bills. Bruce Olson, also of Olalla, was eventually acquitted of all charges against him after the police informant who claimed to have bought marijuana from Olson was deemed by the jury to have zero credibility.

Once again, WestNET is claiming that a “police operative” repeatedly bought marijuana from the Caseys without showing a medical marijuana authorization. The Caseys deny it. If the Caseys are telling the truth, it’s just another reason to put pressure on our state’s Congressional delegation to eliminate WestNET’s federal funding.

But that’s not the only wrongdoing being alleged here. Sensible Washington, the group running the I-1068 campaign, says that WestNET also seized a number of signed I-1068 petitions:

Sensible Washington has learned that one dozen signed copies of I-1068, the marijuana legalization initiative for Washington State of which Sensible Washington is the sponsor, were seized last week by the federally-funded WestNet drug task force. Our estimate is that 200 signatures are sitting in WestNet’s offices in Port Orchard, apparently seized as evidence during a series of raids against the North End Club 420 in Tacoma. The club is operating as a medical marijuana dispensary.

We have made repeated calls to WestNet’s office, but have yet to receive any assurance that the task force’s personnel have secured the signed petitions and that they plan to promptly return them to Sensible Washington.

I’m trying to determine if WestNET would be violating any specific laws by refusing to turn over signed petitions. I’ll update this post if I get an answer.

UPDATE: Josh Farley is reporting that WestNET will return the petitions.

UPDATE 2: The Port Orchard Independent still has its head in the sand.

Rep. Dave Reichert’s “conscience-driven independent streak” was on display once again last week in a closed-door meeting with 8th Congressional District Republican PCO’s, where the three-term congressman attempted to defend the strategy behind his handful of pro-environmental votes. But before speaking frankly, he had to make sure that he was amongst friends:

Now, first of all, are there any reporters in the room? Does anybody recognize … are there any people in here that you recognize as strangers? So we know that all of us in here are family, right?

Well, apparently not, hence the leak of this secretly recorded audio from the meeting, which I now provide to you, totally unedited:

[audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/ReichertEnvironment.mp3]

Aren’t full-featured smart phones wonderful?

Rep. Reichert goes on to explain the “certain moves, chess pieces, strategies” he must employ to hold his “50/50 district,” even if it means breaking with his party, and his conscience, to occasionally cast a vote in favor of the environment.

Uh, I just wanted to be honest with you. You know Jennifer Dunn was an environmentalist, uh, in her votes, too. Uh, she was also pro-choice. I don’t know if most of you remember that now. But, but, if you want to hold on to this district, there are certain, there are certain things that you must, uh, do. This is a 50/50 district.

Notice how Reichert distinguishes between being an environmentalist, and being an environmentalist in one’s votes. That’s kinda the whole theme here.

Now if you look at Senator Brown’s race, uh, he took, in order for him to win that race in Massachusetts, it took 60 percent of the independent votes to win. Now you may not get, if you watch Senator Brown’s votes now over the next six years you might say, “What the heck… why did we vote for him?” you know, Massachusetts people. But he’s going to be maybe 70/30, maybe he’s going to be an 80/20, but at least you don’t have a 99 percent/one. You know 99 D, one percent R. Uh, you have a 70/30, 80/20. You have got to pick your battles.

Hear that? You gotta pick your battles. And while Reichert loves to regale his audiences with tales of being shot at, and staring the Green River Killer straight in the eyes (indeed, at almost six and a half minutes, this may be the longest I’ve ever heard Reichert go without mentioning his stint as sheriff), hell if he’s gonna take on those scary, hemp-wearing, granola-crunching, tree-hugging environmentalists.

Uh, if you look at the Pombo race in California – all of you remember Mr. Pombo? – he was a 20 percent. He had 20 percent victory in California. He was a huge roadblock to the environmentalists. They came in – was it two years ago we lost? – two or four years ago he lost. The environmental groups came in with millions of dollars and flipped that 20 percent, 20 points, they flipped that district. He lost.

And Reichert…?

I only have two to three percent to play with, every two years, and I have to raise three to four million dollars to stay in, to do it. I am a 90/10. 90 to 10, if you look at my votes. All the TARP votes are no, all the stimulus package votes are no, the health care I’ve been no all three times.

Let’s be clear: Reichert is no environmental leader, and he sure as hell doesn’t want to be perceived as one, at least not behind closed Republican doors. He votes 90% with his Republican leadership, and that other 10%…? Well, that’s just what he needs to do in order to keep those big, bad environmentalists from kneecapping him the same way they did poor Rep. Pombo.

Wild Sky was a done deal. It was already in its process. It had been worked on for eight years before I even came to Congress. Jennifer Dunn endorsed Wild Sky, and I followed in her footsteps per her advice.

[…] So, uh, you know, it, it, it, was it was a good vote. It was a good move on my part to do that.  … Because I’ve only, I’ve, supported Wild Sky, I’ve supported Alpine Lakes, because of the reasons that I just laid out to you. They are – what I’ve done is taken out I’ve taken them out of the game in this district. They’re out.

Hear that, Washington Conservation Voters and other environmental groups? Reichert has taken you “out of the game” in his district. You’re out.  So… how’s it feel to be played by Dave Reichert?

And it’s not like we all didn’t have a heads up, for this isn’t the first time Reichert has publicly said a little more than he probably should’ve about his brand of pragmatic politics… for example this 2006 speech before the Mainstream Republicans in which he insists on detailing the obvious:

And so when the leadership comes to me and says, “Dave we need you to take a vote over here, because we want to protect you and keep this majority,” I do it.

Of course, less surprising than Reichert’s repeated admission that he blatantly panders to environmentalists in order to maintain his 90% Republican voting record in his 50/50 district, is that the Seattle Times rewarded him for it by outrageously lauding him as a “conscience-driven independent.”

How embarrassing. And not just for the Times. For while environmental leaders may feel like they’ve scored a strategic victory by strong-arming Reichert into compliance, their narrow focus on their own legislative agenda ends up hurting the broader agenda of the progressive community as a whole. WA-08 is a 50/50 district with a congressman who votes 90/10, at least partially because environmental groups have failed to hold Reichert responsible for his hypocrisy.

Were he representing a more conservative district, that might be acceptable, but we could do much better than that in WA-08… if only environmental voters in his district would take Reichert at his word, rather than his vote.

– Specter goes down

– The Korean War – still going on

– Ryan Grim points out that the truly despicable Mark Souder is now seeking forgiveness for moral transgressions after never believing in such a thing as a Congressman.

– Daniel Jack Chasan in Crosscut claims that Attorney General Rob McKenna’s lawsuit against the health care bill isn’t as ridiculous as most legal experts think it is. But what I found interesting was that on page 2, McKenna tries to address the hypocrisy of being outraged by the new health care bill, despite not being previously outraged by the ruling that set the most recent precedent for interpreting the Commerce Clause, Gonzales v. Raich. In fact, McKenna happily used that ruling to go after medical marijuana patients in this state. Here’s what Chasan reported:

McKenna concedes that five years ago in Raich, Justice Antonin Scalia concurred with the majority ruling that the commerce clause enabled Congress to seize marijuana plants being grown legally — allegedly for medical purposes — under California law. (Talk about strange bedfellows: Scalia concurred in the majority opinion written by John Paul Stevens, while Clarence Thomas joined Sandra Day O’Connor’s dissent.) But pot-growing is activity, not inactivity, McKenna notes, and besides, marijuana is clearly traded in interstate commerce.

Here’s part of the ruling from Gonzales v. Raich:

Cases decided during that “new era,” which now spans more than a century, have identified three general categories of regulation in which Congress is authorized to engage under its commerce power. First, Congress can regulate the channels of interstate commerce. Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 150 (1971). Second, Congress has authority to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and persons or things in interstate commerce. Ibid. Third, Congress has the power to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Ibid.; NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 37 (1937). Only the third category is implicated in the case at hand.

Our case law firmly establishes Congress’ power to regulate purely local activities that are part of an economic “class of activities” that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. See, e.g., Perez, 402 U.S., at 151; Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 128—129 (1942). As we stated in Wickard, “even if appellee’s activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce.” Id., at 125. We have never required Congress to legislate with scientific exactitude. When Congress decides that the “ ‘total incidence’ ” of a practice poses a threat to a national market, it may regulate the entire class. See Perez, 402 U.S., at 154—155 (quoting Westfall v. United States, 274 U.S. 256, 259 (1927) (“[W]hen it is necessary in order to prevent an evil to make the law embrace more than the precise thing to be prevented it may do so”)). In this vein, we have reiterated that when “ ‘a general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under that statute is of no consequence.’ ” E.g., Lopez, 514 U.S., at 558 (emphasis deleted) (quoting Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183, 196, n. 27 (1968)).

The lines that McKenna is trying to draw here between the two cases simply don’t matter within the context of the Gonzales v. Raich decision. There’s no distinction made between activity and inactivity or any reason to believe that failing to be insured wouldn’t be considered an “activity”. Congress can establish requirements for possessing health insurance because the lack of health insurance by large numbers of citizens would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Second, in the Gonzales v. Raich decision, they specifically addressed the case where the marijuana is not sold and never part of any market. What was decided was that even in that case, price fluctuations could theoretically cause the marijuana to enter the market, therefore it was within the scope of the Commerce Clause to regulate it.

That’s the aspect of the decision that never sat well with me, but there isn’t even an equivalent argument to be made for what McKenna is arguing. In a regulated health care system (which not even McKenna is saying Congress can’t implement), if you establish a rule that health care providers can’t reject people with pre-existing conditions, then you have to implement something to keep people from just waiting until they get sick before they buy insurance. Otherwise, the system goes bankrupt. And that’s done through either mandates or taxes. I don’t see any way that the Supreme Court would rule that one method is fine (implementing taxes), but the other is unconstitutional. And neither do most legal experts from what I can tell.

Paul Armentano brings us the scary resume of President Obama’s nominee to run the DEA, Michele Leonhart:

As interim DEA director, Ms. Leonhart orchestrated federal raids on individuals and facilities who were compliant with the medical marijuana laws of their states — a policy that is in direct conflict with the wishes of the present administration. Further, Ms. Leonhart has inexplicably called the rising death toll of civilians attributable to the U.S./Mexican drug war “a signpost of the success” of current drug prohibition strategies. Finally, she has repeatedly acted to block clinical research into the medical properties of marijuana — actions that would appear to run contrary to this administration’s pledge to allow science, rather than rhetoric and ideology, guide public policy.

You can contact Senators Murray and Cantwell with this online alert.

If Dino Rossi is betting on Tea Party enthusiasm to sweep him into a competitive race with Democratic incumbent Sen. Patty Murray, he better not bet too big, at least according to a couple of ‘baggers quoted in yesterday’s TNT:

Rossi is considering whether to enter the race against Sen. Patty Murray. One of a long roster of less well-known Republicans seeking to unseat Murray, former NFL tight end Clint Didier, last weekend said tea party activists would reject Rossi. And no candidate will win without their backing, he said.

Pierce County Tea Party member Lawrence Hutt agrees, though he supports a different candidate for Senate, Sean Salazar.

“Rossi is too establishment to get the tea partiers all fired up,” said Hutt, a paralegal from Wauna. “He’s not going to fan the flames of any tea partiers I know.”

Sen. Patty Murray’s alleged vulnerability hinges on a voter enthusiasm imbalance… you know, that Big Red Wave that’s supposed to sweep Democratic incumbents out of office come November. But if a lot of that Republican enthusiasm is coming from the over-hyped teabagger wing of the party, then the later Rossi jumps into the race, the more of an establishment interloper he’s going to appear to Didier and Salazar’s passionate supporters.

I mean, it would have been one thing if Rossi had gotten into the race back in March when he first started dominating the headlines and rumor mill, but for him to just step in and claim the nomination a couple months before the primary, well that can’t help but piss off a bunch of the true believers, and it’s tough to see how it puts him in much of a position to win their enthusiastic support.

The longer Rossi waits, the more toes he steps on, and the harder the logistics of a competitive race become. For example, if he were to jump in tomorrow, Rossi would have to raise about $60,000 a day between now and Nov. 2, just to match Sen. Murray’s current totals. And it’s not like Sen. Murray would be standing still; in 2004 she raised an additional $5.1 million from April through the end of the campaign, while facing only an anemic challenge from George Nethercutt.

Nor can Rossi count on anything approaching the $13 million worth of “independent” expenditures that came his way during his 2008 gubernatorial campaign. The BIAW, by far his biggest backer, is betting the farm on an initiative that would gut our state’s worker’s compensation system, while the NRSC would have an awfully tough time matching the $5.5 million the RGA put behind Rossi two years ago. Meanwhile the Washington Association of Realtors, one of the state’s wealthiest Republican-leaning PACs, has already endorsed Murray.

So is Rossi too liberal? No. Is he too establishment? Maybe. But his biggest problem is that he’s not really enough of anything.