Do you live in Bellevue? Are you a progressive Democrat? Are you interested in running for Bellevue City Council? Financial and technical assistance is available for qualified candidates, no prior political experience required. Please contact Dean Nielsen at Progressive Majority of Washington for more information.
(This is no joke. There are seven Republicans and no Democrats on the Bellevue City Council… and yet John Kerry won nearly every precinct in 2004! This is a city that’s turned Democrat, and doesn’t know it. Three council members are up for reelection in 2005, and as of yet there are no progressive challengers. So if you’re a Bellevue Democrat with political aspirations, now’s the time to serve your city and your party.)
Better yet, you can keep living in Belltown and thanks to our loose election laws, never have to give up being hip.
Another reason we need to reform our system. It seems we have one party rule, or one political persuasion rule on our city councils. Most if not all of the Seattle City Council are Democrat or Green.
I would like to see Instant Runoff Voting and Proportional Representation be used to elect all levels of Government in Washington State. We have county commissions in Eastern Washington that are all Republican. In the Legislative District that includes Wenatchee, the Democrats get 33% of the vote, and the GOP-Voters are probably wondering “What were they thinking”.
PR should have been considered for the King County Council as long as it was being shrunk.
I believe it’s illegal under state law.
Dan, so is falsifying election result records. (nicole way)
But judge allows all illegal votes unless a citizen busts the person, and even then you won’t know who they voted for.
So anyone want to run in Bellevue?
The State Law says that a primary must be held, even in non-partisan elections. In a Non-Partisan Election, the primary brings it down to two candidates, which negates IRV.
Now their is a pilot project where a few counties can try it. King County should be one of them. Washington State Citizens for Proportional Representation proposed the idea of electing the Seattle City Council, with all 9 being elected at once, using the primary to get the field down to a certain number of candidates. It should be a good idea for Bellevue too, but I am not sure, Is Bellevue a Charter City?
FREE Brie cheese and white wine served at all Council meetings if the LEFTIST PINHEADS (aka Progressives) get elected!!
Also…free-range TOFU, diversity, tolerance, hairy-legged broads, and a bunch of costly boneheaded brain farts guaranteed!!
Bellevue will become the Berkeley of the Eastside!! Nuclear-free zone!! Free everything for Government Workers!!! YEEHAAAAAAAA! Rub Shoulders with Howard Dean and Dennis Kuccinich!!! YEEHAAAAAAAAA!
Tax-and-Squander Politics! YEEHAAAAAAAAAAAA!
And once the “Progressives” have pissed away all the dollars in the coffers, it will be Borrow-and-Squander YEE_HAAAAAAAAA!
Free childcare for everyone (even you thatPrick!) YEE-HAAAAA!
Free Socialized Medical Care for All!! YEE-HAAAAAAAAAAA!
To apply for the Bellevue City Council as a Progressive you must NOT understand a fucking thing about finance and budgets. YEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAA!
“Progressives” are about “visioning”. Money is beneath the Progressive agenda. Need more more….increase taxes or borrow silly! YEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Also, you must drive a beater Volvo (at least 25 years old), show contempt for corporate America at all turns and ONLY eat stuff grown in cowshit out of your fucking yard.
Meat-counters BANNED
McConalds-BANNED
Automobiles—BANNED
You must only ride a bike or walk. YEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Hopefully Bellevue will think twice before voting in the “Feel-gooders”. These “visionaries” will mesmerize you with Utopian Marxist feelgood philosophies. Heaven on earth!! Tax the newcomers and businesses to death. YEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Goldy, Is a progressive democrat the same as a liberal democrat (just sound nicer?). If not, can you tell which of our dems in this state (sen, reps) are progressive dems vs liberal dems? (no such category as conservative dems, except maybe in the deep south).
If democrats were brought into office in Bellevue their school system would go down the toilet…..
righton: Shove it . Is that your personal opinion or that of the GOP? You guys just lost one big lawsuit. Care to go for number two?
Wanted, Seattle Republicans……
I’d tell Irrelevant to shove it too except now he knows his place.
how does a primary prevent IRV? You just take the top two from different parties, regardless of which ones. (ie, if two Dems get the most votes, you take the top Dem and the top non-Dem. Or, you hold the party primaries first, then do IRV in the general.
I for one would donate as much as legally possible to any Dem running for office on the East side. We need to expand our control over the entire area in the hopes we run the traitors from the GOP out of town!
prr @ 11:
Wanted, Seattle Republicans……
That’s not an unreasonable thing to want.
Contrary to what you might think, not all Seattlites are stupid or socshyalists. We generally have proper jobs and can count.
Most Seattle residents are also very socially liberal. The anti-choice, pro-religion, anti-gay bent of the GOP circa 2005 leaves us very uncomfortable. This leaves any Republican in Seattle with the unfortunate job of distancing herself from the national party. (Spin all you want, these are important planks for the National GOP. If you want to deny that you’re dippier than your caricatures of Latteland Liberals).
Chris Vance is not stupid, although he sometimes acts that way in front of a live mike. He’s very aware of how the state votes, and how things work.
However, instead of sending sensible pro-business moderates up as candidates, here are the nice people I got to choose in the last ballot for state legislature.
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/ele.....Ou8g%3D%3D
One Republican didn’t submit a picture or a statement. Well done! Very professional.
The other feels the following are important:
“Protecting the traditional definition of marriage”
“Equal access to state funding for religious organization providing social services”
“Returning to moral public culture”
“Respecting strong private rights for landowners…” (translation: give the high hard one to all environmentalists)
Summary: The guy is a flaming fundamentalist nutjob. You cannot run people like this in the 37th District and expect anything except the sort of results you actually get (he couldn’t even get 15% of the vote).
Dan Evans was from Seattle. John Spellman started as a King County rep. If you could persuade these gentlemen to leave the old folks’ home and run for office again, they could run in the city of Seattle and not be trounced by the 85-15 margins you are so used to seeing.
I do not like Seattle being a one-party city. It doesn’t promote good government. I very firmly believe that. You can’t do much about the voters that live here. You can start doing a hell of a lot about the candidates though.
So Dem party has carved out an exclusive deal, you can’t be “anti-choice, pro-religion, anti-gay” and be a Democrat?
I thought st. hillary was championing a party that would accept religious folks, those turned off by strident pro-abortion positions…
torridjoe @ 13
A primary prevents IRV to be used in Non-Partisan Elections because the field gets down to just two. It is not hindered by a primary in partisan elections, as we have minor parties that under our current system are considered spoilers.
righton @ 16,
What Hillary does is none of my concern.
There are pro-life Democrats. I don’t want to get into this debate. It’s boring, you have your opinion, I have mine, and I have stuff to get done besides arguing about whether abortion is good or bad.
Try reading what I wrote again.
I live in the 37th District. This is the land of Birkie-wearing, granola-crunching, commute-to-work-by-bike Seattle liberals. South Seattle is a little more racially mixed than the rest of the city, but is otherwise pretty much what you’d expect.
The Republican Party sent a candidate for the Legislature with a statement saying he was a God-Fearing fundie.
There are three God-Fearing fundies in my precinct. I met them all. They are all rather old, not literate in English, and vote as their preacher tells them to.
If the GOP wants to really run here, rather than sending out sacrificial lambs, they have to find candidates that look more like the areas they’re running in.
This goes for the Democrats as well. Brie-munching Seattle liberals do not poll well out in Wenatchee.
ERF@6, TJ@13 — The primary (not the general election) is the right place to apply IRV. Eliminate trailing candidates and redistribute votes down to the last two, and send them on to the general election.
This scheme gives every voter an unrestricted choice of candidates. Except in very extreme partisan districts, it tends to produce a “final elimination” choice of opposing parties. In very extreme partisan districts, it produces a choice of one extreme and one moderate candidate of the same party. [Best fit to the division of the electorate, in almost all cases.]
Minors and independents have their shots, especially where one or both major parties fails to field a decent candidate.
No need to restrict this to “no two from the same party”, which only invites re-labeling gamesmanship anyway.
IRV primaries serve the active, sophisticated primary voter electorate. Two-person general elections serve the broader general electorate, most of whom prefer an either-or choice between two knowable, vetted alternatives.
Need an earlier primary date, though.
Hey Rightoff…we’d welcome republicans if more of them were like the Gropinator. We need more right wingers who support abortion rights, the environment, state-funded education and who smoke pot while groping girls in bathing suits!
jsa, you touched a nerve
left’s favorite tactic, even inside some liberal chruches, is to tar anyone who believes in traditional religion to call them a fundie. Its a perjorative and is quite innacurate to also apply it to mainstream traditional believers. A leftie tactic to use words to associate traditional beliefs with knuckle dragging hillbillies or iranian shiites.
Agreed, I am not the biggest fan of McDermott, but his opposition (Cassady) had literally less qualifications than I do for Congress and would best be classified as a nutjob. This was the GOP’s pick. You would think they were kidding.
I knew it wasn’t too good to be true. Headless posted again on school district time. When is the school administration going to watch their Internet use?
The reason I left the democratic party was because of their litmus tests. “We don’t have litmus tests”, Charles Schumer said on the nightly news last fall when filibustering judicial nominees. Yeah, right.
jsa on beacon hill:I can tell you from South Seattle friends that their pastors also tell them how to vote, and it’s not for Repubs. I mentioned that my religion also says not to eat pork and I was equated to a terrorist. You know who you are!
Scott: The Gropinator or Govinator made sure the grope was with a large rack! Watch Pumping Iron. It is a funny movie. Dr. Franco Columbo is hilarious!
Candrewb: Maybe there is no one who would come forth and be willing to be abused by the “people” who continually vote for McDimwitt. You said you are not a big fan of McDimwitt, but I assume you vote for him, right? I think the loonies would perform ELF actions on that person’s house car, dog, etc.
Pudster
Mr I @ 7
I think, at this point, it might be worth inferring a few things about you. Since you seem to proclaim to know everything there is to know about liberal philosophy, I’ll infer from the virulence of your disdain that you hold the opposite beliefs. Thus,
Mr. Irrelevant:
Loves the Velveeta and Schlitz malt liquor served at his council meeting, provided via a no-bid contract with his food and beverage distributorship at 20% above cost. (This assumes the Diebold machines do in fact deliver those extra votes he’ll need to get elected).
Also…eats only feed-lot raised beef (rump roast only, please).
Adores racism, prejudice, religious intolerance, and smooth-shaven broads that sometimes turn out to be man-whores.
Produces costly series of brainfarts at taxpayers’ expense (though certainly not on the scale of Iraq), but at least his corporation profits from them, so who cares?
Bellevue becomes the new home of Bob Jones University!! Run all the non-believers out of town!! Illegalize interracial dating!! WHOO HOOOOOO!!!
Bellevue also becomes home for earth-shattering–and highly urgent–research for the National Missile Defense program!! Fire all government workers (except for Republican members of the city council and those working on the NMD program). KABOOOOM!
Rub shoulders with Ken Mehlman (with man-whore?) AND Pat Robertson!!! YEEE HAAAAH!!!
Don’t-tax-but-still-squander politics! YEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAA!
And since the “Conservatives” always, and I do mean always, piss away all the dollars in the coffers in no time flat, it will be borrow, borrow, and borrow some more — oops, and then squander — making sure his company gets at least one no-bid contract. YEE_HAAAAAAAAA!
Hire an illegal Guatemalan nanny, and pay her $5 per week. YEE-HAAAAA!
Throw the nanny out on the street the moment she gripes about her pay and lack of access to health care. YEE-HAAAAAAAAAAA!
To apply for the Bellevue City Council as a Conservative you must only understand TWO fucking things about finance and budgets: money is free, and it grows on trees. YEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAA!
Oh, wait, and one more thing: debt is okay, as long as someone else get stuck with the tab. YEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAA!
“Conservatives” are about “greed”. Money is the religion of the Conservative agenda. Need more, more, and still more, so my corporation stays afloat … since there’s no tax revenue left to pay my corporation for another no-bid contract, borrow even more! YEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Also, you must drive a brand-new Mercedes, but steal some leftie’s tabs so you don’t have to pay to support the roads. Show undying devotion to corporate America , which can never do wrong, and ONLY eat genetically modified foods grown on agrobusiness farms. (After all, he’s a stockholder in Monsanto and has an interest.)
Farmers markets BANNED
Any restaurant not offering fries and a coke for 39c extra -BANNED
Walking—BANNED
You may only drive a car, even to visit your next-door neighbor. YEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Hopefully, Bellevue won’t need to think twice before voting in the “kleptocrats”. These “luminaries” will mesmerize you with Milton Friedmanesque survivalist philosophies, with a bit of Ayn Rand thrown in for good measure. Heaven on earth!! Don’t tax or regulate businesses at all. YEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAA!
So, did I get it right, Mr. I? Please feel free to correct my errors in judging what must be your deeply held philosophical views. But do us a favor and be precise and coherent in so doing.
I left it blank Puddy. Although I admit I had the luxury to do so. If it was a tight race, I would have voted for McDermott, no doubt. Maybe you are right, the theater owner in Crawford TX who ran F9/11 received death threats and had cow shit dumped (by a front-end loader no less) in his parking lot. What of it? No one GOP’er brave enough?
Pudster @ 23 “The reason I left the democratic party was because of their litmus tests. “We don’t have litmus tests”, Charles Schumer said on the nightly news last fall when filibustering judicial nominees. Yeah, right.”
And from this I assume you do not believe the right has litmus tests?
Yeah sure.
righton @ 21,
jsa, you touched a nerve
I find that easy to believe. In your mind, there’s this cabal of evil liberals who are going to break into your house, steal your bibles, and replace them with Communist Manifestoes. Unfortunately, I don’t own a Communist Manifesto any more, and I already have a perfectly good Bible, and thus don’t need another one.
As long as we’re all evil, it makes it easier for you to keep spouting nonsense.
What do you want me to call someone who states as his intention in the voters pamphlet that he wants to legislate religion?
Now sit down and read son. You might learn something.
I really have no concern about people of faith. I am not a church-goer. Some of my friends are. They’re nice. They often say great things about their preachers and their congregations and what fantastic people they all are. Every now and then I’m tempted to go to church with them. The only problem is, it would involve getting up early on Sunday morning and getting into proper clothes. I do that six days a week already, and Sunday is my day to practice the virtue of sloth.
My concern is very specific. You do not get to legislate your faith in the halls of Congress. This is not hard to understand. Your house, your church, your congregation can set any rules they want for each other. I’m 100% good with that. Want gays in your church? Fine. Don’t want ’em? Fine. Want to teach that the Bible is the direct word of God and that allegory is for wimps? Cool. Want to discuss the influence of the Council of Nicaea on scripture? Great. If I wake up one day and become a regular churchgoer, I suppose I can argue with my pastor about how I feel about these things. I’m not, so I really, no kidding, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die could care less.
When we make law, we must make law for everyone. Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Taoists, Wiccans, and lazy agnostic slackers too.
Anyone with an ounce of moral fiber can agree that society cannot tolerate murderers or thieves. So murder and theft are illegal.
Now this is going to come as a big surprise to you, I’m sure, but reasonable, moral, even God-Fearing, churchgoing people do not agree on a lot of the laws being asked for by the Legislative branch of the Christian Right. As house rules, or church dogma, they’re fine. As National law, they’re a bad idea.
Many Christians have a calling to proselytize. Many of these Christians feel that bringing God and religion into the public sphere is a good way to do this, and to bring the good news of His resurrection to as many people as possible.
I believe that proselytizing through anything but being a good Christian is at best rude, and at worst a sin, but what do I know?
It’s a lot nicer to figure that all of your adversaries are moral relativists, and get bothered by saying that things are right and wrong, and believe in nothing, or whatever other crackpot ideas rattle through that God-given gray matter of yours.
And when the day comes I need a pastor to sort out right and wrong for me, I will be shaven, freshly-scrubbed, and sitting in the third pew at 9:00 a.m. service.
Goldy, I wouldn’t never have guessed it, since Bellevue has a fairly progressive city government — but all seven members of the Bellevue City Council really are Republicans.
It simply shows that the GOP can win when they put up moderate and progressive candidates for office. It is even better for a local offices, since they are non-partisan. Moderate candidates don’t get tagged with the extreme conservative image of the party at the state and national level.
Keep in mind that Bush isn’t exactly popular in King County. Only 33.69% of the vote. Rossi did a little bit over 40% — and that is with about a 2% draw for Libertarians. McKenna nearly carried King County, and won Bellevue by a substantial margin.
It would probably be better to try and elect “progressive” Democrats in Seattle. A lot of the elected Democrats in Seattle are hypocrites, pawns of big business and special interests.
pud @ 23:
jsa on beacon hill:I can tell you from South Seattle friends that their pastors also tell them how to vote, and it’s not for Repubs. I mentioned that my religion also says not to eat pork and I was equated to a terrorist. You know who you are!
No pork? You’re missing out guy. Please tell me you’re allowed to eat clams.
My concern is not with what any particular pastor tells anyone to vote for.
I was canvassing back in October. I knocked on the door of an older Chinese woman. She muttered something about not speaking English. I said “No problem. I do Mandarin too.”
When I asked who she was voting for, I was treated to a rather surreal tirade explaining that John Kerry was an atheist who does not believe in God or the redeemer, her pastor told her so, and damnit, she was voting for Bush.
I muttered something thanking her for supporting Bush and his arms sales to Taiwan, and excused myself.
I just remember that exchange and found it odd. You can’t do anything with people like that, except to teach them to read and write, and have them post on HorseSass claiming they’re here to provide “balance”.
Jsa; we hardly need a non-beliver telling us what we believe.
Are you ok then on letting churches rent space from cities, public builidng so they can hold services on Sunday? Or is that bad if they have teachings you all don’t like? I smell a rat in Kirkland…
Goldy…. I understand where you’re coming from, but who really cares about party affilation on the local level? Doesn’t the person’s actions speak much louder on the local level? So a candidate in 2004 stands with Bush or Kerry, what difference will that really make locally?
jsa on beacon hill: As usual, excellent points, but you know there are just as many folks out there that mark the name with “Democrat” next to it on the ballot as the Republicans.
I think Richard Pope points out a more important arugement, which is the influence of big money on the City Councils, no matter what party they come from. Seattle is a perfect example, and I suspect Kemper Freeman in Bellevue has pull like Paul Allen does in Seattle.
Dr E@24 formerly known as Priscilla/thatPrick/Don/Alan/DubyaSux/Donnageddon and 43 other prior identities…..
Could you please repeat your question?
I find it difficult to understand the spewings of a 30 year guv’mint hack attorney who has weaseled his way into a nice fat pension after pretending to work in a seriously important job at DSHS abusing his power to scare innocent families and shatter lives…….with his bitterness of those of us who work hard in the real world to pay taxes so they can be sucked away by clogged colon a$$holes like you.
FYI
I don’t drive a brand-new Mercedes!
Nor do I drink Schlitz Malt Liquor or eat Velveeta Cheese.
I prefer ribeyes to rump roast.
And unlike you, I have never hired an illegal alien nor paid anyone $5 per day.
Your assessment is incorrect.
jsa: You cracked me up. I almost fell off the couch watching my favorite, yes you guessed it; Bill O’Rielly. Oh no, they say on the left. You speak Mandarin. Sweet. I liked hearing the intonations of Mandarin in Hong Kong! I take it that if the mainland chinese overran Taiwan thats okay with you? I like Taiwan. Asus, Gigabyte, Tyan, MSI and other computer motherboard companies would become communist nationalized and then we would be forced to buy Dell(Intel-based) motherboards and the costs would skyrocket!
Righton: Uus be talkin’ ’bout Dr. Hutcherson? A teacher complaining about church and state when there is no issues as the church rents out the school when the school is not in session. Why? Because they be pissed that he, a black man of God, doesn’t support gay marriage or having it rammed down his throat. What, we all have to walk goose step with you your thought?
Pudster
Righton. I agree with you. I meant to say: To you lefties:What, we all have to walk goose step with you your thought?
Pudster
righton @ 30:
You’re calling me a non-believer? You’re testing my ability to keep my manners on this board. If going to church is what separates the believers from the non-believers in your world, you have a lot of learning to do.
You really don’t get it, do you? You have God’s revealed truth. So does everyone else. It’s a big, disorderly country. Deal with it.
I don’t have a problem with a church renting space from the city. It’s a public meeting, just like a railroad club, a birthday party, or a garden show. As long as they pay the same rent as everyone else does, clean up afterwards, and agree not to consume alcohol without permission (same as if I held a birthday party there), I’m fine.
Quit throwing up straw men.
Pud,
They speak Cantonese in Hongkong, not Mandarin.
It was a little dig at the lady. That’s all.
Most Mainland Chinese would like to see the fatherland reunified. The policy of arming Taiwan with weapons is not seen as productive, and is seen as helping independence advocates hold out longer than they would otherwise. The Republicans, for a mix of reasons, pursue this policy much more agressively than the Democrats do.
In Taiwan, of course, it’s not seen as being counterproductive at all.
Taiwan’s geography is a hinderance to an armed invasion. The huge quantity of Taiwanese investment in Mainland China is a hinderance to an armed invasion, promised US military intervention is a hinderance to an armed invasion, and of course, US supplied arms are a hinderance as well. Every little bit helps.
I would argue that most of the Taiwan issue really has very little to do with Taiwan, but that’s for another day.
If you want to talk about this, send me email. I’m wumingzi at gmail dot com. We can get beer and talk about Asian foreign relations. It’ll be fun.
I worked with Mandarin speakers in Hong Kong. They were not natives though, but they were there per the company I worked for.
I will. I think you can guess mine at netscape.net
Pudster
Comment on 7
Sounds great! At last Bellevue will become a livable city.
Goldy…. I understand where you’re coming from, but who really cares about party affilation on the local level? Doesn’t the person’s actions speak much louder on the local level? So a candidate in 2004 stands with Bush or Kerry, what difference will that really make locally?
Sorry to respond to a post directly addressed to Goldy, but I’d like to point out an important consideration, especially in the context of Goldy’s request…
Local government is an important training ground for future state and national politicians, and it’s always better to have a “longer bench” for state and national offices. Of course, that’s the goal of the Progressive Majority of Washington. So, whether it has short-term policy implications, it has long-term effects.
Besides, we D’s want power, dammit! POWER!!! :-)
Comment on 15
Spellman was despicable, and rightly despised, not to mention politically stupid. Here’s what he did to state employees. Giving only 24 hours notice, he changed the payroll system from biweekly to monthly, with a one-payroll-period holdback, and state employees expecting a paycheck the next week suddenly found themselves six weeks away from their next income. Many could not pay their mortgages; Spellman’s response was to announce that lenders should voluntarily forego charging state employees late fees for that month, but so far as is known, no financial institutions cooperated. Spellman also literally took food off state employees’ tables by ordering DSHS to deny food stamps to state employees even if they legally qualified for them (some did); this order was challenged in court and struck down as illegal.
Why did Spellman do this? On paper, to boost the state’s interest income by $4 million by keeping 100,000 state employees’ pay in a bank account for an extra 6 weeks. The state did have a budget crunch at the time, but the $4 mil didn’t even make a dent in the shortfall. Most likely the real reason was because Republicans hate the people who work for government, and Spellman wanted to hurt the state employees and their families just for the hell of it.
Or maybe Spellman’s just a prick.
Well, what do you think happened after Spellman pissed off 100,000 state employees and their families (that’s around 200,000 voters total)? He lost the next election and retired from public life a hated man, that’s what happened.
Wrong Again @ 16
It may interest you to know that even though I believe in God and have personally opposed abortion for many years, I haven’t been driven out of the Democratic Party or run out of a Democratic meeting yet.
The difference between me and a Republican on the abortion issue is that I don’t believe in shoving my personal moral values down the throats of people who don’t share my personal beliefs. I consider it a private matter of personal conscience.
I think there’s a fair number of Democrats with beliefs like mine. Not a majority in the Democratic Party, to be sure, but more than you think.
Pudding brains @ 23, I find it VERY hard to believe that you were EVER a Democrat!
Comment on 27
It is not, strictly speaking, necessary to have laws against murder and thievery as long as you have an annual Feast Day, as some South Seas islander cultures demonstrated.
They didn’t have laws, judges, courts, or jails. But they did offer a human sacrifice to their gods at Feast Day. The person chosen as the human sacrifice was usually the tribe’s biggest asshole. Anthropologists report that crime in these societies was nearly zero. Not surprisingly, knowing they might be the next human sacrifice had an amazing calming effect on would-be malefactors.
By the way, nice essay, jsa.
Priscilla @ 40:
Spellman was largely before my time (I’m 36), so your opinion is probably better-informed than mine.
The point I was trying to make is that Republicans who tack to the center can win office. Hard-line conservatives will lose Western Washington, lose King County, and get slaughtered in Seattle while having their entrails dragged through the streets.
The GOP, prr, and the rest of them can defenestrate about the political makeup of the city, King County, and the state as a whole. Tough. We still have elections, and you get the voters you get.
If the Republican Party wants to win elections, they need to run candidates who don’t smell completely obnoxious to city folks. Rossi, as I think you mentioned, did the best job in a generation in accomplishing this. He wasn’t a loon like Craswell, he wasn’t a gasbag like Carlson, and he wasn’t a hypocrite like Nethercutt (“I’ll only serve two terms”). He did however have a legislative career as a commited, deeply conservative pro-life, lawmaker. He failed to close the sale that he wasn’t like that anymore.
Reply to 30
What kind of message does it send to school children to rent a school building to a bigot so he can spew his hatred?
Comment on 32
Dr. E, would you like to handle this question? I believe it’s for you.
jsa @ 35, he’s talking about the Lake Washington School District renting a school building to anti-gay demagogue Ken Hutcherson’s 3,600-member congregation, which does not own a church building.
Reply to 46
Your point is correct. It takes a moderate Republican to win in King County or statewide, but the wingers and fundies got together and purged all the moderates from the WSRP back in the ’80s, and they’ve been losing ever since.
Priscilla @ 49:
I support Hutcherson’s First Ammendment rights to be a flaming asshole.
I support his right to congregate with his fellow assholes and spread his asshole dogma.
I even reluctantly support his right to do so on school property, as long as he pays the full going rate like everyone else.
I may be tempted to hold a service in the room next door for my bretheren in the First Church of Jesus Christ Aryan, but this would mean that I’d not only have to wake up early on Sunday (a mortal sin), but I’d have to spend Saturday writing a sermon, and I’d have to get through such a sermon without breaking out giggling halfway through.
There is no giggling allowed at the First Church of Jesus Christ Aryan. We are serious.
As a lawyer, you of all people should know the First isn’t just for speech that we like. It’s for all speech. The First exists so we get to hear people like Hutcherson spew out his rubbish and understand it for what it is.
To follow up on this, note that Hutcherson is not getting that school facility for free, nor is he getting a subsidy of “your tax dollars”.
In Seattle, the schools rent out their classrooms and other facilities for after-hours uses. They charge pretty serious cash to do this.
The Chinese school my daughter attends pays $6000/month for use of 10 classrooms and the cafeteria for four hours a day on Saturdays. This tidy sum gives the teachers VERY limited use of the classrooms. They get half the blackboard, they are forbidden to touch the overhead projectors, PCs, or any other equipment in the room.
So if you think about it, by being a first rate asshole, Hutcherson is helping fund the Mercer Island school district, which may move him up a circle or two from his final resting place down below.
Reply to 51
The First Amendment gives Hutcherson a constitutional right to preach what he wants to his flock. It doesn’t give him a constitutional right to rent a building.
Generally speaking, building owners have the right to reject prospective tenants for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason, subject to statutory prohibitions against discrimination based on race, gender, etc.
Reply to 52
Actually they’re paying $140,000 a year rent.
Another TJ @ 39: “Sorry to respond to a post directly addressed to Goldy…”
Hey, if we all did that, this would be a rather barren comment board!
I see your point, but it seems to me that folks (at least around here) don’t like hard line idealogues in local office. Can you name a prominent hardliner (of any stripe) in a local office in the Puget Sound region?
That said, I think state office is an excellent training ground for any party, as I think the voters tolerate “more vocal” folks, and it makes a good springboard for higher state/federal offices.
jsa on beacon hill: “If the Republican Party wants to win elections, they need to run candidates who don’t smell completely obnoxious to city folks.”
While I agree with you in theory, can you see any Republican winning the 7th Congressional?
Also, excellent points on the 1st Admendment. It either protects everybody, or it protects nobody.
You guys sure are hateful. Do you also hate Orthodox Jews, or Muslims?
gotta love it when the right loves the black man and the left hates him….
Sorry Prisc at 53; you are spewing just what we fear; if church preaches something state doesn’t like, you shut us down. Yeah I guess church could go build its own place, but targeting them is having state make a law with respect to religion….
we both end up seeing what’s good for the goose is good for the gander (meaning i can give up on 10 commandments in the courthouse if you let me express my religion w/out discrimination (EVEN if you you don’t like its prohibitions on lying, cheating or other things. Muslims can still make women worship separately)
Right – You are the only one here who has even mentioned Hutcherson’s skin color.
Priscilla, do you shave your balls?
Nindid, Hutcherson is hated because he left the “reservation”. He doesn’t march to Jackson or Sharpton. He doesn’t jump to Kerry or Pelosi. Also being a conservative preacher makes him doubly hated. He preaches the Word from teh Bible. Then being one who isn’t afraid to discuss his feelings makes him triply hated. HE goes on talk shows or writes columns and his message is not filtered. The left just hates unfiltered messages.
Pudster
Why does no one on here want to talk about Bellevue city politics? Anyone here live in Bellevue besides me?
I did for about 10 years in the 70’s and 80’s.
It was great back then.
Fun bars…although WAY TOO MUCH cocaine.
Now they drug of choice is money!
Reply to 60
Why don’t you lick them and find out.
Let’s see I’ve seen two posts here that say Hutcherson is “hated” and both were posted by right wing trolls. Why am I not surprised by that? You guys are the experts on hate.
I don’t hate Hutcherson or even dislike him. I do think his message is incompatible with Jesus’ teachings, and I’m concerned about the effect his anti-gay message has on the community.
Hutcherson is entitled to his beliefs. The problem with renting a school building to his group is illustrated by an anecdote on Carlson’s show a couple days ago. As Carlson told it, Hutcherson put on an appreciation dinner for school staff at which Hutcherson prayed over the staff. Right there, the line of separation between Hutcherson’s church (and what it stands for) and the public school is getting awfully blurry. Carlson didn’t say what the prayer contained, but what if it contained anti-gay language? That’s not far-fetched, after all, that’s Hutcherson message from the pulpit. The school principal is a member of Hutcherson’s church and sympathetic to Hutcherson’s message. How confident can we be that Hutcherson won’t be given access to the children to promote his message?
My point is, there is more to this than abstract principle; the facts of this case are disturbing. We can’t be sure the proper demarcation between Hutcherson’s church and the public school is being maintained when they are operating in the same building and there is evidence of their activities overlapping. Neither Hutcherson nor the principal have been scrupulous to keep the church and school strictly separate. Lake Washington School District rents buildings to 12 other churches, and of course the same policies and rules must apply equally to all, but to the best of my knowledge none of the other religious tenants are preaching an intolerance message or mixing their activities with school activities. That is why the issue concerns Hutcherson’s church and not the others. The issue is the risk of Hutcherson’s intolerance message creeping into the school curriculum.
prissy; wow; you are a fascist; wanna control what he prays about…
Mr I @ 32/Priscilla @ 48
I’d be glad to address this one.
To repeat, my question was:
So, did I get it right, Mr. I?
If you read that post carefully, you’ll notice it’s the only question directed to you. If you’ll read that post more carefully, you’ll notice that those “spewings of a 30 year guv’mint hack attorney” are in fact 90% yours, with the exemplars changed. If you find the text hard to understand, you might want to read through your future missives before posting them. Maybe then others won’t need to point out for you that your shallow presumptions do not a coherent philosophical view make.
As for the substance of your reply, well, I have to say you’ve let me down. You’re presumptuous in the extreme, to be sure, but you’re 100% wrong: I’m not an attorney, don’t work for DSHS, do work my ass off (is 60 hours a week enough for you?) and am neither bitter about that, nor about the fact that I do have to pay taxes on my earnings. Oh, and I’ve never hired an illegal, nor paid anyone $5 per day. I was just being presumptuous, you know… you seem to do an awful lot of that here.
And by the way, if you’ve taken my post for anything other than it is, i.e. sarcasm, maybe you should lighten up.
Goldy: “Are you a progressive Democrat?”
No such thing. Truly progressive (i.e. those interested in real progress) Dems and Reps are called “moderates.”
66
Hutcherson can pray however he likes, but he doesn’t have the right to inflict his prayers on a captive audience of teachers and or pupils provided by a cooperative principal and an unwilling school district in violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.
Maybe I should say “unwitting” school district because the s.d. administrators probably didn’t anticipate what would happen when the rental agreement was signed and may not even know what has been going on.
Comment on 67
Mr. I (mistakenly) assumed that I’m “Dr. E.” The “30-year guvmint hack attorney” remarks were aimed at me.
Of course, I’m not going to respond to Cynical Irrelevant’s diatribe against government, attorneys, and a certain irascible liberal poster. No response is needed, or deserved.
Prissy–
Gee, it seems things can get mighty confusing when folks keep changing their ID’s.
I know I changed mine ONCE from Cynical to Irrelevant.
I’ll change it back to Cynical if folks pledge to post under 1 ID only and not change it.
Any takers?
Mr. I @ 73
Sorry, I’m not Priscilla, and she’s not me. Sorry to disappoint. Hope the clarification helps.
Prisc; could school rent it to a Muslim, who teaches female circumsision, or to a Wiccan how does who know what..??
You mean religion is tolerated only if its preacher is tolerant?
Reply 69
I wish there was separation of State and “liberalism”. I feel so sorry for those kids who have to sit through their classes and listen to some wacked out leftist spew their drivel. At least with Ken they were not getting graded. If we are not going to tolerate religion in the public schools we should not tolerate politics either. I pray for vouchers but with the donks running this state it is just a dream.
76
That’s a great idea. Let’s go back to combine state with conservatism. And let’s REALLY do it. I mean REALLY. What do we get, hmmmm… let’s see…
SEGREGATION!
Of course, I’ll feel sorry for those kids who have to sit through their classes and listen to some wacked out wingnut spew out there drivel as to why they have to keep the black people in those other schools. (And hey, those wingnuts were Dems back then.)
No its called school choice.. but you donks only believe in free choice when it comes to aborting babies. Its very simple.. instead of spending the 7-8k we spend on a kid in a monopolistic school system we open it up to free markets. You get the money that normally would be spent on your kid.. nothing more or nothing less… no discrimination.
78
I think you missed my point entirely, but never mind. And yes, I was being facetious. (Although there’s nothing facetious about aborting babies. Hmmm.)
I guess I still don’t see your point: what’s this leftist drivel, anyway? Is it present in all public schools, or just a few?
Political correctness…. protocols of behavior. This is a huge problem in the schools today. The teachers in a lot of schools are unable to disipline students. It is even a bigger problem in the poorer school districts. The government is held to high standard when it comes to treating everyone evenly and it is unreasonable to expect them to correct this problem. It is just not going to happen. The voucher system opens up the free market and competition. It get more people and ideas involved.
I’m sorry, I still don’t see your point.
So what does political correctness have to do with classroom discipline? Now, I’m an educator, and there are a lot of problems attendant on disciplinary issues – especially in poorer school districts, but a teacher’s political orientation does not have anything to do with his/her ability fo maintain order in the classroon. Sorry, it just doesn’t.
One of the real problems is — ready for this? — bad teachers. Why? Well heck, look what they get paid. Some school districts offering starting pay of $32K. You’re not necessarily going to attract the best and brightest at those wages, although you will get the occasional educator who teaches for the love of doing so, and will excell no matter what the pay. Part of being a good teacher is understanding the importance of discipline in the classroom. Pay them wages that show me how little you value their services, and should it be any surprise that you get such poor results? Want better schools? FUND THEM. And you fund them by funding them all, not by funding just some, or by taking away their funding through voucher schemes.
Remember, voucher programs were proposed and voted down in both California and Michigan – and by resounding margins, EVEN in strongly Republican areas. No surprise, either, at least as far as California was concerned: the ideas behind the voucher program were pretty half-baked — transfering more students out of the public school system will reduce class size, increase the amount of money spent per student, etc. That’s great if you live in an urban/suburban area with plenty of private schools from which to choose, but if you’re out in more rural areas your choices could be nil, or close to nil.
No, if you want better schools with better instructional content and better discipline, you’ve got to pay teachers a respectable wage. Believe me, I am appalled by the level of literacy of the COLLEGE students that show up in my classes (and I’ve taught at more than one university) — most of them can’t spell, and better than half don’t know how to write a sentence, much less frame a coherent argument. And many of these are students who are coming from “good”, well funded school districts.
I’m afraid, however, we’re already at least a generation too far into this problem. With the cuts in funding to public education starting at least during the time of Reagan, we’ve pumped enough mediocre students into the higher education system that the expectations many public universities have of their students has sort of de facto adjusted itself downward. Now, when that happens, there’s a qualitative decline in the competence of the average student entering the world, and some of these mediocre students become teachers, and the cycle starts over again, spiraling slowly downwards.
So what would I propose? First of all, double teachers’ salaries. That would indicate to society that we value education. But, teachers MUST be held accountable (and this will be unpopular among the teachers’ unions) and disciplined/let go should their performance be poor — and I’m not talking about how well their students do on standardized tests, but how well they teach their students to THINK. And yes, that can be assessed.
Next, and boy will people hate me for this, but there needs to be a national, synchronized curriculum. I’m not talking about whether we should allow Kansans to teach creationism, but that there need to be clearly set objectives that can be obtained, and criteria established as to whether those objectives were met. All we really have is the SAT/ACT/AP tests, which aren’t too rigorous, especially when compared with instruments like the British A-levels or the German Abitur.
What should we teach? For god’s sake, they need to have English skills, if nothing else. They have to be able to spell, use proper grammar and syntax, and express themselves in a way that is intelligible to others. They need to be able to read at a highly competent level, and should be intellectually curious in so doing. Although it’s well known that this country is producing a dearth of scientists, I’d dare say that we’d produce far better minds, scientific and non-scientific, if our students read more Plato — anything that would challenge them and make them think.
Utopian? Not really, just a question of national priorities. We don’t need to raise taxes to make any of this happen, just look at where tax revenues are being allocated. You can probably guess where I’d rather have seen that $200 billion squandered on Iraq go.
So, that’s my 3 cents.
OK I will argue my point using your arguments. I agree with you that teachers need better pay… and not just a little. Lets do a little math. Let say that the average costs per student spent on just books and a teacher is 6k per student per year. Keep in mind this 6k does not include building costs,maintenance and transportation. At a 22 kid average this would be 132k a year. Now if a teacher is only making 32 or 40 or even 50k is that a lack of funding? Healthcare and pension max is probably 15-20k a year. Staffing books and supplies ie priciple, office ect) 50k max. Insurance and taxes 5-8k. I guarantee you if you add up all the true costs spent on k-12 education it would probably almost double the 6k I listed earlier(adding of course transportation and building cost and maintenance). If you dont see my point by now then I am sorry but I dont think you ever will. Now if people dont want it.. they dont want it. I thought vouchers were approved in this state but somehow were not implemented for some odd reason. Should voucher be forced on people.. absolutely not. Should vouchers be available to communities that want them.. YES! All the rest of your arguments are right on. I do however still stand behind my comments in #80. Freedom is the answer.
RUFUS–
Unproductive bureaucratic overhead gobbles up huge amounts of education money. Unnecessary school buildings have fixed costs just to open the doors. We need to consolidate MANY of the small school districts like they did in Arizona several years ago. They went from something like 270 SD’s to to 90 and saved mega-millions. They were fought by the entrenched bureaucrats.
We also need to fight some of the these so-called “special programs” crafted by LEFTIST PINHEADS for their “special” kids.
In Washington, every SD has a business office and administration staff. We also have this dollar sucker called ESD’s that supposedly service SD’s. Washington is one of only 3 states that has more non-certified teaching employees than certified staff.
These LEFTIST PINHEADS cannot fathom that our Education problems are not simply about MORE MONEY but are structural, systemic problems that can EASILY be solved if their is the will to fight the ineffective, entrenched bureaucracy.
RUFUS,
I’d be more than willing to compromise on this one. And I agree with Mr. I’s point that unproductive bureacracy wastes, among other things, money. I don’t think most progressives would dispute that. We do oppose, however, the typical conservative “starve the beast” approach that is supposed to cut such waste, so long as it doesn’t address the structural problems within bureaucracies that create waste.
The real problem, again, I think is much larger than bureaucracies — which we’ll always have — or bureaucratic waste. It’s our national priorities.
If this society were really serious about educating its citizens–and I don’t really think we are–then we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion. We’ve already got the money, brains, and talent to truly deliver the finest public education system to be found anywhere, but instead we allow our elected officials to spend our tax dollars elsewhere, and then complain about the education system being broken and not have a real workable plan to fix it.
If we’re really serious about the elimination of bureaucratic waste, then start with the biggest offender: the Pentagon. The DoD inspector general recently found that it couldn’t account for over $1 trillion in Pentagon moneys. That’s a trillion dollars, folks — twelve zeroes. The total Bush administration budgetary request for education in FY 2006 weighs in, by contrast, at $51 billion (vs. nearly $439 billion for discretionary military spending).
So, I’d really like to see all the small-government types get serious and demand efficiency — you’re not getting it right now — but choose your battles and pick the worst offenders first. And if you can really free up more money to go into teachers’ salaries by eventually streamlining school districts, great — just make sure that some of that left over money to gets to the teachers’ pockets.
Of course, that leaves another objection to the voucher scheme: that taxpayer dollars are being used to finance a private infrastructure outside of government regulations. Private schools aren’t regulated by the No Child Left Behind legislation, and further can adopt whatever religious or political orientations they see fit and disseminate that message in the classroom, again at taxpayers’ expens. This is where I question if it’s really only about choice.
So getting back to the topic of the Bellevue city council, does anyone know whether that Progressive Majority of Washington group got the response they wanted? I emailed the address listed in this article yesterday saying that I was interested and giving them my email address and phone numbers, but haven’t heard from anyone.
Oh leave the eastside alone; all you commie/libs now calling yourselves “progressives”, don’t ruin all of King County. We’ll give you Fremont, toss us a bone and give us Factoria, Kirkland, Bellevue.
ps, didn’t progressives start out favoring citizen initiatives, only now to hate them?
I think they have a big training this weekend in conjuction with Wellstone Action, so they’re probably all staffing it.
Hi! Prompt, how to me to you to get?