Goldy

Despite the tough economic times, 20 0f 23 school levy and bond measures in King and Snohomish counties are passing, most by comfortable margins. Of the three that are currently failing, two are bond measures receiving over 50 percent of the vote, but which require 60 percent to pass. The only levy to fail is in Federal Way, and just barely at 49.7 percent.

And Seattle’s two school levies are both passing with over 71 percent of the vote.

That’s right, in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, a comfortable majority of voters in WA’s two most populous counties just voted to raise their own taxes to pay for schools.

Think about it.

I’m not having an easy time making ends meet, and yet I just voted to raise my own taxes to help pay for schools, as will a comfortable majority of voters in school levy elections throughout the state.

Think about it.

Over on Crosscut, Daniel Jack Chasan asks the question: “Are super-majorities in the legislature unconstitutional?”

Simple answer: of course they are… except for, you know, those super-majorities specifically prescribed within the constitution.

Think about it. Washington state’s constitution mandates a two-thirds legislative super-majority to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot, an intentionally difficult legislative hurdle. And unlike in California, Washington’s constitution cannot be amended via initiative.

But if constitutionally prescribed legislative majorities, like that required to amend the constitution itself, can be changed through a simple majority vote — either of the legislature or through a citizens initiative — then there’s really no point in having a constitution at all. What sets a constitution apart from, and primary over the rest of our laws is the extra effort it takes to modify it; if the majority provisions can be changed via simple majority, than so can the constitution, making it in essence, just another set of statutes.

The fact that I-960 makes it more difficult to pass legislation, rather than less, is neither here nor there. The constitution is the constitution.

So why has the Washington State Supreme Court never thrown out I-960 or its predecessor I-601 as unconstitutional? Because its never been forced to rule on the issue.

Hugh Spitzer, who teaches Washington constitutional law at the University of Washington law school, says it seems pretty clear that if the state supreme court were somehow forced to vote on the issue, the court would find the two-thirds rule unconstitutional. But so far, the court has managed to duck the question.

“The court is terrified of having to make a decision,” on the constitutionality of a supermajority, Spitzer suggests. “They do everything they can” to avoid it.

Huh. So here’s an idea that I’m confident my friends in the Democratic caucus will never embrace: why not just up the ante on Tim Eyman’s game of constitutional brinksmanship, and fight fire with fire? If Tim is going to insist on repeatedly running initiatives that increase the majority required to pass certain forms of legislation, then the Legislature should pass a bill — on a simple majority vote — that increases the majority required to qualify or pass certain types of initiatives.

You know, we could attempt to increase the number of signatures necessary to qualify an initiative for the ballot from 8 percent of the previous gubernatorial turnout to 12 percent, and/or increase the majority required for passage at the polls from a simple majority to say, 60 percent.

Of course, such legislation would be challenged, and of course, the Supreme Court would strike it down. You just can’t change such constitutionally prescribed majorities through simple legislation.

And that would settle that constitutional issue, once and for all.

WellPoint pays its CEO $10 million a year, and spent over $9.5 million last year lobbying against health care reform. And now with reform all but dead, the company is intent on enjoying the fruit of its labors, hiking premiums on its 800,000 individual policy holders in California by 39 percent.

Ah, the efficiencies of the market.

In a blow to House Republicans who had made him one of their favorite targets of scorn and derision, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) died today at age 77 of complications from gallbladder surgery.

Although he’d earned wide renown amongst D.C. insiders for his pork-barrel prowess (you know, the kinda bring-home-the-bacon politics folks here in our Washington like to abuse Rep. McDermott for not plying), Murtha didn’t become a lightning rod for Republican criticism until 2005, when the normally hawkish Democrat prominently came out in favor of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. A former marine whose honors include the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts, Murtha was the first Vietnam War veteran to be elected to the U.S. House.

And in a curious historical note, Murtha has now become the third in a direct line of succession to have died in office, joining his immediate predecessor John P. Saylor (1973) and Saylor’s predecessor Robert L. Coffey (1949). So a word of caution to those seeking to succeed Murtha: few who hold this office manage to return alive.

UPDATE:
Speaking of pork, Murtha’s death bumps WA’s own Rep. Norm Dicks to the number two position on the all powerful House Appropriations Committee, where he will likely take over Murtha’s chair of the lucrative Defense subcommittee. Say what you want, but that can’t be bad for the military-industrial complex here in WA state.

A couple of thoughts on Lee’s excellent and provocative post regarding the Department of Corrections’ abuse of probationers’ rights to use medical marijuana.

First, one would think that folks in the legacy media might be all over such a scandalous abuse of state power, if not for A) our media’s tendency to to view medical marijuana patients as a bunch of worthless, lying potheads, and B) their fear of covering any story that might cast media-beloved AG Rob McKenna in an unflattering light.

Second, if there’s anything that illustrates the incredible stupidity and casual cruelty of our drug policy, it’s how it so easily turned a sickly grandmother with a medical marijuana prescription and less than a quarter ounce of pot, into an enemy combatant in our so-called War on Drugs. Read Lee’s post; is there any moral or social justification for this poor woman’s arrest in Arizona, and subsequent abuse at the hands of the Washington DOC? And yet such abuse is the inevitable consequence of our current, twisted system.

What a waste of time and money, not to mention the cost in human suffering. So come on, let’s legalize marijuana already so we can let law enforcement focus on enforcing laws that actually make sense.

Deuteronomy 25:11-12
If two men fight together, and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of the one attacking him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity her.

Discuss.

I’ve used HA to advocate for moving to a high-tuition/high-financial-aid model in Washington’s four-year universities, pretty much since I started blogging, first in July of 2004, and at least once a year since (for example, here, here, here, and here). Hiking tuition is not a classically progressive policy proposal, and let me tell you, it didn’t win me many fans either in the comment threads or our state Democratic caucus.

But now that the Legislature is close to adopting this model via a bill that would grant “tuition flexibility” to the UW, WSU and Western, I gotta admit that I’m getting more than a little nervous.

See, the concept is rather simple. By mandating low in-state tuition prices, far below the actual cost to the university of providing an undergraduate education, the state has essentially been distributing the bulk of its funds directly to students in the form of a flat, per student subsidy, regardless of means. But under the new system, tuition would be allowed to gradually rise closer to actual costs, while financial aid grants and income thresholds rose accordingly, so as to keep higher education affordable to low and middle income families.

Indeed, with the extra revenue generated from those families who could afford to pay it, higher education could be made more affordable and more accessible. That is, assuming the state maintains its financial commitment to the state university system.

And that’s the assumption that’s making me nervous.

The whole point of this model is to offset higher tuition with higher financial aid, using the extra tuition revenue to help achieve this balance, but if the state uses new tuition revenue as an excuse for reducing its own expenses, that contract is irrevocably broken. My fear is that, with this tuition flexibility reform coming as a response to our state’s current budget crisis, legislators will view it primarily as a money-saving measure, and will treat it as such in subsequent budgets, resulting in a permanent reduction in future state funding for higher education. And honestly, I don’t want to play a role in enabling that.

We already don’t spend enough money to provide access to a quality higher education to all of our state’s young people, and we don’t need an excuse for legislators to spend even less. So while I obviously support tuition flexibility in theory, I cannot support it in practice unless the state makes the financial commitment necessary to assure that this reform makes higher eduction more accessible, not less. And I certainly cannot support it as a mere budgetary device.

DISCLOSURE:
Years ago, her mother and I bought our daughter four years of prepaid tuition through the state GET program, so higher in-state tuition will not impact us regardless of our means, should she attend a state university. Should our daughter attend a private or out-of-state university, higher  in-state tuition would in fact result in a higher return on our investment.

There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.
— Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, 4/29/07

Not wanting to pile on or anything, but, well, you know.

In a decision that should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick ruled today that the state has failed to meet its “paramount duty” to make “ample provision for the education of all children,” as required by Washington’s Constitution, and ordered the state to provide stable and dependable funding to do so.

In response, Gov. Gregoire issued the following statement:

“Improving the quality of our schools and the education system has been, and remains, the top priority of our state. I agree with the court that we have a duty to provide a high quality education to our children.

Working with my staff and the Attorney General’s Office, I will be reviewing this decision to determine where we go from here.

Last year we passed significant legislation that would institute major funding reforms to ensure the necessary resources and programs to help every student succeed. That work must continue.

Regardless of whether this decision is upheld, I will continue working with the legislature to improve school accountability, close the achievement gap and ensure we provide our children opportunities for success in the global marketplace in which they will be competing. The legislative process is the best avenue we have available to determine those components.

Right now there is legislation being considered that would reform our education system. In light of this decision, I think it’s even more important that we pass these proposals that will put us in a better position to improve educational opportunities for every student in our state.”

To which I say:  Show me the money!

That was always my problem with last year’s education reform package. It promised improvements that would cost an extra billion dollars or so by 2018, but it never actually provided the funding mechanism to make it happen. Meanwhile, school funding has been substantially slashed in the here and now.

The truth is, education reform without tax structure reform is a hollow promise, and we’ll never be able to sustainably fund K-12 and higher education until we move to a fairer and more adequate tax system. Everything else is just talk.

The good news for Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is that only 34% percent of Seattle voters surveyed disapprove of his job performance thus far. The bad news is that only 40% approve of his performance… that according to a KING5/SurveyUSA poll of 500 Seattle voters.

Well, so much for the honeymoon.

Other tidbits from the poll: Seattle voters don’t seem overly anxious about replacing the 520 floating bridge, with only 23% ranking the project “very important,” and while 62% of respondents prefer a 6-lane bridge to a 4-lane one, there seems to be a modest preference toward dedicating the extra two lanes to light rail over HOV, 46% to 33%. Huh.

Dear Amazon,

You lose money on every Kindle you sell, you pay carriers for every bit you transfer over your Whispernet wireless delivery system, and at $9.99 a pop you even lose money on many of your e-books. And you’re worried about competing with the iPad… why?

Quit wasting your time and money acquiring companies and technologies in hopes of outdoing Apple at what Apple does best, and instead put all your effort into creating a better Kindle app and e-book buying experience for the iPad and other forthcoming tablet devices than Apple has created with its own iBook platform. Think of the iPad as an opportunity to get your e-books into millions more hands, without having to subsidize the hardware and network costs. Yeah, sure, you might only ultimately capture 20 to 30 percent of the e-book market on Apple’s touch platform, but that would still represent a helluva lot of virtual Kindles… and just like in the smartphone market, even a wildly successful iPad won’t be the only major player in the field.

Oh, there’s still plenty of room for your physical Kindle, a special purpose e-book reader with a comfortable e-ink display and incredibly long battery life… and there’s plenty of opportunity to make the Kindle better and cheaper. But multi-touch, app stores, energy-hungry color screens… you’re never going to create a better multipurpose device at a lower cost than Apple. So please, keep your focus.

Kindle is a great product that kick-started the e-book industry, and you deserve to be proud of that. But don’t let pride get in the way of profiting off your initial success.

Best of luck,

Goldy

Now that even Colin Powell has reversed himself and come out in support of lifting the ban on gays serving openly in the military, and ending the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that was implemented on his watch, is there really even much of a controversy anymore?

Top military brass support lifting the ban, and if I understand how the military works, those under them will do what they’re told. No doubt lifting the ban will make for some awkward moments, but what’s the big deal?

Apparently, the only thing that speeds more precariously out of control than a Toyota with a stuck accelerator, is DOT Secretary Ray LaHood’s mouth.