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Unlike most Seattle Democrats, Reuven Carlyle is willing to push an agenda pretty hard. Unfortunately, often times (privatizing public education and the Boeing giveaway for example) he pushes a terrible agenda. At other times, like defending King County against the state trying to vacuum up all of the money, he’s better. So, while most Seattle Dems inspire apathy and a wish that they would use their safe seats for something better than acting as placeholders, Carlyle actually has bold proposals. This is one that I like.

But Carlyle believes lawmakers and the public deserve to know how much a company like Boeing pays in state taxes, especially if that company comes to the Legislature asking for special consideration in the tax code.

Washington is certainly not alone in guarding corporate tax information. Oregon and Idaho do the same. But in Wisconsin, anyone can fill out a form and request a company’s—even an individual’s—net tax information.

Sounds good to me (although I’m not sure about individuals, or really how that would work in our sales tax heavy state). But it seems reasonable to know how much business are paying. And I was somewhat taken aback by the fact that we don’t know.

It’s time to let out your inner Socialist! Please join us for an evening of politics over a pint at tonight’s gathering of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday evening at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Our normal starting time is 8:00pm.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another nearby DL meeting over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Shelton chapters meet. The South Seattle chapter meets this Wednesday. And for Thursday, the Spokane and Tacoma chapters meet.

With 212 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

– Who could have predicted?

– You don’t know how much time I tried to think of a war on Cranksgiving joke for here. Like 3 minutes at least. There isn’t one.

– Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell have a petition asking the House to take up ENDA.

– No, Mr. Feaver, Katrina isn’t shorthand for “bungled administration policy.” It’s an actual tragedy in which at least 1,800 people lost their lives. Thousands of others were left stranded without food or water in their flooded neighborhoods, on freeway viaducts, in hospitals and nursing homes, and in the televised hell-hole of the Superdome.

– Regional subtext to the Boeing special session: Left Coast (Cascadia) vs. Deep South Also, I’ve linked to several from the series, but I don’t think I’ve come out and said go read Emmett’s Cascadia Exists pieces, but you totally should if you’re interested in what makes the region unique.

– Sadly, pathetically, too many of us still see the mentally ill as crazy, nuts, losers, cursed by God, and so on. Few of us would joke about the bald head of a woman fighting cancer, but that same woman, mentally ill, wandering the streets and talking to herself – left on her own as many of the mentally ill are – would be mocked and laughed at endlessly. The woman would be the same woman, just suffering from different health ailments. The difference would be us: our knowledge and our attitudes.

– I realize you shouldn’t read too much into a press release, but it looks like good numbers for the Washington exchange.

-There is no nadir.

Boeing’s threat to take their ball and go somewhere else, while hardly surprising, is incredibly short sighted.

On Thursday, Boeing made good on its threats and began looking elsewhere to develop its popular new 777X airplane. A spokesman for Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said Boeing officials called him to begin talks that could bring the work — and thousands of jobs — to that state.

Boeing Co. spokesman Doug Alder declined to specify where the company is now looking, saying there is no short list and that there are many places both within Boeing’s current operations and outside that are being explored.

“Everything is back on the table,” he said.

I’m sorry Boeing doesn’t know this, but the best place to build planes anywhere in the world is the Puget Sound. The fact that Boeing has build that up for over a century means something. It means that the people who are going to make the best quality airplanes are living here. It means they have experience and know how, and the people with a passion for it have moved here. It means that they will help get the job done.

By threatening to go other places, they’re saying they’re willing to put out an inferior product. They’re signaling that when your safety and security is on the line, they’re at least considering going on the cheap. They’re saying that they know they can do better, but fuck it. That doesn’t sound like a long term strategy. You get what you pay for, and they’re clearly establishing that they don’t want to pay for quality when you’re in a tube in the air.

Also, there’s the fact that so much of their business model is to get free money from taxpayers. And I think it’s fair to say that taxpayers are more willing to pay for good jobs than the ones Boeing thinks it should give its employees. Between the largest bit of corporate welfare in US history that the Washington State Legislature just offered them and all the military contracting, Boeing lives off government largess. And it’s tough to imagine Patty Murray going to the mattresses on the tanker deal or the legislature caving so quickly to all of their demands if the jobs were not good ones.

– Happy Veterans Day.

– Reading Patty Murray’s Washington Post editorial on the need to close loopholes in the Federal tax code is yet another reminder of how intransigent the GOP really are.

– Here’s hoping Larry Phillips and Dow Constantine live up to their threats of going it alone.

– At 95, Graham is frail and in ill health. His image and his legacy have been usurped as political tools used by his son Franklin Graham, who seems desperate to be a political player and kingmaker. Not content with living off the interest of his father’s legacy, Franklin has been burning through the capital.

– You know how gun nuts are always telling us that their having all the guns is protecting all the freedoms? I’m pretty sure they meant this sort of thing.

– Dudes Are Such Whiny Baby Liars About Girls With Short Hair

Proverbs 30:15
The leech has two daughters.
‘Give! Give!’ they cry.

Discuss.

In the state Senate race that N in Seattle wrote about before the election, the Republican won. So, congrats to Jan Angel. I’d have preferred if she lost, but sometimes the person I want to win doesn’t. You know who’s really happy about that result though? Rodney Tom (Trib link).

“When everybody thinks they’re that 25th vote, well, they’ve got leverage,” Tom said. “It just makes it a lot more difficult.”

Seriously. He said that. Rodney. Tom. Said. That!

You know what? I’m really sad for Rodney Tom, everybody. How could he have predicted that in a caucus there might be people who are willing to blow the whole thing up? How could he have known that whiny entitled assholes might destroy a caucus to get what they want?

Just think of how a few years ago when Lisa Brown was trying to figure out a budget, if she’d realized, like Rodney Tom said:

“When everybody thinks they’re that 25th vote, well, they’ve got leverage,” Tom said. “It just makes it a lot more difficult.”

Just think when Ed Murray was trying to keep the majority that the Democrats had won at the polls if he’d had advice like:

“When everybody thinks they’re that 25th vote, well, they’ve got leverage,” Tom said. “It just makes it a lot more difficult.”

Honestly, Rodney Tom complaining about the possibility of defections in a caucus is so not self aware that nematodes read that and roll their eyes.

– Vote if you haven’t already. The Washington State Democrats want to make sure you do. Remember Seattle, if you don’t vote, the slightly worse candidate might be mayor.

– You don’t say, coal trains cause coal dust? Actually, in all seriousness, these sorts of studies are important, and even if the answer seems obvious, it’s important to have data.

– Construction starts in a few weeks on the seawall.

– Oh look Rachel Maddow mentioned the I-522 campaign:

$550 of the $22m raised against WA proposal to label GMO food comes from in-state. Not $550k, but $550: http://t.co/nJNuRFtlKu

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) November 4, 2013

– So how is it that the US government was caught flat-footed about foreclosuregate? How is it that the UK government was caught off guard by the London Whale and Libor Rate-Rigging scandal? How is it that ANY of the financial shenanigans of the past decade took place and yet there have been few, if any, prosecutions?

– The Parks Legacy Citizens Advisory Committee (PLCAC), appointed to consider Seattle Parks and Recreation’s future funding options, has released a first draft of 37 newly prioritized investment initiatives (funding recommendations) that are being considered for a possible ballot measure in August 2014.

– I’m not sure why zombies are so popular right now, but they can draw in cartography nerds.

In a sales tax reliant state where we recently voted privatize and tax the poop out of liquor sales, there are high taxes on hard alcohol. This PI piece seems to forget that we just taxed ourselves, not as punishment to boozehounds, but to replace the revenue that privatization cost the state. You can get booze at your grocery store, but you have to pay higher taxes. It wasn’t a deal that I was comfortable with, but the voters went ahead with it. So, fine.

I would like a little more context than just complaining:

And, when it comes to increasing taxes to fund said government, it’s easier to get people to agree to a sin tax. You know, we’re supposed to feel bad about doing it and thus willing to punish ourselves: Bad drinker! Bad drinker! Barkeep – pour me another one! Also … add in the extra tax burden placed on booze for these first few years of privatization, and you have a recipe for a winning statistic.

There’s a reasonable debate to be had about the level of alcohol taxes we have. I’m just not sure this contributes to that.

Obviously, as the economy improves, stimulus that was designed to get us out of a caving, crashing recession will have to be scaled back. And of course the things that were set to expire are going to expire, especially with a House of Representatives dead set on anything decent for the Republic. So I guess nobody should be surprised that the expanded SNAP benefits are going to be back to what they were before the stimulus starting tomorrow.

Extra funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, one of the most impactful elements of the 2009 economic stimulus, expires Friday, meaning poor families in all 50 states will immediately see steep cuts in government food aid.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided a 13.6 percent funding increase to SNAP recipients beginning in April 2009, money the bill’s backers said would make its way quickly into the economy. But that extra funding ends Nov. 1. Every one of the 48 million SNAP recipients will see their benefits cut in their next checks.

Given the need, it seems early from a purely moral standpoint. The top earners are recovering nicely, and good for them and all, but the need for SNAP for people who aren’t earning that is still there.

SNAP benefits disproportionately help families with children. More than 21 million children — one in four children in the country today — live in households that participate in the program. More than two-thirds of the $5 billion the government saves will come from households that include children.

But instead of recognizing that the need is real, and that we should do more, we have a House of Representatives that last month voted for major cuts to the program. The GOP in the last election cycle ran candidate for President who doesn’t believe people are entitled to food, and they’re living up to that even though he lost.

– Happy Halloween

– Nevada Republican would allow slavery

– The Chamber of Commerce is the worst.

– One of the biggest challenges to gender parity in office is that women don’t run. According to a national study by the Center for American Women in Politics, women are much more likely to run if they’re recruited by others. Men don’t wait to be asked. (Trib link)

– I’m all for environmentalists working to make broad coalitions, but I’m not sure corporate interests and reactionaries will stop mocking them needlessly.

– Your guide to celebrating Dia de los Muertos

Representative Dan Kristiansen — who convinced a group of humans to elect him on multiple occasions and everything — has a post about a web poll he conducted earlier. My most fervent hope is that he finds a way to start it off that seems like it’s reaching too hard to have a catchy intro but ends up kind of creepy.

Last week, you allowed me into your homes and/or mobile devices to offer a short survey [the link to you’ve completed the survey is his — Carl] on a proposed transportation revenue package. The response was great and very informative for me. I wanted to share some of the results of this virtual listening tour. While the survey remains open and I will continue to request public input, below is an update on where results stand as of October 29.

So a few questions: “You allowed me into your homes and/or mobile devices,” huh? You’re going with that? What if people didn’t think they were letting him into their homes, but just taking a simple web survey? What if someone took it on a laptop but not at home? Does he need to specify and/or? Really wouldn’t “thanks for taking a minute to complete my survey, if you did” work just fine?

Also, “the results of this virtual listening tour” is an interesting way of saying “the results of a poll of people who were on a Republican’s email list and/or found their way to the state House GOP website.” Anyway, on to the results.

Would you be willing to pay 10 cents or more per gallon of gas to pay for transportation projects around the state?

• 13.4% Yes
• 85.6% No
• 1% I’m not sure

If you had to pay 10 cents or more per gallon of gas, how would this impact you financially?

• 7.7% It would have little to no impact on me financially
• 41.2% It would have a moderate impact on me financially, but I could probably afford it
• 51.1% It would have a negative impact on me financially and I cannot afford it

Gosh, it sounds like the people who answered this survey really are a representative sample… of the people who took the survey. Or maybe they’re demanding price controls on gas? That would be an interesting follow up question. To the extent that’s possible when you’re talking about the results of a web poll. Also, his district is pretty close to the I-5 bridge that collapsed. Maybe he could have asked a question about if that had more or less impact than a 10 cent a gallon tax increase. But I guess we’ll never know because we can only ever look at the cost of taxes, not the cost of losing what those taxes pay for. The closest we get is the next question:

If our state moves forward with a transportation revenue package, please rank what you think the funding priorities should be:

The numbers below are rating averages. The lower the number, the higher prioritization participants gave that particular issue. As you will see below, participants believe “Maintenance, including bridge and road preservation” should be the state’s top funding priority. And they believe that “More pedestrian and bicycle paths” should be the lowest priority of the six options.

• 1.55 Maintenance, including bridge and road preservation
• 2.24 New lanes for congested roadways
• 3.53 Large projects
• 4.08 Washington State Ferries
• 4.52 Transit agencies
• 5.08 More pedestrian and bicycle paths

Does he mean sidewalks instead of “pedestrian”? Just general pedestrian, like paying someone to walk more? Is it infrastructure, and/or paths, that pedestrians and bikes have to share?

Initiative 517 is the latest from Tim Eyman’s long line of mostly unsuccessful initiatives. I-517 would lengthen the signature gathering time for initiatives, would give signature gatherers intrusive access to the public, even on private property, and severely restrict free speech in the vicinity of signature gatherers. Essentially, it would make Mr. Eyman’s life a lot easier.

So howz it doin’? A new Moore poll finds:

With just over a week to go before the November 5th general election, Washington’s Initiative 517, which concerns the initiative and referendum process in the state, is opposed by a narrow margin. After hearing the ballot question, 33% of voters plan to or have already voted “yes,” while 40% plan to or have voted “no.” The remaining 27% are undecided or wouldn’t reveal their vote.

Importantly, intensity is stronger on the “no” side – among those who have yet to cast their ballots, 21% say they are a “definite” no vote, while only 11% are a definite “yes” vote.

It sounds bad for I-517. But as SeattlePI.com’s Joel Connelly cautions:

Eyman initiatives tend to run better AT the polls than in the polls. The results on election day have sometimes surprised those who have predicted his demise. And, win or lose, Eyman is usually back with more measures as soon as the votes have been counted.

Something else to consider is the sample size of this poll. Even though the poll (conducted from 23-24 Oct) sampled 500 people, only 365 expressed a Yes or No preference. This is a pretty small sample. Using only those 365 individuals, 200 who said, “No” and 165 who said “Yes”, I ran a Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the probability that I-517 would win right now. From a million simulated elections, “Yes” won 94,839 and “No” won 898,738 times.

The analysis suggests that the initiative has only a 9.5% probability of winning. Here is the distribution of votes from the simulation:

Considering these “non-significant” statistical results (which are only based on the poll numbers) and Joel’s caution, I-517 opponents still have plenty of work to do; proponents still have a shot at changing the outcome.

The momentum is on the side of the opponents, however. The subsample of those polled who had already voted “Yes” or “No” on the initiative (104 people), I-517 was losing 37% “Yes” to 63% “No”. (Note that I’ve eliminated the “Don’t Know/Refused” category in those numbers.)

The trend in polling also suggests that I-517 is going down. An Elway poll, taken way back in early September, found 58% supporting and 22% opposed to the initiative. Another Elway poll from mid-October cut into the support with 52% supporting and 25% opposing the measure.

So, the most recent poll suggests a pretty impressive turn-around in support.

Since the passage of I-502, the state has been quiet about what they intend to do with the existing medical marijuana laws. Yesterday, that changed. Ben Livingston has the details:

This afternoon the state’s medical cannabis workgroup—comprised of the liquor board, health department, revenue department, and the governor’s office—released their formal recommendations, and they are just as drastic as we initially revealed.

The basic idea is that the voter-approved medical cannabis law would be mostly scrapped, and patients who are accepted into a proposed government registry would be allowed tax deductions exemptions on pot, which could only be purchased at I-502 stores. Among the recommendations:

1. Eliminate patient home growing rights
2. Eliminate collective gardens
3. Eliminate medical dispensaries that don’t comply with I-502
4. Eliminate the affirmative defense for pot patients
5. Create a state-funded patient registry program
6. Require health care professionals to register patients with the state
7. Forbid doctors from running a medical cannabis specific business
8. Remove the right to petition for new medical marijuana conditions
9. Reduce patient possession amounts from 24 ounces to 3 ounces
10. Allow I-502 stores to sell reduced-tax pot to registered patients

Not all of these proposals are bad, but on the whole, this is a big step backwards. We’re moving from a decade and a half of marijuana law reform that carved out exceptions in order to protect the sick and vulnerable to new system that eliminates those exceptions in order to protect government coffers. It’s exactly what the most cynical among us thought the state would do, and if they follow though, it’ll be inexcusable, lazy policy.

A big part of what drives this move is the fact that medical marijuana has been a poorly regulated mess in this state for much of the 15 years it’s been allowed. Dispensaries were never formally legalized, but entrepreneurs would continually come up with ways to stay just within the law. The lack of a registry system often left police and prosecutors frustrated at their inability to differentiate between valid medical users and regular recreational users. And it was always obvious that many people were getting medical authorizations who clearly didn’t have a medical need for the drug.

The state’s reaction to this mess appears to be, fuck it – just blow it up. But this is a mistake. Jonathan Martin at the Seattle Times has some good alternate suggestions for the state, especially this one:

It’s surprisingly hard to grow really good marijuana. Washington’s medical marijuana law recognized that from the beginning, allowing a caregiver to grow for a sick patients. The Legislature should absolutely preserve the ability for patients – real, legitimate patients – to grow their own, have a caregiver grow for them, or allow them to join 10-patient, 45-plant collective gardens. Any grow should be registered with the Department of Health, because police need to know if they’re walking into a legitimate or a black market grow.

This idea would be impossible under the rules proposed above. I think the lack of a home grow provision in I-502 was a mistake, but eliminating home grow even for patients is unthinkable. It certainly comes off as an attempt by the state to maximize tax revenue, rather than an attempt to protect public safety.

A lot of patients will bristle at the idea of having to register collective gardens, but it’s certainly preferable to having them banned. The current law is being blatantly abused in a way that almost no other state has seen. Dispensaries in this state aren’t legal. All those storefronts with green crosses everywhere are supposed to be limited to 10 patients. They get around that limit by constantly rotating who those 10 patients are as customers come in and out all day. Or by ignoring that requirement altogether.

One other requirement I’d add to this is that gardens shouldn’t be allowed to advertise or have storefronts. They should be private entities. Over time, perhaps in coordination with medical facilities, these gardens can work to develop very specific strains that work particularly well for certain ailments – and do so in a cost-efficient way.

People are concerned that the “medical excuse” patients will still find ways to avoid the high taxes of I-502 regulated stores. I’m not buying it. I suspect the vast majority of those folks will end up being unable to match the variety and quality of recreational pot sold in the regulated stores and be content to pay a little more for the privilege. But the regulated stores might not cater to folks with very specific ailments like epilepsy or MS, where the THC content might be too low to get people stoned. Those folks need to have the option to grow their own, or band together with others in a garden.

For years, we had a system that protected (well, tried to protect) medical marijuana users while recreational users continued to remain outside the law. What the state is proposing here could potentially turn that on its head – moving to a system that caters to recreational users while leaving those most in need with fewer options.