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The Washington Legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee is meeting this morning to hear testimony from an independent expert hired to determine what, if anything, Sound Transit might owe the state for the right to cross the I-90 bridge, and I’m guessing some legislators aren’t gonna like what they hear.

Over at Seattle Transit Blog, Ben Schiendelman has a great recap of the issue and the consultant’s preliminary report, but the takeaway is this: Sound Transit owes the state squat. Under the terms of agreements signed by federal, state and local authorities, “the I-90 center lanes have been permanently committed to transit use since 1978,” and would only be used for cars until a transit agency needed them. Furthermore, the consultant determined that WSDOT only contributed to 2.5% of the cost of the relevant, impacted portion of the I-90 corridor, and thus any claims for compensation would be limited to that.

But as Ben points out, even that 2.5% figure may be a stretch:

Whenever Sound Transit builds an improvement, such as an HOV lane, on WSDOT property, some portion of the value of that improvement is ‘land banked’ — such that if Sound Transit needs highway right-of-way, it can draw from this land bank rather than have to actually pay. Sound Transit has quite a bit in this land bank, and that as well as the Sound Transit contribution to R8A could both be considered credits if WSDOT were able to charge for use of I-90.

The Land Bank Agreement considers full payment as the value of 20 years of use. While the land bank agreement may not apply to this particular transaction, it’s still interesting here: as the center lanes have been used by “highway vehicle , including single occupancy vehicle, travel” (pg. 26) for over 20 years, it’s also arguable that the state investment for the center lanes may have already been fully returned.

The report doesn’t bode well for legislators hoping to slow or kill construction of the voter-approved East Link light rail line, or for, say, House Speaker Frank Chopp, who reportedly hoped to extort a billion dollars or more out of Sound Transit to help offset the outsized costs of his Mountlake Tunnel. It’ll be interesting to see how legislators react.

My recent post on Rick Steves interest in running for Rep. Jay Inslee’s seat should it come open received an enthusiastic response for bloggers and commenters nationwide. But it also drew a denial from Ashley Sytsma, the publicist at at Rick Steve’s Europe Through the Backdoor:

I think you were right when you wrote that Rick has one of the best jobs in the world. Right now he’s in Europe researching his guidebooks and writing scripts for upcoming Rick Steves’ Europe episodes. If you’re interested, you can read more about it in Blog Gone Europe.

As for any political aspirations, you can be assured that he has no intention of running for office. As a supporter of the Democratic Party, he occasionally contributes his time by speaking at local fundraisers and events.

Okay. I guess I’ve got no particular reason not to take Steve’s publicist at her word. But then, 2012 is still a long ways off, so Steve’s got plenty of time to change his mind.

UPDATE:
Turns out, speculation about a Steves run first hit print way back in December.

A lot of other blogs and newsy sites tend to shut down over the weekend, but not HA, because we’re writers, and write is what we do. So in case you missed it, here’s a summary of the some of the more important stories, commentaries and observations posted over the weekend:

Is the public option a “slippery slope” to single-payer?
Gov. Howard Dean spoke about healthcare reform at Town Hall Friday night, and as he was finishing signing books, I asked him if Republican critics are right when they claim that the public option is merely a slippery slope to a single-payer system. And his answer…? Listen to the audio for yourself.

Stars and Steel Bars
King County Initiative 100, whose aim was to prevent the building of a new jail, fell short of the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. But as Lee reports, the campaign did raise an important question as to why “we’re considering such a costly infrastructure investment that hardly anyone wants and is not necessary”…?

U.S. Rep. Rick Steves?
Those righties who just hate travel writer Rick Steves for his outspoken advocacy for ending our prohibition on marijuana, and who spit up bile watching his humanizing PBS travelogue of Iran, will go absolutely nuts at the thought of Steves running for Congress. But word is, that’s exactly what Steves plans to do when Rep. Jay Inslee steps down to run for governor.

Inslee announces agreement on Medicare reimbursement
And speaking of Rep. Inslee, the WA-01 Democrat held a sparsely attended press conference Saturday to announce a major healthcare agreement he helped broker, that nobody in our local press seems interested in covering. I’ll have more later today.

It was hot last night at Seattle’s Town Hall, both literally and figuratively. Outside, advocates of a single-payer healthcare system were chanting and leafleting. Inside, as Gov. Howard Dean spoke about healthcare reform, the crowd was only slightly less boisterous.

Though friendly and receptive as Gov. Dean took the podium, when it came time to take questions from the audience it quickly became apparent that the many of those inside shared the sentiments of those on the street, with some of the questioners filibustering their opportunity at the mic to take an uncompromising stance in favor of single-payer, and opposed to anything less. It was apparently a familiar scene for Gov. Dean, who had just arrived from a similar engagement in Portland, OR, where several single-payer advocates had to be removed from the audience after disrupting the proceedings.

Gov. Dean, a licensed physician and former presidential candidate and DNC Chair, is on tour promoting his new book “Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform,” but for many true believers, Gov. Dean’s prescription—take a public option and call me in a decade—isn’t real enough. What plays out is the sorta classic confrontation between idealism and pragmatism that so often undermines reforms coming from either end of the ideological spectrum, leaving those in the mushy middle so firmly in control. And it’s the kinda confrontation that the insurance industry and big pharma are counting on to stave off reform for another generation.

As Gov. Dean repeated throughout the Q&A, he’d personally prefer a single-payer system, as it’s the only reform that can guarantee universal coverage while quickly providing the level of savings needed to get our healthcare costs under control. But as he also repeated, polling consistently shows that the general public just isn’t there yet, let alone the laggards in Congress, so while single-payer shouldn’t necessarily be taken off the table, it would be unrealistic to expect it to move any further… at this point in time.

And here’s where that confrontation between idealism and pragmatism really comes into play. Public option opponents on the left dismiss the proposal as mere half-measures, while public option opponents on the right attack it as a slippery slope to single-payer. And they’re both right. The question is, will the lack of enthusiasm for the public option from idealists on the left ultimately play into the hands of the pragmatists on the right in their efforts to scuttle any substantive reforms at all?

As I’ve argued before, the public option is a slippery slope to single-payer, if implemented and executed correctly. Now some might characterize this admission as cynical and dishonest, but good policy done right is inherently a slippery slope toward better policy. As it should be. And it’s a slope we slide down only with the approval of a majority of voters.

So after he finished signing books I asked Gov. Dean whether he believed the public option would be a slippery slope to single-payer. I wanted him to say yes, and I sensed that he wanted to say yes as well. But he’s too smart for that… and too pragmatic. Instead, he enunciated what I think is the most rhetorically effective response I’ve ever heard to the right’s slippery slope argument, a response that totally undermines their objection, even without denying it:

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

This will be the change that the American people want at the pace that they want it. So the opponents have no right to make that argument. The Republican ability to make that argument assumes that they know better than the American people, that they’re so smart that the American people have no right to make up their own mind.

That’s what this bill is about. This bill is not about whether to have a single-payer or a public option or a private system; this bill is about whether the American people get to choose for themselves, or whether congressmen take it upon themselves to override the will of the American people and do something different. It’s a straight up vote between whether you’re in favor of the health insurance industry, or whether you’re in favor of your constituency. Everybody’s going to have to make that vote, and we’ll be watching.

The same could be said to the uncompromising advocates of a single-payer system.

I may not live to see the bottom, but I still believe that the public option will ultimately set us down that slippery slope to single-payer, and my sense is that many of its proponents believe the same, whether for pragmatic reasons, they’re willing to publicly say so or not. If given the choice, many Americans will flock to the public option, and if private insurers simply aren’t able to compete, I’m alright with that. It is ironic, after all, that those who insist there is no fundamental right to basic health care, also tend to be those who insist that there is a fundamental right to selling private health insurance.

Of course, there isn’t. And if the single-payer advocates can be as patient as they are passionate, I’m confident the American people will ultimately prove them right.

Staying true to their suburban sensibilities, the Seattle Times endorsed State Sen. Fred Jarrett for King County Executive today, just as I had predicted way back on June 25th:

Well, no, the Seattle Times hasn’t officially endorsed Fred Jarrett for King County Executive yet, but this morning’s editorial lauding him pretty much telegraphs that they will.

[…] The only question remaining is whether the Times endorses one or two candidates in the August primary, and if the latter, whether they’re crazy enough to endorse Susan Hutchison?

Well, they did do a dual endorsement, and no, they’re not crazy enough to endorse Susan Hutchison. State Rep. Ross Hunter gets the second, equally enthusiastic nod. No surprise there.

I suppose I could fisk the editorial; after all, there are plenty of passages with amusingly twisted logic such as:

King County has had just one executive from the Eastside, who served briefly as interim exec in the early 1980s. It isn’t so important where an executive hails from except it is a good idea to occasionally mix it up to offer different perspectives.

Get it? It isn’t so important where an executive hails from, except that we’d rather he’d hail from the Eastside. Fair enough. Stupid logic, but fair enough.

But you know what? It’s too nice a day to waste much time reading a Seattle Times editorial endorsement, let alone writing about one. What’s really important here is that it keeps my batting average predicting their endorsements near perfect.

And now that I know they’re doing dual endorsements in the primary, I’m ready to go out on a limb and make my next prediction: Joe Mallahan and (surprise!) Mayor Greg Nickels in the mayors race!

The panel is joined by Mike Lux of Open Left to discuss his new book The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came To Be. Some introspection about bloggers, journalists, and progressive politics happens.

Next, the panel collectively holds their nose and looks at the “situation” in California. Has Prop 13 lived up to its promise? What does the California situation tell us about the future in other states with pending TABOR-like legislation? Would a successful I-1033 turn Washington state into a dysfunctional disaster, à la California?

The conversation turns to pork. And how did your state’s Senators vote on the F-22s that both Obama and the Military didn’t want? At least we received money for ferry system infrastructure. Speaking of transportation infrastructure, Seattle’s light rail service started this week. Will people ride it and actually enjoy it? Or is there a telling (one-day) trend toward low ridership?

Goldy was joined by Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, Mike Lux of Open Left, and Effin’ Unsound’s & Horsesass’s Carl Ballard

The show is 48:41, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_jul_21_2009.mp3]

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

Both Crosscut’s Skip Berger and HA’s Carl Ballard took advantage of light rail to explore South Seattle. Both got off at Othello Station, both walked around the surprisingly active and distinctive neighborhood (surprising, at least, to outsiders), and both stopped for a bite to eat at one of the many Asian restaurants that dot the area.

And both came away with the same impression of how light rail will open up the once hidden neighborhoods along its path to the rest of the city.  First Carl:

The point of this (admittedly overindulgent) post is that light rail opens up a piece of the city for those of us without roots there and who make most of our trips without a car. Sure, this is something I could do yesterday if I’d wanted to. But it’s much easier to just get on a train than it is to figure out the bus schedule or to find parking if I’d wanted to drive. And I know exactly how to get home: hop on one of the trains that come every few minutes.

And then Skip:

For Seattleites who rarely get down to this part of the Rainier Valley, I predict Othello become a destination, even a place for a quick lunch for downtown workers who need a break. You can get there, have lunch, and be back downtown in less than an hour. I got off here and popped into the Huong Viet Cafe and bought a delicious pork sandwich. If I worked downtown, I might do that regularly.

[…] That’s one of the intriguing social prospects of the light rail line: it makes visible parts of the city that are often ignored. The trek down MLK, passing the new housing development, the old junkyards, the heavy machinery, the chain-link fence neighborhoods with “beware of the dog” signs and cars parked in the yard, the immigrant enclaves, the strange ethnic churches, the decaying strip malls — it helps put a big chunk of Seattle onto the visible map, at the very least for the tens of thousands of folks who will be taking light rail to the airport and might never otherwise see this part of the city.

As for me, I had the opposite experience, embarking from Othello Station, and suddenly finding myself in the middle of a bustling downtown Seattle street scene…a trip I am likely to take more often, now freed from the irritation and inconvenience of traffic (by car or by bus) and the hassle and/or expense of downtown parking. And at either end of the line, local merchants will benefit from the traffic of folks like Skip, Carl and me.

I was tempted to describe our explorations as intra-city tourism, but in fact, it is much more than that. Tourism implies a visit from outside, whereas light rail will ultimately serve to tie our city (and our region) closer together in a way that freeways and buses never have. Light rail, through its speed, comfort, reliability and permanence contracts the landscape, changing the dimension by which we experience distance from space to time, much in the same way as a high-rise elevator: nobody thinks of the fifth and fifty-fifth floors as being separated by fifty flights of stairs, and nobody plans their travel within the building accordingly. Likewise, when downtown Seattle, or any other stop along the way is always, say, 20 minutes away—not sometimes less, sometimes much, much more, depending on traffic—the boundaries between our neighborhoods will begin to blur, not in distinctiveness, but in distance.

The debate over light rail has largely focused on whether or not it is an efficient means of moving commuters, and no doubt commuters will always comprise the bulk of its ridership, but its impact on our region will be much greater that which could be achieved simply by giving commuters a better bus. Because it changes the way we view our region and use our various neighborhoods, light rail will make Greater Seattle both larger and smaller at the same time, an apparent paradox future generations will come to take for granted.

Over at Publicola, Josh goes out of his way to say “Thank You Rob McKenna” for saving light rail from implosion during Sound Transit’s troubled early years:

[H]ad the crisis in 2000 gone undetected, stand up leaders like Joni Earl would never have been asked to step in. The project would have quietly failed, and the agency would have simply dissolved around 2003 or so. It took a loud crisis, to wake everyone up and get the project back on track.

And while the press (and I’m proud to have played a role ) deserves some of the credit for spotlighting the agency’s financial disasters, it was dissident Sound Transit board member Rob McKenna (the others were party line cheer leaders) who nudged the press to take the closer look. He already had taken a closer look—and his spread sheets were more than compelling. […] I’d say Rob McKenna (ironically, given that his agenda was to bring the project down) was one of the most important Sound Transit board members there has been.

Yeah, well, I suppose, maybe, but it’s worth pointing out that just because McKenna worked as hard as he could to discredit Sound Transit and its early leadership, doesn’t mean that’s its management woes wouldn’t have otherwise been uncovered and corrected. I mean, its not like Sound Transit didn’t (and doesn’t) still have plenty of powerful enemies without him.

So while it sure is amusing to give McKenna ironic credit for unintentionally saving the rail line he tried to destroy, in truth, he was merely a conduit and public voice for a cabal of anti-rail partisans (you think he actually compiled those spreadsheets himself?), so I think Josh overstates his case.

At least when it comes to Sound Transit Phase I.

Phase II on the other hand, and the East Link extension that will comprise the bulk of the project… now that will be McKenna’s bastard child without a doubt. For if not for McKenna’s insistence on mandating the onerous “subarea equity” provisions into Sound Transit’s financing scheme, the agency would never have had the revenue stream available to make East Link light rail possible.

At McKenna’s insistence the Sound Transit taxing district was divided into five subareas, with an equity provision requiring that taxes raised in each subarea be spent on projects directly benefiting its residents. With the bulk of the Central Link line running through Seattle, revenues generated in the North King subarea have already been fully bonded for years to come to pay for construction, maintenance and operation of the recently opened line.

But the relatively minor improvements thus far constructed on the Eastside—mostly park and rides, bus ramps and expanded bus service—have been much less capital intensive. This leaves oodles of East King subarea Phase I tax revenue still coming in, unencumbered by existing debt, and available to bond a billion or two of the several billion dollars needed to cross I-90 and build out through Bellevue to Redmond in Phase II’s East Link plan.

Subarea equity was meant to cripple Sound Transit, and it has; financial constraints are one of the reasons it takes Sound Transit so long to complete construction. Indeed, without the billion or so of federal grants—money McKenna went to DC to lobby to block—the existing line and the University District extension might not have been possible.

But now that Sound Transit has survived to open the first segment and convince voters to expand its revenues to pay for Phase II, the subarea equity provision has come back to bite the anti-rail schemers in the ass, enabling Sound Transit to deliver to voters a much more ambitious East Link line than Phase II revenues alone could afford. That is, through the magic of subarea equity, East King Phase I taxing authority is now subsidizing Phase II construction.

So, yeah, thank you Rob McKenna, for making East Link possible… and so much more difficult for you and your anti-rail buddies to kill off.

It’s a good thing for Susan Hutchison that she’s expected to breeze through the August primary into the general election for King County Executive, for as Richard Pope reveals in the comment threads, it looks like she probably couldn’t count on herself to deliver a crucial vote:

Someone should make an issue of Susan Hutchison’s voting record. Susan S. Hutchison (DOB: 03/24/1954) failed to vote in the August or September primary elections in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2007. […] She didn’t vote in the presidential primaries in 2000 and 2008 either…

Eh… who bothers to vote in odd-year primaries anyway, what with only those peripheral local races on the ballot?

UPDATE:
Richard points out that the other four county executive candidates all have perfect general and primary voting records from 2000 through 2008.

More people are starting to notice that we’ve had a very big problem in our City Attorney’s office [emphasis in the original]:

The executive committee had recommended a sole endorsement of incumbent City Attorney Tom Carr. But a delegate from the stagehands’ union reportedly stood up, and said that Carr’s involvement in Operation Sobering Thought, a bar and nightclub sting, “really hurt our members and he was too punitive,” said one of the delegates, on the condition of anonymity. Several delegates spoke against Carr, according to another man exiting onto the street, who said, “They think Carr could have been more fiscally responsible” and “he has cost the city a lot of money for his decisions.” The man added, “In the past, delegates spoke up for Carr, but they didn’t like what he has done his last years in office.” Several other members spoke in favor of Carr’s challenger Pete Holmes. Carr didn’t get a sufficient number of votes for an endorsement; in fact, Carr’s was the only executive recommendation that the group didn’t ratify. The executive committee may recommend dual endorsement—or a sole endorsement of Holmes—after the primary election.

Seattle Times editorial columnist Bruce Ramsey stopped by Drinking Liberally last night, and I immediately groused about how a dearth of irritating editorials in recent weeks has reduced me to dumpster diving over at Crosscut. Ramsey explained that he’d just returned from vacation, and that my complaint would be remedied in the morning with an editorial he penned on trade.

He didn’t disappoint: “Anti-trade bill that would hurt Washington state trade jobs should be stopped.”

At the risk of destroying his credibility with his co-workers, I have to admit that Ramsey is my favorite Times editorial writer (though as I explained to him last night, “it’s a pretty low bar”), largely because I find his columns both readable and consistent. The latter quality I attribute to his passionate libertarianism, a passion clearly on display in today’s editorial:

The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act makes private commerce subject to the moral imperialism of advocates who do not conduct trade and don’t care about it.

Under the bill, if a foreign trading partner’s government doesn’t have “adequate labor and environmental regulations” — the adequacy determined by busybodies — the trade can be stopped.

If the foreign government hasn’t “taken effective steps to combat and prevent private and public corruption” — the effectiveness defined by busybodies — the trade can be stopped.

If the foreign government doesn’t have “transparency” and “due process of law” to suit American tastes, the trade can be stopped.

Uh-huh. Passion… check. Consistency… check. Facts… not so much.

Putting aside his efforts to dismiss those of us who care about human rights and environmental protection as mere “busybodies” (you know, “busybodies” like the Pope), Ramsey’s passionate hyperbole substantially misrepresents a bill that doesn’t actually include the authority to “stop” anything. Rather, the stated purpose of the TRADE Act is to review existing trade agreements, draw up standards on which to base future agreements and renegotiations, and provide greater Congressional oversight of the process, its main provisions consisting of:

• Require a comprehensive review of existing trade agreements with an emphasis on economic results, enforcement and compliance and an analysis of non-tariff provisions in trade agreements.
• Spell out standards for labor and environmental protections, food and product safety, national security exceptions and remedies that must be included in new trade pacts.
• Set requirements regarding public services, farm policy, investment, government procurement and affordable medicines and compare them with components of current trade agreements.
• Require the president to submit renegotiation plans for current trade pacts prior to negotiating new agreements and prior to congressional consideration of pending agreements.
• Create a committee made up of the chairs and ranking members of each committee whose jurisdiction is affected by trade agreements to review the president’s plan for renegotiations.
• Restore congressional oversight of trade agreements.

All existing trade treaties remain in force, and this bill provides no authority to modify or “stop” them. As for future agreements, the language within the bill is far from anti-trade or heavy handed, for example, Section 4, Subsection D:

(D) provide that failures to meet the labor standards required by the trade agreement shall be subject to effective dispute resolution and enforcement mechanisms and penalties that are included in the core text of the trade agreement…

In truth, the “busybodies” Ramsey refers to are members of Congress, and even if they were to determine that a particular trading partner was, say, violating fundamental human rights (defined in the act as “the rights enumerated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights”), they still wouldn’t have the power to unilaterally “stop” the trade as Ramsey implies. Rather, under future treaties, our government’s recourse would be to pursue “effective dispute resolution.”

Hardly a draconian, anti-trade provision.

Ramsey is right that Washington is perhaps the most trade dependent state in the nation, which makes trade a sensitive subject for members of both parties. And if anybody doubts the extent to which “free traders” like Ramsey control the debate in this state, look no further than the fact that none of our state’s House delegation are among the 110 U.S. representatives who co-sponsored the TRADE Act… not even typically reliable progressives like Jim McDermott and Jay Inslee.

But Ramsey does a disservice to our state and to his readers when he reduces a 44-page bill into a 229-word, knee-jerk screed against trade restrictions of any kind:

The idea behind this bill is that commerce is bad and is making workers in America poor. Tell that to workers assembling aircraft, writing software, or moving containers on the docks.

Yeah, well, tell that to the tens of thousands of Washington workers who have seen their jobs shipped overseas to low-wage nations with lax environmental, workplace and product safety standards, and often no right to organize at all.

I appreciate that Ramsey’s objections to this bill are consistent with his steadfast libertarianism; in fact, I almost respect it. But rather than foster informed public debate on this issue, his intent appears to be to quash it, and I expect better than that from my favorite Seattle Times editorial board member.

Earlier today, Goldy discussed the race for Seattle City Attorney and incumbent Tom Carr’s attempts to misrepresent his opponent’s qualifications for the office. Pete Holmes initially became Carr’s opponent in this race after he became so infuriated by his attempts to deal with him from his position as the attorney on the citizen’s police oversight board that he decided to challenge him. Here’s the latest polling on the race:

The results show a nearly 3:1 lead for Tom Carr, but 70% of the electorate remains undecided. Women and voters 35-49 both have an undecided count over 70%. It’s over 80% for Republicans. Of decided voters, Carr still maintains a margin of nearly 4:1 amongst respondents 50-64 and over 4:1 with those 65 and older.

The vast majority of voters just aren’t paying attention to this race. But they should be. Tom Carr has been the City Attorney for Seattle for the past eight years and has repeatedly shown himself to be overzealous in pursuit of nanny state crusades and completely out of touch with the voters of the city. Dominic Holden recently provided a recap of his horrendous track record:

– Tom Carr fought against I-75, the initiative to make marijuana law enforcement the lowest priority of Seattle Police.

– Since the passage of I-75, Carr has actually prosecuted a higher percentage of the pot cases referred to his office.

– After a citywide sweep called Operation Sobering Thought, Carr tried to send 27 bar employees to jail for up to a year for various offenses such as serving minors (none of them were successfully prosecuted).

– Carr used city resources to unsuccessfully appeal – all the way up to federal court – a free speech case against a balloon artist who claimed he didn’t need a permit to do his thing at Seattle Center, and has threatened to waste even more money appealing it to the Supreme Court.

– He aggressively impounded the cars of people with unpaid parking tickets until the state Supreme Court ruled that he was breaking the law. The fiasco later cost the city $1.3 million in a class-action lawsuit.

– He once briefly attempted to threaten several Seattle Times reporters with jail time if they didn’t reveal their confidential sources.

As Dominic mentioned, the office of City Attorney in most other places is not an elected official. While it feels nice to have direct influence over the person who does this job, what tends to happen instead is that political creatures like Carr can hold onto an office because voters tend to have too little bandwidth to follow these smaller races. But this one’s too important for that now, and Seattle really can’t afford another four years of this.

As Erica reported yesterday over at Publicola, the whisper campaign regarding Seattle City Attorney candidate Pete Holmes is no longer a whisper, with both incumbent Tom Carr and his campaign manager Cindi Laws now publicly and repeatedly challenging Holmes’ eligibility for the office.

Today, Carr reiterated that view. “The charter provision says that you have to be both active [with the bar] and engaged in the practice of law in Seattle,” Carr said this morning. “He has not been practicing law—taking on clients, giving advice, doing the things that lawyers do.”

Well, here is what the City Charter says about the qualifications for the office of City Attorney:

The City Attorney shall be an attorney of the Supreme Court of the State, and have been in the practice of his or her profession in The City of Seattle for at least four years next prior to his or her election.

And here is what the Washington State Bar Association says about Holmes’ status as an active attorney:

Clearly, Holmes has been an “attorney of the Supreme Court of the State” since 1986 (five years longer than Carr, by the way), so that part of the requirement seems beyond dispute. As for the requirement that the City Attorney have been in the practice of law in Seattle for at least four years prior to the election, here’s what Holmes told me via email:

My Washington bar license has always been on “active” status. After 16 years in the private sector, City Council appointed me as the lawyer member of the OPA Review Board in 2002 (which expressly requires a WSBA member in good standing), where I practiced my profession in public service until the last quarter of 2008. I’ve been in private practice at Crocker Kuno PLLC since the first quarter of 2009. I was fully authorized to practice law during my OPARB tenure; I just didn’t accept private, fee-paying clients—and presumably Carr hasn’t either since 2002.

Now, I’m no attorney (much to my mother’s chagrin), but I don’t read anything in the City Charter that says anything about taking on private clients. If Holmes has been an active member of the Bar, and such membership was a requirement of his appointment to the OPA Review Board, then that sure sounds like practicing law to me, for why require an active attorney if not to benefit from his legal advice? And how, in this sense, is Holmes legal service to the city really any different from Carr’s legal service, except by volume?

But all this niggling, legalist nitpicking is really beside the point, for if Carr truly believed that Holmes was technically ineligible to run for the office of City Attorney, the appropriate course of action would have been not a whisper campaign, but rather a legal challenge to his eligibility under RCW 29A.68.011, alleging that Holmes’ name “is about to be wrongfully placed upon the ballots,” and to be filed in King County Superior Court “no later than the second Friday following the closing of the filing period for nominations for such office“… a deadline long since passed.

I mean, Carr is the sitting City Attorney for chrisakes. I assume he knows this stuff.

No, instead Carr and Laws appear to be raising questions about Holmes’ technical qualifications merely as an underhanded means of raising questions about Holmes’ professional qualifications for the office. “Hey look… this guy is such a crappy lawyer he doesn’t understand the law enough to realize he isn’t even eligible to run for the office!” That seems to be the message coming out of the Carr campaign.

What this sort of cynical, political maneuvering says about Carr’s own professionalism, I’ll leave up to you.

The podcast makes another surprise return from its summer vacation, giving Goldy and his panel of bloggers a chance to attack the political issues of our day over beer and nachos. The panel takes delight in the splendidly bewildering surrender of Gov. Sarah Palin. After a brief sojourn into rumors about imminent indictments, the panel delves into the big question of whether Palin has spoiled herself politically.

[14:01] It was a big day as Senator Elect Al Franken shortened his title to just Senator Al Franken. Goldy finds in this great hope for foul-mouthed politicos everywhere. The panel wonders when the sobered former satirist will again be able to get his humor back on.

[24:01] Finally, the panel examines Initiative 1033 that would limit future state spending to inflation plus population growth. Two major flaws of the initiative are discussed—the downward ratchet from economic dips and use of the wrong inflation index. If passed, will I-1033 cause Washington State to follow in the dreadful fiscal footsteps of California? A raucous debate ensues over whether angry scare tactics are the right approach for fighting the initiative.

Goldy was joined by Group News Blog publisher Jesse Wendel, Peace Tree Farm’s N in Seattle, and Horses Ass’ Will Kelly-Kamp.

The show is 47:04, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_jul_7_2009.mp3]

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

Victoria Jackson, who made a career out of acting stupid on SNL, serves up something that is rather hard to characterize.

Obama legally kills babies and now he can legally kill Grandmas!

Hitler did this. He killed the weak, the sick, the old, and babies and races/religions he didn’t like. Hitler also controlled the media. (Where’s the public debate between scientists on “Climate Change/Global Warming?”) Hitler had the VW bug invented as the state car. What will O’s nationalized car be? So… kill off the weak. That’s the plan. Tax the workers to death. Erase the middle class. Sounds like the evil governments we studied in high school long ago. The evil governments were : kings, oligarchies, facist, socialist, and communist. Now it’s called the Obama Administration. Sounds like candy or a rock band.

Believe it or not, the piece gets better (or worse, depending of course on your point of view and mood) from there, as Jackson goes on to harass an innocent Burbank gift shop owner with wingnut ramblings, then wonders why she is met with silence.

I wonder if Jackson and Dennis Miller hang around Burbank together, worrying about nationalized cars? The burdens these folks carry, I tell you. My heart aches for Jackson, who is certainly old enough to be a grandma and is clearly rather frightened by it all. She should get out of her comfort zone and drive over to Malibu or something.

(I saw it here.)