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Usually when the party out of power in the legislature proposes taxing or spending policy, or a budget, they don’t have to worry about fancy stuff like basic math. It isn’t going to pass or be the basis of negotiations, so who cares? Then the party that was out of power gets some power, and they then have to propose realistic things. But I think the GOP have been out of power for too long, that now they control the Senate again, they’re proposing things, but not paying for them (h/t).

The Senate Majority Coalition rolled out a $300 million plan Tuesday that would partially reverse years of cuts in spending on colleges and universities and hold the line on fast-rising college tuition – but already the signs of conflict are apparent.

[…]

The coalition proposal increases higher education spending by roughly 10 percent, from the current $2.7 billion to $3 billion. Where that $300 million will come from, no one knows – that’s a matter for budget-writers to consider in the weeks ahead.

Seriously, that was the sort of thing you could do when you were the scrappy opposition. But now you have to find someone who can actually use a spreadsheet, or something.

The Seattle City Council has voted unanimously to say that any department (presumably just the police, but I’ve got my eye on you animal control) that wants to have drones or other surveillance equipment has to get it approved by the council and submit a plan for how they’re going to do that.

The Council has set out hoops through which the cops, or any other city department, much jump through before any big brother starts watching. Before acquiring surveillance equipment, the Seattle Police must obtain approval by the the Council. The police must propose protocols that disclose how cameras will be used, how and where data will be retained and stored and accessed.

The Council legislation requires Seattle Police to provide a description of “the nature and extent of public outreach conducted in each community in which the department intends to use the surveillance equipment.” And the police will have to explain “how the department’s use of the equipment will be regulated to protect privacy and limit the risk of potential abuse.”

The police would have to say how long data would be retained, and how it would be labeled or indexed, and who would have access to it.

If the Council has approved a request to purchase surveillance equipment, the Seattle Police cannot install cameras until the Council has formally set rules for its operation.

It’s obviously a better protection for civil liberties than the status quo, so great. We’ll get to have better knowledge and a chance to weigh in on future surveillance before it goes into action. Still, it doesn’t forestall abuse by the city. It only makes it somewhat tougher and more transparent. So vigilance is, as always, needed.

Since Shaun is out for a while, I’ma steal his schtick.

Maryland is set to abolish its death penalty.

Maryland is set to become the 18th state in the nation to ban the death penalty. A week after the state Senate approved legislation repealing capital punishment and replacing it with life in prison without parole, the House of Delegates passed the bill Friday by a vote of 82-56.

The news serves as a victory for Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley, who has been trying to repeal the state’s death penalty for years. He urged the passage of a bill to abolish the death penalty back in 2009, but the measure ultimately failed.

“Evidence shows that the death penalty is not a deterrent, it cannot be administered without racial bias, and it costs three times as much as life in prison without parole. What’s more, there is no way to reverse a mistake if an innocent person is put to death,” O’Malley said in a statement Friday.

Maryland becomes the sixth state in six years to put an end to the death penalty, after New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Illinois, and Connecticut.

Washington should make it 7.

I know this is a few days old, but I want to applaud Seattle for considering allowing more emergency credit before it shuts off water.

The Seattle City Council is now considering legislation that would give a second emergency credit of up to $340 per year for any family registered in its low-income Utility Discount Program with children in the home. Currently, only one credit is available annually per household.

Seattle Public Utilities said it shut off water to 138 households in 2012 that were part of its low-income program. Of those, 68 had children under 18 years old.

Councilmember Jean Godden, who is sponsoring the legislation, said providing a second credit to those 68 families would cost the city about $20,000 a year. She called that a small subsidy in the context of the utilities’ nearly billion-dollar annual budget.

The article goes on to say that number is probably low because some people don’t know they qualify for the program. When people and families fall behind it’s unfortunate. And I’m glad in a relatively wealthy city like Seattle we’re figuring out how to make this situation a little less awful.

I hate that Metro has to go begging the state just to tax ourselves, but that’s the way we do it in Washington, so sure. Representative Farrell has a bill to let localities either have a $40 car tab or in some cases up to 1% of the value of the car go to transit.* She has a post on Slog in support of the bill.

When King County Metro was last facing service cuts, the legislature authorized a temporary congestion reduction fee that temporarily stabilized budgets of transit agencies. It was temporary because the state expected to move quickly to provide a more stable, comprehensive funding source for public transportation.

That state support has not materialized, however, and with transit services in jeopardy, we need to take action to ensure our economy, our environment, and our quality of life aren’t degraded. My legislation would give King County the local funding options they need to save core programs and high-demand service routes.

OK, I’m sold. You can find your legislator here.

[Read more…]

I’m sometimes struck by the difficulty of the mundane for lesbian and gay couples. reading this press release from Patty Murray was one of those times.

(Washington D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, a senior member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, led a letter to U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki calling for an expedited waiver process granting same-sex veterans and their spouses burial rights in national cemeteries. Currently, only members of the opposite-sex are buried next to their veteran spouse in national cemeteries.

Christ. It’s 2013 and we’re having this conversation. It’s 2013 and this isn’t an obviously done deal. It’s 2013 and instead of this just being a matter of some paperwork because vets’ spouses should be buried with them as a matter of course if that’s what they want, this is a fight. It’s 2013 and only 15 senators agreed to sign the letter.

When you think of the progress we’ve made in the last few decades as a society in treating same sex couples with basic respect, and then think this is still a fight, it’s jarring. When you think the solution — at least for now — is a waver and not fixing the policy, it’s dispiriting how much work is involved in just getting half measures.

Exodus 32:27-29
Then he said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”

Exodus 20:13
Thou shalt not kill.

Discuss.

– Rodney Tom Hates Teachers

– I haven’t written anything about the sequester, but it’s going to have an impact.

– All that has made the borders, and the sharp disparities between states, more important and complex than ever for gay couples, and for interstate tourism as well. The marriage license office in Clark County, Wash., across the Columbia River from Portland, Ore., had to increase its hours to serve border couples when Washington’s new law took effect.

– So if I understand Scalia’s jurisprudence correctly, the 14th Amendment (which says nothing about race) applies only to racial discrimination (that affects white people) (unless a Republican has a presidential election to win), while the 15th Amendment (which explicitly forbids racial discrimination in voting and empowers Congress to enforce the provision) should not be construed as allowing Congress to prevent racial discrimination in voting, because this would be a “racial entitlement.”

– Congrats to Tom Tomorrow.

Sometimes The Seattle Times has great, important, relevant stories that put a new light on something in the Northwest that otherwise wouldn’t be covered. And I’m going to miss some of those when I don’t read their website behind its paywall. But sometimes they just do hack pieces that they claim are important stories. More and more it’s looking like the Rob Holland piece falls on the hack side.

Except that’s not what happened and that’s not what the report found. Martin did not use Holland’s credit card to purchase anything, and the report Heffter cites actually found this particular allegation to be “unsubstantiated” (PDF, page 25). Martin has repeatedly asked Heffter and Kreamer to issue a correction, and they have repeatedly refused.

“At the end of the day, all you have is your reputation,” Martin told me. And he desperately wants his reputation cleared. The Seattle Times has yet to respond to a request for comment.

[…]

But also, reading their emails to Martin, both Heffter and Kreamer just come off as incredibly confused. “There is a receipt and additional official documentation showing you as the purchaser of camera equipment for the Port, with Commissioner Holland’s Port credit card being used,” Kreamer writes to Martin in a February 25 email, totally ignoring the fact that this so-called “receipt” proves nothing of the kind. “The Port report you cite says the third-party use of the card (by you) was not found to be unauthorized, but we never wrote that it was,” Kreamer continues. “The items purchased were indeed for Port use, the audit found.”

When the Seattle Times goes out of their way to point out stories like this one are vital to the region, so we need to support them, well, you’d think they would at least work harder to get the story right.

In Saturday’s post on the recent DUI updates, I wrote:

And assurances from the police that they’ll only go after impaired folks requires a lot of skepticism given the history of DUI enforcement.

I wanted to elaborate on this a bit, but didn’t want to go off on any other tangents in that post. So I’ll go off on that tangent here. And a recent case from Kent is a good starting point:

Mike Simmons, 31, said Tuesday he was put in jail for 13 hours. Now with towing and lawyer fees, he said he’s out $5,000 and he’s not allowed to drive while he’s out on bail.

All for something he said he didn’t do.

“As soon as the officer came to the vehicle, he asked me to stick out my tongue,” said Simmons.

Simmons thought it was an unusual request but he soon found out he was pulled over for suspicion of driving under the influence.

Simmons said the officer told him there was a green film on his tongue. The unidentified police officer apparently felt that is a telltale sign that someone has been smoking marijuana.

Simmons admitted he had smoked pot three days earlier, but says when he was pulled over he was on a lunch break from work and was stone-cold sober.

We’ll find out more about this specific case as it unfolds, but if Simmons’ recounting of the arrest is accurate, it wouldn’t be the first time an officer has used something ridiculous or imaginary to imply impairment. In this case from Ocean Shores in November, an officer claimed an elderly medical marijuana patient was impaired because – among other things – she was unable to stand on one leg.

To clarify a point that should be obvious to most people, your tongue doesn’t turn green when you smoke pot. So if that’s the evidence that this officer used to demonstrate impairment, and Simmons doesn’t win a lawsuit against the city of Kent as a result of that, then the folks who say that impairment is required to end up in his situation aren’t correct. Because if there are no repercussions for when a police officer does something wrong, it doesn’t matter what the law actually says.

We’ve continually heard from members of law enforcement and others that impairment is required in order to end up in Simmons’ situation. But it’s not hard for an officer to just say, “your eyes are bloodshot!” and use that as a justification to demand a blood draw. These reassurances go beyond being wishful thinking that their fellow police officers won’t abuse their power. They’re close to being outright lies.

It’s Tuesday…so please join us for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. The Tri-Cities chapter also meets tonight. On Wednesday, the Burien and Bellingham chapters meet. On Thursday the Woodinville chapter meets. And on Monday, the Aberdeen, Yakima, South Bellevue and Olympia chapters meet.

With 206 chapters of Living Liberally, including fourteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.

– No, I’m sure we can freeway our way out of any problems we have.

– Awesome endorsement, WCV.

– I’m sorry, Carl Ludwig Sherburne, but you’re wrong. You’re among the most disgusting and horrible things on the internet, and a woman posting her baby photos doesn’t even come close.

– If you take people’s guns away, they’ll just use a rock or something.

– Oh Iran, women can wear clothing without sleeves and it’s fine.

– Chris Hayes won’t go to CPAC.

– The BS approach will solve any problems.

Luke 19:29-34
As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

They replied, “The Lord needs it.”

Exodus 20:15
Thou shalt not steal.

Discuss.

A few weeks back, the state legislature heard some testimony regarding the new DUI provisions enacted into law with the passage of I-502. These provisions were the most controversial aspect of the initiative among traditional drug law reformers, but throughout the entire campaign, there were very few actual numbers around to convey what the actual risk was.

For instance, how easy is it to be at the 5ng/ml limit? How long do people usually stay there? Is it an accurate measure of impairment? There have been a few studies on this, but far from any kind of consensus.

Also, how many people get marijuana DUI’s already? How many more are likely to get them now that prosecutions could be easier to obtain under I-502?

From the Seattle Times, here was what we learned about the latter set of questions from the testimony:

There has been no jump in “green DUIs,” said the Washington State Patrol’s toxicologist, Dr. Fiona Couper, at the hearing in Olympia Wednesday of the House Public Safety Committee. Seattle DUI attorney Patricia Fulton reported “absolutely no effect” in her defense practice.

This runs contrary to what other DUI attorneys have been saying.

A Seattle attorney whose practice consists solely of medical marijuana cases said more people are coming to him for help fighting charges of driving under the influence of marijuana, even before the new limit took effect.

“I’m seeing one to two a month and have been for a year,” attorney Aaron Pelley said. “Prior to that, I didn’t see really any.”

Pelley believes state patrol officers had been ramping up their enforcement of “green DUIs” in anticipation of the passage of I-502, the law making possession of up to an ounce of marijuana legal. And, now that it’s on the books, he suspects there’s been a “huge spike of number of people being tested.”

What’s the truth here? My guess is that Pelley, who’s been outspoken publicly about the DUI provisions, is generating more business for himself as a result, not that there are more people getting nailed.

So there isn’t much evidence the worst case scenarios are taking root, there’s still a concern with the basic effects of the new law:

Blood testing is not new and not done casually. It’s done at a medical center, and takes money and time. Couper said 1,000 to 1,100 drivers were tested last year statewide, with the median result slightly below 5 nanograms. About one-third also tested positive for alcohol.

If those numbers stay constant in 2013, it would mean that about 500 people tested for marijuana will have a much harder time defending themselves in court against a DUI charge than before I-502 became law. It’s possible that many of these are egregious cases where the DUI is deserved. But it’s also possible that many of them involve innocent medical marijuana patients being harassed. At this point, without more specific numbers, it’s not clear how much of each case we’re dealing with. And assurances from the police that they’ll only go after impaired folks requires a lot of skepticism given the history of DUI enforcement. What’s promising is that this issue has been generating a lot of media attention and that we’ll hopefully be able to highlight any cases where people get trapped in a truly unfair prosecution.

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Going back to the first set of questions above, how much is 5ng/ml, and what level of impairment does that really imply? Kiro7 recently aired an investigative report where they took 3 volunteers, had them smoke a popular and potent strain of marijuana, and let them drive around on a closed course. The video is here:

There are a couple of takeaways from this, but the main one is that even at 4, 5, and 7 times the new 5ng/ml legal limit, these volunteers drove fine. This was after consuming .3g. Of course, once they started smoking more than what people normally smoke in a sitting, their abilities tailed off.

Another key point is that even after these volunteers smoked themselves silly on nearly a gram of high quality marijuana and were driving like complete idiots, they all knew full well they were too stoned to drive (even the medical marijuana patient who was a heavy user). This is one of the main differences between alcohol and pot. People who drink too much alcohol become uninhibited along with their impairment, while marijuana users often become timid and cautious (although it was interesting to see that the medical marijuana user was a bit of an exception once they let her get behind the wheel). This is why alcohol-related reckless driving deaths are a frequent occurrence while it’s difficult to find too many instances of them with stoned drivers, even though impairment can occur from the over-consumption of each drug. People who are too stoned to drive often become reluctant to do it, and even if they do, they tend to drive really slow. People who are too drunk to drive often disregard the risks and drive very aggressively.

I’ve written in the past (sadly, the old Reload site is retired) about my own history with marijuana and driving, but didn’t discuss it much during the DUI debates of the I-502 campaign. My main reluctance has always been that it’s a difficult subject that generates mostly gut-level responses that don’t get us anywhere. This exercise provides enough data and visual evidence to at least begin discussing it rationally.

To recap, in my mid-20s for about 2 years, I smoked a small amount of pot at the beginning of nearly every drive I took (except for morning commutes, of course). There were two reasons for this. One, I was doing the hellish 520 commute from Seattle to my job at Microsoft and basically inched home at 2mph every day. And two, I’m a naturally fast driver and I found that pot would make me calmer and more relaxed as I drove. By that point, I’d already gotten somewhere around 7 or 8 speeding tickets in my life and was sick and tired of getting pulled over. Taking a hit off of a one-hitter made it far easier for me to obey the speed limits. In those two years, I was never pulled over for speeding – or for anything else – while stoned.

A one-hitter is a small smoking pipe, often made to look like a cigarette. Compared to what the volunteers in the Kiro7 experiment initially consumed, it probably only held about 1/3 of that, maybe .1g. I’d been wondering if the small amounts I was consuming in those days would even put me over the 5ng/ml limit. Looking at the data shown in the video, it probably was, but maybe not by a lot and probably for not very long.

From a safety standpoint, how safe this was is a matter of perspective and an interesting paradox. I always recognized two drawbacks to this. One, my navigational skills declined somewhat, so in the rare case where I was going somewhere new and was concerned I might get lost, I wouldn’t smoke. Two, my ability to react quickly and intelligently in the face of an emergency was also lessened. Thankfully, this never happened.

But to the outside observer, I was clearly a safer driver when I was stoned. Instead of being the guy weaving through traffic at 80 on I-5, I became the guy driving 55-60 in the right lane listening to some Percy Hill with a big fucking smile on my face. In my normal sober driving mode, I know I can drive safely at those high speeds, but to other drivers, I probably scare the shit out of some of them. And I draw the attention of the police, who like to give me very expensive speeding tickets.

After two years of this, I finally said “fuck it”, sold my car, and started taking public transportation for a little over 7 years. In 2010, after moving out to the suburbs, I once again have a car, but no longer smoke pot, so I have a radar detector in my Prius as I once again weave through rush hour traffic on I-5.

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The rationale behind the inclusion of DUI language in I-502 was always clear, even if the result in Colorado showed that it probably wasn’t necessary to win at the ballot box. But the political implications of having drug law reformers concede too much on this point continue to worry me. Other states are considering and even implementing proposals far worse than what we ended up with here. And when there’s an unchallenged notion that stoned driving and drunk driving are the same, it’s difficult to avoid any of these outcomes.

The point of my story wasn’t to argue that stoned driving is good or bad, but to recognize that the issue is a lot more complicated than many people initially assume. From a regulatory standpoint, doing things that have worked or been accepted for drunk driving may not be the correct approach at all for stoned driving.

I’m not thrilled with Publicola’s “Isn’t It Weird That…” segment as a segment. I’d prefer they do straight reporting rather than shoehorn some (often supposed) hypocrisy into a post that doesn’t need it. But the actual reporting in this piece is worthwhile.

No statewide tax measure can pass without Seattle’s support, yet the proposal state house transportation director Judy Clibborn announced yesterday included zero dollars for the new 520 bridge (whose west side remains unfunded) and zero dollars for the new Alaskan Way tunnel (whose estimated revenue from tolls has been slashed from $400 million to just $165 million)?

It’s disgraceful that we’re having this conversation while even the barest discussion of raising revenue for education or social services is verboten, but it is the conversation we’re having. And I want to support this, I do. A car tab would probably be the most progressive piece of taxation in the state, the backlog is real, and the need to invest in our infrastructure is real.

But the need is real in Seattle too. At a certain point, Seattle isn’t going to be a piggy bank for the rest of the state unless they throw us a bone every once in a while.