by Carl Ballard — ,
– I’m glad the teachers refusing to administer the MAP test is getting national attention.
– There is nobody more surprised than me that my first reaction to hearing that sequestration might lead to the cancellation of the Blue Angles was “oh, sad.”
– If there’s a toll, Mercer Island will be the next Alcatraz. You know, you have to pay a modest toll to leave.
by Darryl — ,
We’ve seen a run on vote rigging attempts in Republican controlled blue states. Republicans in Florida, Virginia, and Pennsylvania have flirted with, and have had rejected, plans to change their electoral vote allocation from a winner-take-all system to a congressional district allocation system. Republicans in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin are expected to join the fun. (And probably be rejected.)
It makes sense for Republicans to selectively change the state laws in their favor, especially given their excellent job of gerrymandering congressional districts following the 2010 census. Yeah…the voters get fucked, but that never stopped a Republican from power-grabbing.
Changing a handfull of blue states to congressional district allocation, while maintaining the winner-take-all system in red states, would have given Mitt Romney the presidency. Even as the popular vote went to Obama.
With Sen. Rodney Tom’s Republican Senate majority, Washington state has taken it’s first step to becoming a blue state controlled by Republicans. Surprise, surprise…House Republicans are trying to join other Republican-controlled blue states in their Presidential election-rigging effort:
The proposal, House Bill 1091, would divvy up Washington’s electoral votes by results in each of the state’s 10 congressional districts, with the remaining two votes going to the statewide winner.
In 2012, that would have given Obama nine electoral votes from Washington while Romney would have taken three.
Supporters say that would be a fairer result for more conservative parts of the state that are constantly outvoted in statewide elections by the Seattle area.
In one sense, these whining Republicans are correct. Under some conditions, allocating electors by congressional district (with the two additional electors going to the state popular vote winner) is a fairer system than the winner-take-all system. Those conditions are:
Under those conditions, a universal congressional district allocation system is fairer because all but 100 of the 538 electoral votes are allocated by smaller, and thus more representative, voting blocks. That wold be fairer than the current system that has some bizarre artifacts:
The [current] system has the effect of making your vote count a lot more in “swing states” — states where the majority could conceivably vote for either candidate — than in other, more politically predictable states. It is a virtual certainty, for instance, that Georgia will vote for Mitt Romney, so an individual Georgian’s vote for Barack Obama doesn’t mean a lot — Georgia’s 16 electoral votes are going to be cast for Romney. Conversely, an individual voter’s choice for Romney in ultra-blue New York won’t stop that state’s 29 electoral votes from going to Obama.
This raises the questions, what do we mean by a “fairer” system? Here are some ideas:
Democrats remember how unfair it felt when George Bush lost the popular vote, yet became President. And Republicans would have collectively “gone postal” if Mitt Romney had won the popular vote but lost the presidential election.
What I am getting at is that the fairest system of all is to elect the President by popular vote. The system we have now, fails 8.7% of the time (four out of 46 elections where the national popular vote was known) by putting in office the loser of the popular vote.
We used to believe that the only way to change the system to elect the President by popular vote was to amend the Constitution. Now we know better. The National Popular Vote compact system achieves the same thing by letting states exercise their constitutional right to allocate electors as they wish:
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the entire United States. The bill preserves the Electoral College, while ensuring that every vote in every state will matter in every presidential election. The National Popular Vote law has been enacted by states possessing 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate it.
This works when a coalition of states is formed that controls 270 or more electoral votes. Then, by each member state’s law, the slate of presidential electors for the state is elected according to the result of the national popular vote. If the coalition does not control 270 votes, the states revert back to their old system (winner-take-all for most states).
There doesn’t seem to be a downside–unless you believe it’s okay for a candidate to lose the national popular vote and still be elected President. Since the compact makes no changes to the electoral college itself, no Constitutional amendment is necessary.
Back to the Washington state Republicans trying to rig the vote. The new bill, HB 1091, actually does two different things. It changes the way we allocate electors now. It also cancels Washington state’s participation in the interstate compact.
Of course! Why would we expect consistency from Republicans? They were never interested in making the presidential election as fair as possible. They’re only interested in advantaging Republicans.
So sad…Washington state Republicans have still have not shown any ability at true leadership. Fuck ’em. And fuck Rodney Tom for joining ’em.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– I’m not thrilled with Hagel, but oh my God, how disingenuous is his GOP opposition?
– Sure, or there’s a more general correlation between seniority and wanting to preserve Senate traditions. And when the next group becomes the senior Democrats they might also be opposed to filibuster reform.
– The Clinton-Obama interview on 60 Minutes was nice.
– King Tom
– What comes within 1/2 a mile of the coal trains in Seattle (pdf).
by Carl Ballard — ,
I just don’t know what to say:
There was a shooting at Twilight Exit last night.
The gun buyers on surrounding streets underscore the case for Congress and the Washington Legislature to act get cracking on gun safety legislation, McGinn argued. “That’s one of the loopholes we need to close,” he said. “One person can sell another person a gun on the street and it’s absolutely legal. Do you see anybody out there doing a background check?”
Shirley Chambers has lost 4 children to gun violence in Chicago since 1995.
All the soundbites about how it isn’t guns who kill people, and all the victim-blaming that has been and will be heaped on Shirley Chambers and her children, and all the rationalizations about people with mental illness, and all the Othering of poor black people who live in cities, and all the sanctimonious hand-wringing about “cultural degradation,” and all the excuses and justifications and cynical rhetorical flourishes in the world will not change this fact: Shirley Chambers’ children are dead. All of her children are dead.
There is really nothing left to say that hasn’t been said before. I guess it’s once again the wrong time to talk about these things lest we offend some of the worst political actors out there. What we certainly won’t do is stop the next horror. We won’t do anything to stop the time after that or, or, or.
by Carl Ballard — ,
Looks like the first gun buy back event in King County in decades was a success except that more people wanted to turn in their guns than there were gift cards available. So they had to end early. Still the program got hundreds of guns — all unwanted — off the street.
Now, I don’t know how much is a feel good measure and how much it actually will stop gun crime. Those guns won’t be used in crimes, but the county is still awash in guns. And a voluntary program probably isn’t going to keep the guns out of the hands of the most paranoid or the most dangerous people, or the people who are planning to use a gun in a crime. Still, it’s better than nothing.
Maybe what’s most telling is the people trying to buy guns for more than the gift cards:
The gun buyers on surrounding streets underscore the case for Congress and the Washington Legislature to act get cracking on gun safety legislation, McGinn argued. “That’s one of the loopholes we need to close,” he said. “One person can sell another person a gun on the street and it’s absolutely legal. Do you see anybody out there doing a background check?”
The fact that most people turned in their guns instead of selling them to someone offering more money speaks to the fact that this wasn’t just get a gift card and go. Even if the people offering money for guns didn’t understand that.
by Darryl — ,
Ed: Boehner blames Obama for GOP’s incompetence.
Guns and Stuff:
Thom with some more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, D.C. episode:
Hillary’s Day:
Sam Seder: What the fuck went on inside Michele Bachmann’s campaign???
Maddow: Is America a liberal country?
Re-Inauguration:
Gov. Jay Inslee makes some announcements.
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
G.O.P.’s War on Elections:
Sam Seder with another episode of Random Rush.
The “No warming in 16 years” myth.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
by Carl Ballard — ,
Oh look what Rodney Tom’s majority is looking to do now:
SB 5156 would completely repeal RCW 9.02.100, otherwise known as Washington’s abortion law. The law was adopted by public vote in 1991 to shore up state law with the US Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade (so that if Roe were ever overturned, Washington women would still continue to have the same rights and protections. It states, among other things: “Every woman has the fundamental right to choose or refuse to have an abortion.”
The bill would also repeal in its entirety 9.02.110, “The state may not deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion prior to viability of the fetus, or to protect her life or health.”
Allen says that Planned Parenthood’s legal team is still trying to suss out how, exactly, this bill’s passage would affect women’s access to abortion providers in Washington state, given that Roe is still the federal law of the land. Regardless, it’s troubling: Washington voters have repeatedly confirmed women’s right to make their own pregnancy decisions, beginning in 1970, when voters approved Referendum 20 and legalized abortion in the early months of pregnancy.
“We don’t believe it’s an accident,” Allen says.
It’s hidden in a bill that’s ostensibly about parental notification, and you can read at the link why that’s fucked up enough on its own.
Of course even if it passes the Senate, it’ll never see the light of day in the House. And if it somehow got to Inslee’s desk he’d veto it. And even if it somehow became law, Roe is still the law of the land. But still, we were told that this session the Senate would be all about kicking poor people off social services and hating teachers. And that we’d avoid social issue fights. “You are going to see individual members do what they want to do, but what we have said is, we’re not going to let social issues divide our focus.” Whoops.
by Lee — ,
Cathy McLain at the Seattle Times has a post with some info about tomorrow’s meeting between Gov. Inslee, AG Ferguson, and US AG Holder that I wrote about yesterday:
Rick Garza of the Washington Liquor Control Board said Monday he expects the federal government will try to take action if Washington’s system has loose controls. He says it’s important for Washington to have a strong regulatory structure that would limit how much marijuana is grown to ensure that it’s only meeting demand for in-state users.
I-502 already codifies a lot of the specifics of the regulatory scheme, but also leaves a lot up to the discretion of the state liquor control board. If you look at the text of the new law [PDF] on page 18, you’ll see the following:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 10. The state liquor control board, subject to the provisions of this act, must adopt rules by December 1, 2013, that establish the procedures and criteria necessary to implement the following:
…
(3) Determining the maximum quantity of marijuana a marijuana producer may have on the premises of a licensed location at any time without violating Washington state law;
That section also deals with how the LCB can regulate other parameters of a legal marketplace, including how many retail outlets will be allowed in an area and how marijuana can be advertised. If Garza is speaking with knowledge of what Holder is planning to do, this is a good sign that they’re willing to tolerate I-502’s implementation.
On the other hand, what could end up happening is that we’ll get overly restrictive regulations based upon a fear that Washington will become a supplier for other states. If that’s the case, we’ll be the pioneering state for all of this, but we might end up with an archaic and inefficient regulatory model similar to what we previously had for liquor, while other states are freer to set up smarter regulations when they later take this step.
by Carl Ballard — ,
Seattle teachers who decided not to administer the MAP test here are there reasons:
Seattle’s ninth- and 10th-grade students already take five state-required standardized tests, with 11th- and 12th-graders taking three. Seattle Public Schools staff admitted to a Garfield teacher the MAP test is not valid at the high-school level, because the margin of error is greater than expected gains.
In addition, teachers are forbidden to see contents of the MAP test so they can’t prepare students. Teachers who have looked over the shoulders of students taking the test can tell you that it asks questions students are not expected by state standards to learn until later grades.
This test especially hurts students receiving extra academic support — English-language learners and those enrolled in special education. These are the kids who lose the most each time they waste five hours on the test. Our computer labs are commandeered for weeks when the MAP is on, so students working on research projects can’t get near them. The students without home computers are hurt the most.
Students don’t take the MAP seriously because they know their scores don’t factor into their grades or graduation status. They approach it less seriously each time they take it, so their scores decline. Our district uses MAP scores in teacher evaluations, even though the MAP company recommends against using it to evaluate teacher effectiveness and it’s not mandated in our union contract.
I’m not sure if it spreads, or where it goes from here. But I’m glad the teachers at these schools are standing up for education.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– Picking a favorite part of this Pam Roach presser is damn near impossible. But I think “not even arguably” she cares more about people than anyone else in the Senate is probably it.
– Jonah Goldberg’s opposition to hucksters in movement conservatism is only hostility to the competition.
– Assholes gonna asshole.
– This Brandon McCarthy Twitter battle encapsulates everything right and wrong with sports people on social media.
by Carl Ballard — ,
If Washington NARAL are pushing the Reproductive Parity Act again this session then that’s good enough for me.
Washington voters have a long history of ensuring a woman’s ability to make the decision to have an abortion. As Washington proceeds with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Washington women could face increased barriers in their ability to access reproductive health care, including abortion services. Anti-choice politicians in Congress tried to undermine the ACA by inserting a provision to roll back reproductive healthcare. This legislation addresses that problem and guarantees access to a full range of reproductive healthcare including abortion.
The link is a petition, and if that’s your thing, I’d encourage you to add your name. If writing your legislator directly is more your thing, you can find them here. Presumably it’ll be able to pass the State House again. But even before the GOP coup, this was going to be tougher in the State Senate. I assume it’ll go to the Health Care Committee where Senator Becker will kill it. But if you’re represented by someone on the committee, you might want to let them know how you feel.
by Carl Ballard — ,
I’m slowly making my way through this biography of William Seward. There’s an interesting story I wasn’t aware of from his days as a Senator. By 1858, he was a leading opponent of slavery in the Senate. Still he was cordial with many Southern Senators. One story in particular: “In early 1858, when Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was suffering from a sever eye illness and confined to his darkened room for seven weeks, Seward visited him every day and spent an hour amusing the invalid with stories.”
If we didn’t all know what was coming, that would be the type of how-DC-Used-To-Be stories that the beltway press like to tell themselves. If we didn’t know that in 3 years they’ll stand on opposite sides, as over half a million people die in the Civil War, it might be a lovely story of the bipartisan niceness of a bygone era. Viewing it as that also obscures that one side was right on one of the least morally ambiguous issues of our history: slavery was wrong.
So that’s what I was thinking about when I read at Balloon Juice that reporters are using their question at a press conference to ask Obama why he and his staff don’t socialize more.
I’d like to ask you, now that you’ve reached the end of your first term, starting your second, about a couple of criticisms — one that’s longstanding, another more recent. The longstanding one seems to have become a truism of sorts that you’re — you and your staff are too insular, that you don’t socialize enough.
DC is a place with strange values.
by Darryl — ,
Ted Nugent wants you to know (my emphasis):
“A person who lives by logic and studies history and tries to implement the lessons learned by history cannot begin to rationally explain the conduct of this president or his attorney general or this administration,” Nugent told conservative radio host Aaron Klein. “It is psychotic, it is crazy, it’s illogical — I believe it’s clearly and dangerously anti-American, anti-humanity.”
This reminded me of my former life as a volunteer political consultant. Once I had to offer Mr. Nugent some advice after he announced his intentions to run for Governor of Michigan…to a British reporter for a British magazine. That was the first of many political faux paux for the novice gubernatorial wannabe.
For instance, at one point, the reporter was asking a question about a past incident, and Mr. Nugent interrupted:
Nugent: “Neither did I poke my erect penis through a map of West Virginia – did you read that?”
Reporter: “No.”
And, at another point in the interview that was taking place in Mr. Nugent’s basement:
He fires at a Styrofoam bear using his weapon of choice, a traditional bow and arrow. “Straight through the heart… dead bear,” says Ted, as his heavily pitted target submits to yet another onslaught. “Both lungs… dead bear.” The arrows, which he makes himself, keep flying. “Dead bear… dead bear… dead bear.”
Psychotic? Crazy? Hmmm….
In his recent musings, Mr. Nugent…
criticized the leadership of Obama’s gun violence task force, saying that putting “crazy uncle” Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder in charge was akin to “hiring [serial killer] Jeffrey Dahmer to tell us to how to take care of our children.”
I guess he is suggesting that the Vice President and Attorney General are killing, and possibly eating, children. This seems rather illogical, considering that the administration hasn’t undertaken any actions on this issue or even announced future actions base on the recommendations of the gun violence task force.
Mr. Nugent’s deep concern about “dangerously anti-American, anti-humanity” tendencies may have some basis in reality, as revealed in that British interview through his own ideas for achieving a Utopian world:
“I say if somebody robs you, shoot ’em. I’d like all thieves killed. And all rapists. And carjackers. No more graffiti. No more ‘snatch-pursing.’”
[…]“How do you get peace, love and understanding? First of all you have to find all the bad people. Then you kill them.”
Psychotoc? Crazy? Illogical? Dangerously anti-American? Anti-humanity?
All of the above.
by Lee — ,
Andrew Sullivan has been dutifully debunking some of the terrible arguments in defense of marijuana prohibition. Conor Friedersdorf has been doing the same. The discussion in those posts centers around a defense of paternalism being made by those in favor of keeping marijuana markets underground. Mark Kleiman here makes a partial defense of those arguments:
Sullivan is horrified by the frank paternalism involved, but horror isn’t a criticism, and he’s wrong to attribute to Frum and Dreher the notion that “all American adults are basically children that we have to protect from their own choices.” What Frum and Dreher are saying is that some Americans – many of them minors – are indeed in need of protection from their own bad choices. (Dreher is especially clear-minded in pointing out that the need for paternalistic protection varies not just from person to person but from choice to choice: lots of people are capable of managing their diets but not their retirement financial planning. I, for example, want paternalistic protection against being sold adulterated drugs or contaminated food.) There’s no logical flaw in the idea that more-liberal policies in a variety of domains might serve the interests of those better-placed to make good choices at the expense of those worse-placed.
There’s an important distinction that’s not being made here. There’s a difference between an uninformed choice, where a buyer is unaware of the true consequences of their decision-making, and a potentially “bad” choice, where people are fully aware of the consequences of their decision-making and are willing to accept the risks. In the former, we should certainly have laws that protect consumers from having to make uninformed decisions where the seller has an advantage that they can exploit. That’s true in our financial markets and in various other places. But it’s not true for adults buying marijuana.
When adults buy marijuana, they’re not being conned into buying a product they don’t understand. For minors, you can more easily make that argument, and that’s why the folks pushing for the end of marijuana prohibition support age limits on its purchase in a regulated market. Like Kleiman, I’d love to see “paternalistic” laws against being sold adulterated marijuana, but those laws are only possible in a legal, regulated marketplace. But identifying any adult purchase of marijuana as a “bad” choice that needs to be prevented is a far different level of paternalism than trying to keep people from being suckered into a bad mortgage or buying contaminated fruit.
The second half of Kleiman’s post tries to make an interesting parallel between prohibition and a lack of prohibition, which was summarized in this tweet:
Legalizing drugs tempts people into drug abuse. Banning them tempts people with drug dealing.
— SameFacts (@SameFacts) January 11, 2013
Both Pete Guither and I found this to be odd, but perhaps for slightly different reasons. I find this to be a very uneven parallel between prohibition and regulated markets. Even under prohibition, the risks of drug abuse still exist, and in some ways they can be exacerbated. Yet under a regulated market, drug dealing is called “commerce”. There aren’t people being tempted into a potentially lucrative (although usually not) life of illegally producing or selling those drugs. The tradeoffs are far from equal in their magnitude.
To expand on that a bit, I certainly know some folks here in Washington who have more interest in trying marijuana now that it’s legal. Taking away that stigma of illegality will certainly expand the amount of folks who are willing to try it. But that subset of the population tends to be older, and far less likely to embark on a lifetime of vaporizer sessions after breakfast. So Kleiman is correct to note that drug use could go up, but on the other side of that, regulated markets that limit sales only to adults will put up a barrier at the other end of the age scale.
Most people accept that lots of young people will still be able to get access to marijuana through friends or with fake ID’s (just as with alcohol), but it’s an additional barrier that didn’t exist before. And it’s being put where it can do the most good, as numerous studies have shown that the earlier in life a marijuana habit begins, the more likely it is to become a more serious problem. Even if that trade-off yields higher overall use rates, it could potentially still be better overall from a drug abuse standpoint.
And thankfully, we already have the experience of Holland over the past several decades to know that an open marketplace for marijuana doesn’t lead to large increases in use. Compared to neighboring countries, the Dutch don’t use marijuana at a higher rate, despite the temptation of coffeeshops where it can be freely purchased.
The main point here is that the first part of Kleiman’s trade-off is largely negligible in its magnitude (and possibly non-existent). Yet the second part is enormous, when you factor in the overall societal costs of funneling tens of billions of dollars into a lucrative black market, tempting those with few options into risking arrest to get some of that money. Kleiman suggests that in poorer neighborhoods, this trade-off might still be close. I find that to be laughable, and more and more people in poor and minority communities are demanding an end to the drug war for the very same reason.
by Carl Ballard — ,
I was intending to do another zzzzzzz post for McGinn. I’ll probably vote for him, but I’m still giving Ed Murray and Peter Steinbrueck a look. I mean mostly, he’s been good but his standing in the way of police reform has been problematic. Part of the original consist was that it was the holidays when the other people announced. But still, mayor runs for mayor would have worked. Anyway, in stead of that, I’m going to make fun of this article in Crosscut (h/t to my friend Brice):
Luck of the Irish: McGinn makes his campaign move
Awesome title. The fact that he’s Irish is relevant to his campaign, somehow. And I think we can all agree that the colon was appropriate: after all a campaign move flows naturally from luck/and or his ancestry. He quotes his mom as saying “it’s better to be lucky than smart” without any context from the piece. And there’s no mention of his Irishness after the title, so really great job all around. I don’t know if Crosscut writers write their own headlines, but this is certainly not a great start.
Location, location, location, and the location where Mayor Mike McGinn chose to announce his bid for reelection spoke volumes: far from the madding club crowds of Capitol Hill and Belltown that helped drive his first election, at the Filipino Community Center on MLK Way in the heart of the Rainier Valley.
I didn’t know where to break this up, but that’s one sentence. “Location, location, location, and” what the fuck is that? I know it’s supposed to be what people look for in real estate, but Mike McGinn isn’t buying it. You can say the location, location, location thing, I guess, but just throwing it out there doesn’t help anything. Then he seems to think there are club crowds in Capitol Hill and Belltown on a Wednesday afternoon. FACT: Some people go to clubs and live in the South End.
It was a perfect stage for a perfectly casual event, in a suitably undersized, overstuffed room that reinforced the impression of clamoring urgency for, as supporters chanted twice, four more years.
Anywhere is fine for a casual event, especially on Wednesday afternoon. I don’t think holding it in South Seattle is bad. I’ve been to several South Seattle McGinn events, and I’m glad McGinn makes an effort to include that area.
A representative selection of minority community leaders sang his praises. El Centro director (and campaign co-chair) Estela Ortega, who, “in the spirit of Roberto Maestas,” capped her passionate panegyric with a few fist-pumping rounds of “Viva Mike McGinn!” Rep. Kip Tokuda, fellow co-chair Tony Lee, and Mohammed Yussuf variously echoed the themes she sounded: The mayor listens.
This isn’t a particularly good place to break it up, but it’s as good as it gets from here (and we’re still in the lede!). The support of this community is great for him. Still, I suspect they’d get on the light rail if the event were Downtown. Or on a car if it was further North. Or maybe take a car. Some McGinn supporters drive sometimes.
He didn’t cut social programs during the bust, and now that the money’s rolling back in he’ll expand them (including ours). He gets “tangible results”: rebuilding the seawall, a new basketball stadium, clearing the snow from the streets (a dig at McGinn’s predecessor, Greg Nickels). He got the libraries open on Sundays and a jumbo Families and Education levy passed.
Yay. We’re finally done with the first paragraph. I’ve been nursing a cold today, so I don’t think this will get the metacommentary it deserves. But I’d be missing the reason to write it if I didn’t skip to:
When he enumerated his transportation accomplishments and goals, Mayor post-McSchwinn [?] knew not to mention bikeways to this crowd. Many here still smart at seeing steep Othello Street/Myrtle Place squeezed down to one crowded lane each way for bike lanes that no pedalers [sic] use — while no one thought to include bike lanes when Sound Transit ran rail down wide, level MLK Way.
There were probably political reasons for not mentioning bikes. But honestly, my fat ass has no problem riding those hills, so at least don’t pretend nobody does it. Hell, McGinn probably rode there, so he might have taken those same routes that nobody takes.
Honestly, it’s not a bad rough draft. But it’s not a story yet, Crosscut.
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