Okay, so the Seattle Times editorial board has endorsed zillion-term Democratic incumbent state Representative Frank Chopp over his Socialist challenger Jess Spear. No surprise there. But there is one line from the endorsement that jumped out at me:
Seattle’s agenda is not the agenda for the entire state.
Huh. That may be true. But Chopp doesn’t represent the entire state. He represents Seattle’s 43rd Legislative District. And I’d argue that much of the discontent that many rank and file Seattle Dems feel towards Chopp and the rest of the Seattle delegation stems from a desire that they more forcefully represent the partisan interests of Seattle.
Same goes for our discontent with the Seattle Times editorial board, for that matter.
Politics is an adversarial process, and while you certainly need to be able to negotiate and compromise to get shit done, effective negotiation starts from the point of what your side wants, not from the point of what you think the other side needs. I mean, levy equalization and levy swaps, for example, might be the right thing to do for rural schoolchildren, but what do Seattle’s underfunded school kids get in return? Bupkes!
When the Seattle delegation is focused on doing what’s good for the entire state while the rest of Olympia is focused on fucking Seattle, Seattle’s interests ultimately get fucked.
And Chopp’s role as “representative” is further undermined by his role as House Speaker, where his primary responsibility is to build and maintain a Democratic majority. Kudos on that, Frank. But in the process, the 43rd LD has effectively been left with only two legislators instead of three.
No, Seattle’s agenda is not the agenda for the entire state. But our delegation’s failure to promote and defend our agenda in Olympia as vigorously as legislators from the rest of the state promote and defend theirs, has left Seattle at a political disadvantage.
So the Goldy message to Frank Chopp: Resign your position as Speaker and become another ordinary House member fighting for your district. Hand off the speakership to _____ who would probably do a better job for Seattle [not].
I could let the odd spelling of bupkis go (it’s listed a few places as an alternate spelling), but “their’s”? REALLY GOLDY??
C’mon now.
Also, I thought you were only going to copy/paste while fisking ST editorials now…
” … negotiation starts from the point of what your side wants, not from the point of what you think the other side needs.”
Of course, that’s exactly the argument we hear from minimum wage opponents, whose #1 rationalization for allowing “the market” (i.e., employers) to set wages without government interference (i.e., they want one-sided bargaining power) is that “wages are based on what a worker is worth, not what he needs.”
I saw this argument approximately 657,893 times in the course of the minimum wage debate, especially on the financial and investing blogs I regularly read. Of course, it’s untrue from the get-go because wages aren’t based on the profits a worker produces for the employer or some other measure of “worth,” but rather on the relative bargaining power of employer and employee; and, in that sense, we do not have and would not have “market-determined” wages even in the absence of government intervention. There is no “market” when one side has all the bargaining power.
Here in Washington, we don’t play the bargaining game the way conservatives want to play it when they hold the upper hand. If we did, eastern Washington and the other red counties wouldn’t get a fucking thing from the state; Seattle would take it all, because Seattle has one-sided bargaining power in this state.
Here, I need to define terms. By “Seattle” I don’t mean City of Seattle, or even King County; I’m referring to “Greater Seattle” or the Seattle metropolitan area, which includes Pierce and Snohomish counties because those three counties are a single economic entity and an integrated population and social entity.
These three “Puget Sound counties” comprising Greater Seattle have more than 50% of the state’s population and, while I can’t readily find a county-by-county breakdown of our state’s economic output, I would guess they account for 60% of the state’s economy and maybe two-thirds. So why shouldn’t Seattle have a voting majority in the legislature and dominate statewide offices? Who should? Chelan? White Swan? Oysterville?
Conservatives, of course, want to play the bargaining game only when they hold the upper hand. When they don’t, they play the whining game, or North Korea’s game (“if you don’t feed me, I’m going to stamp my feet and hold my breath until I turn blue!”). When they’re at a bargaining disadvantage, which in state government is all the time, the last thing they want is to negotiate with someone who is looking out for their own self-interest, and they’ve thrived in this state precisely because of Seattle’s generous spirit toward the rest of our state.
So no, negotiation doesn’t start from what Seattle wants. Historically, and continuing to today, in Washington politics it has always been, “How can Seattle help you today?”
@2 Why don’t you volunteer to be Goldy’s copyeditor? As you’ve pointed out, he needs the help.
I’m not sure I agree with Goldy on the larger point. State legislators from all over should do what’s in the best interest of the state over the best interest of their district. I don’t think that should be Seattle legislators only, obvs, but in general it would be nice if state legislators thought of the interests of the state. That said, the examples they use don’t exactly fit the Seattle versus the whole state model.
1) Tax cuts for Boeing necessarily concentrate the benefits around the Boeing locations at the expense of the rest of the state. If anything, closing those loopholes is one of the biggest examples of putting the interests of the state over the interests of one company and a few districts.
2) Taxing high earners almost certainly would mean money flowing from Seattle/King County to the rest of the state. Politically Seattle is more for this than the rest of the state, but in terms of policy it’s “Seattle’s agenda is not the agenda for the entire state” because it’s better for the rest of the state than Seattle.
@5(2) The problem is the 10 white guys in Yakima making $10 million a year off cheap labor are the only people allowed to vote in that county and money raised from taxing them would go to poor and middle class people so their legislative servants can’t allow that.
@5, tax money from rich Seattle already supports the rest of the state, especially the poor Eastern Washington counties. Legislators that represent those areas traditionally turn down taxes and vote for tax breaks for their business constituents, but we on the western side of the mountains pay for the services their constituents who are living in poverty. Chopp is not responsible for that stupid situation, and if we hadn’t had him as boss of the House, both Eastern and Western Washington would be poorer, figuratively and literally. He’s saved so many programs that help people, it would be difficult to list them all.
The problem is that frank has worked way harder to save these programs than the Eastern Washington legislators have. Without levy equalization, Ferry County would have one school district. Without unemployment assistance, the poverty rate in Pend O’Reille County would be 20% higher. When a company like Kinross makes a business decision folks like Cary Condotta will scream about crushing regulation while at the same time ignoring the needs of the people left behind.