Goldy

State Sen. Fred Jarrett (D-Mercer Island) emailed supporters this morning officially announcing that he’s kinda sorta maybe considering whether to consider a run for King County Executive:

You may have read recent press reports that I might be a candidate for King County Executive this year. Over the past several months many of my friends and supporters have encouraged me to consider entering this race. 
 
I am currently occupied with my Senate duties and will be until the session ends.  That is my priority.  I am deeply involved in strengthening education and the challenges of our budget, and the economic situation our state faces.  Even if I decided to run, I am prohibited from doing so during the legislative session.  Consequently, I’ve answered those who’ve suggested the race that while I saw the opportunities a new county executive would have, I didn’t know how it could be done.
 
This weekend, Susan and I talked about the race.  What it would mean for our family and what I could bring to the race.  We decided we should take a closer look into whether such a candidacy would be feasible.

Well that clears up everything.

It’s no secret that Jarrett would love to take on the Executive job, but running for it, that’s an entirely different question, especially considering he’s barred from raising money until after the current legislative session.  That complicates things for Jarrett and Rep. Ross Hunter (D-48)—who is also rumored to be considering a run at the Exec office (or perhaps WA-08)—and places them both at substantial disadvantage against councilmembers Larry Phillips and Dow Constantine, who are already in full campaign mode.

Still, a lot of folks really like Jarrett and his chances; 41st LD hoo-hahs had already started jockeying to line up his senate replacement, well before today’s pseudo-announcement.  Hell… I really like Jarrett, despite his Republican heritage, and if I didn’t ultimately support him, would find it nigh impossible to back an opponent in my usual enthusiastic style.

This one, at least, is potentially shaping up to be an interesting race.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s days are numbered, but there’s still time for their editorial board to set the record straight on the new domestic partnership legislation being debated in Olympia, and the blatantly misleading, anti-gay TV ads that are using the P-I to validate their lies.

Of course, the legislation does not “redefine marriage” as the ad claims, nor does it require schools to teach that homosexuality is normal; it merely extends to domestic partnerships the same rights and responsibilities under state law that are currently available to married couples.  The bill does not legalize gay marriage, so all you gay-bashers out there can rest assured that same-sex couples will still be denied the 1,138 rights and protections enjoyed by married couples under federal law.

Yeah, sure, these are the types of lies and exaggeration we’ve come to expect from social conservatives on issues concerning gay rights, but this ad goes one step further, deliberately misquoting a state legislator in a smear campaign that borders on libel.

The sponsor of this law says, those who disagree with homosexual marriage should “face being fined, fired, and even jailed until they relent.”

The sponsor of this bill is Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle), and he said no such thing.

The alleged quote comes from a May 20th, 2008 guest column in the Seattle P-I from David Benkof, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage.  Benkof wrote:

Openly gay Washington state Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, and a representative of the largest Michigan gay-rights group, the Triangle Foundation, have both told me that people who continue to act as if marriage is a union between a man and a woman should face being fined, fired and even jailed until they relent.

This is, of course, not a direct quote, and as Sen. Murray complained five days later in a letter to the editor, it was a “deliberate misrepresentation” of his views on the issue:

In an e-mail exchange, Benkof posed to me numerous hypothetical scenarios in a world where same-sex marriage was legal. One such scenario was of a business owner who “was just stubborn and wouldn’t treat wife-wife couples equally” to heterosexual couples for religious reasons. What should be made of their “principled stand,” Benkof asked me.

[…] I wrote to Benkof: “The law should be enforced, just as it was when either King or Gandhi engaged in civil disobedience. Both ended up in jail despite the righteousness of their cause.”

A state legislator urging that state laws be enforced… who’d a thunk?

So how does Sen. Murray’s reasonable statement get transformed into a fascistic call for jailing people who oppose homosexuality?  It is tempting to blame the lying, amoral scaremongers who put together that ad… but that’s kinda like blaming a pig for wallowing in mud. It’s what they do.

No, it’s the P-I who really deserves the blame here.

Benkof was entitled to his opinions—that’s the whole purpose of publishing guest columns—but the editors at the P-I had an obligation to at least make an effort to verify his statements of fact, and anybody who is at all familiar with Sen. Murray would have been immediately suspicious of such an uncharacteristically impolitic assertion on such a sensitive subject.  A simple phone call would have sufficed… you know, the kinda basic fact-checking the legacy media so often accuses us of bloggers of neglecting.

Now, as is often the case in political campaigns, the lie, which first appeared in print, is being compounded and exaggerated on TV, and given even more weight by the bogus claim that the alleged statement appeared in a “Seattle P-I Editorial,” as opposed to a mere guest column.

The P-I failed in their obligation to fact-check Benkof’s column, but they still have time to make amends.  I’m sure there are plenty other topics on which they’d probably prefer editorializing during their final days, but it would serve them well to acknowledge their error, correct the public record, and demand that this misleading ad be pulled.  As this incident proves, newspapers do matter.  It would be nice to see the P-I prove that they matter in a good way.

Hoop Dreams
The Seattle Times editorial board, one of our state’s biggest cheerleaders for a cuts-only approach to our $8 billion budget gap—even if it means a 20-percent cut in funding to the UW and the rest of our colleges and universities—devotes scarce op-ed space today to cheering on the Huskies’ men’s basketball team.  It’s good to see the Times editors have their priorities straight.

The Oklahoma Mariners?
Oops… I guess it’s time to build a new baseball stadium…

For the first time since moving into Safeco Field in 1999, the Mariners reported a financial loss last season, according to documents filed by the team Monday with the Public Facilities District.

The club reported a $4.5 million deficit, owing in large part to having the highest player payroll in franchise history at the same time that attendance dropped during the 101-loss season.

I mean, after all, how can we really expect the Mariners to make ends meet, playing in an antiquated, 10-year-old facility? If Seattle really wants to be a big league city, it’s time for us taxpayers to play ball.

Feet of Clay: Insert Directly in Mouth
And speaking of teams leaving for Oklahoma City, I don’t really miss the Sonics Thunder, but as a blogger, I surely do miss owner Clay Bennett:

Bend It Like Bennett, one of the most hilarious basketball blogs out there, has a glimpse inside of Un-Sonics/Thunder owner Clay Bennett’s household. Bennett’s 16-year-old son, Graham, has the following listed as one of his favorite “quotations” (with “Dad” assumed to be Clay):

I guess in Bennett’s defense, he didn’t call anybody a nigger.

Dear driver of the big white van who decided the perfect time to suddenly move from the middle lane to the left lane (and of course, without using blinkers), was just at the moment I was merging into traffic from the left lane on-ramp at Island Crest Way and I-90… fuck you!

I’m preparing to move HA to a new server to better handle some of the changes coming up, so please be prepared for some downtime.  I’m just sayin’.

The conventional wisdom in political circles is that incumbents like Dave Reichert should become more secure the longer they hold office, but it’s beginning to look like the third-term Republican is becoming even more of a DCCC target than he was the previous two elections.  Reichert already has a challenger in the form of a female, ex-Microsoft executive (and no, her name isn’t Darcy Burner), and now finds himself one of only five Republican incumbents being targeted with radio ads for his vote against President Obama’s economic recovery package.

[audio:http://aufc.3cdn.net/38715940c2c9fd0336_odm6b6426.mp3]

The ad is paid for by Americans United for Change, a labor group, and it asks whether Reichert will continue to embrace Rush Limbaugh and his partisan divisiveness, or whether he’ll work with President Obama to enact real change.  (My guess is, the majority of his constituents would prefer the latter.)

Thanks in part to the complicity and/or laziness of our local media, Reichert has done a good job in recent years portraying himself as a “moderate” (whatever that means) while continuing to vote the Republican party line whenever his vote really counts.  A relentless campaign over the next two years to educate voters about the real Reichert could pay off handsomely in 2010.

Yet another name once bandied about as a potential challenger to Mayor Greg Nickels has officially dropped from contention, with Nick Licata announcing that he will instead seek another term on the Seattle City Council:

“After considerable reflection on how to best serve the community I love, I am happy to announce that I will run for re-election to the City Council.  A number of you urged me to run for Mayor, but I feel my role as a legislator, writing the laws that govern our city, is the one that suits me best.”

Greg Smith, Richard Conlin, Tim Burgess and Licata had all floated the idea of challenging Nickels, and all have backed down. According to the local rumor mills, that leaves only one potential serious contender left with a chance of unseating Boss Nickels this November:  popular former City Councilmember Peter Steinbrueck, who reportedly beats Nickels in at least one private poll… for whatever that’s worth.

Now that would be an interesting race.

UPDATE:
Of course, just as I hit the publish button, Publicola posts that former Sonics star, and current city council candidate James Donaldson is about to jump into the mayor’s race.  I dunno.  Doesn’t seem like a smart political move to me, and while I’ve never met him, everybody tells me that Donaldson is smart.

The state legislature may have cut Seattle entirely out of federal transportation stimulus dollars, but at least we’re getting our fair share of the much smaller stimulus program aimed at criminal justice services:  $2.7 million of the $14.3 million being distributed to Washington state municipalities.  Of course, that’s only because the money is being divied up nationally according to a federal formula based on population and crime statistics, rather than the “Fuck Seattle” politics that tends to dominate Olympia these days.

(Hat tip, TNT)

The Seattle Times editorial board’s lack of empathy and curiosity is on display once again, this time in a smirk of an unsigned op-ed that dismissively rolls its eyes at families fighting to save their neighborhood schools from closure.

WASHINGTON law allows those who feel wronged by school boards or school officials to seek legal recourse.

The statute gives legal cover to the four lawsuits filed this week against the Seattle School District over its school-closures plan. But it does not hide their lack of substance.

[…] When it comes to government, the public must have a route to appeal, and in the case of harm, seek remedy. But a foundation held up by taxpayers has a high threshold. Nuisance lawsuits and those that seek not to remedy, but to obstruct, should be swiftly ferreted out and dismissed.

Shorter Seattle Times:  those who feel wronged have the right to seek legal recourse, you know, except when it gets in the way of saving money.

It is particularly irritating to see the Times pontificate on school closures knowing their credulous coverage of the issue over the past three rounds. The Times, which has been quick to criticize the district on other issues, simply accepts the school closure data—enrollment, budget, cost savings and performance numbers—as a matter of fact, while dismissing objections from parents as nothing but a “nuisance” and an effort to “obstruct.” And for a paper that is often so vociferously suspicious of government and government officials when it comes to property rights, public disclosure, transportation planning, the raising and spending of taxpayer dollars and almost every other issue, it is more than a bit ironic to see them urging parents to just shut up and sacrifice their own children’s education for the good of the district.

If the plan results in better-resourced schools, more successful students and district efficiencies that free up the money to pay for it, those children are being singled out for something good.

How very Mr. Spock of them.  If I didn’t know better, I’d say this editorial was written by a goddamn socialist.

While I haven’t educated myself nearly as well on the specifics of this closure plan, I know from past experience how “arbitrary and capricious” the district can be in justifying one proposal over another, and then suddenly changing course.  My own neighborhood school, Graham Hill Elementary, was slandered by the district during the 2006 closure process on nearly every metric evaluated.  Academic performance, neighborhood support, even something supposedly as concrete as our enrollment numbers were intentionally deflated in an effort to justify our school’s closure.  And when we presented our own numbers (including a detailed analysis from a forensic accountant) to the Times, they responded with public silence and private accusations of NIMBYism.

Had we followed the Times’ sage advice, and just shut up and accepted the district’s decision for the good of the many, Graham Hill would be shuttered today instead of over-enrolled and winning awards.  But we didn’t.  As with most aspects of our capitalist-inspired society, this is an adversarial process.  So we fought hard for our school, and we won.  And I applaud those communities who are doing the same for their neighborhood schools, in the face of overwhelming odds and the elitist admonishments of know-it-all editorial boards.

In fact, I’d argue that it is those parents who refuse to fight who deserve to be admonished, for if all parents fought as hard for their children’s education as those who are bringing these lawsuits, the needs of the many would surely be better served.

I know Frank Blethen keeps saying that the impending demise of the P-I will be a boon to his rival Times, but apparently not everybody is that optimistic…

The McClatchy Co., which owns 49.5 percent of The Seattle Times Co., has again cut the value of its share of the Seattle newspaper company — this time to nothing.

Because of The Seattle Times Co’s. “comprehensive loss related to its retirement plan liabilities” in 2008, McClatchy’s investment was zero as of Dec. 28, McClatchy said in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Huh.  I’m not exactly certain what a 49.5 percent stake in HA would be worth, but I’m pretty sure it’s worth more than nothing.

Our OCD pals over at Seattle Transit Blog are studying the details of our state economic stimulus bill, and they don’t like what they see.

Wait just a minute. What’s that amendment (PDF)? It’s from Representative Judy Clibborn (D-Mercer Island), whose constituents voted for light rail over the I-90 bridge?

Oh, I see, it screws over light rail across I-90. Again.

Apparently, thanks to Rep. Clibborn’s amendment, the one state project the voter-approved East Link light rail depends on actually ends up with $700,000 less than it had before the federal stimulus money. No doubt good news to those Mercer Islanders looking to maintain their SOV lanes as long as possible.

So when the people pass a ballot measure cutting taxes or limiting government, somehow their will is inviolate, and legislators quake in their boots at the very thought of overturning a voter approved initiative.

But when the people pass a ballot measure directing state funds toward reducing class size or increasing teacher pay, or banning certain inhumane hunting techniques, or… say… mandating electric utilities get 15% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020… well, apparently legislators feel free to reinterpret voter intent, or even sacrifice it altogether in the name of political or economic expediency.

Go figure.

One of the things that annoyed me about state Representatives Deb Wallace and Glenn Anderson’s interview regarding higher education funding was their instant dismissal of proposals to move to a high tuition/high financial aid model.

At least Anderson was ideologically honest, objecting to wealthy families paying full fare by saying that “we’re not a class society.”  Okay.  Wrong.  But fair enough.

Wallace on the other hand, brushed off the suggestion by saying that the math doesn’t work… implying that the state would have to come up with more financial aid dollars to offset the higher tuition costs, and that ultimately it would make college less affordable for low and middle income families.

First of all, that’s just plain dumb.  Let’s say you’re a low to middle income student currently receiving financial aid in the form of $3,000 in grants, and the UW suddenly jacks up its $6,800/year in tuition and fees to $17,800.  Now let’s say the UW (ie, the state) increases your grant by another $11,000 to offset the hike.  How much extra money did this cost the state?  Zilch.  You were paying $3,800/year and you’re still paying $3,800.  It’s a zero sum game.

But if you’re a student from a wealthy family, who does not need financial aid, and thus does not qualify for it, you’re suddenly paying an extra $11,000 into the system… money that can be spent to increase the quality of education at the UW, or expand the number of seats, or even lower the costs for truly needy students.

That’s how this model works, and at many of our nation’s most prestigious private universities, it generally works damn well.

For example, I just received an email to alumni from University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann, in which she explains how the economic downturn has impacted the university’s finances, and what it is doing to lessen the impact on students.  In fact, despite its endowment suffering a 19-percent loss over the previous six months…

Given the new economic hardships many Americans are facing, I want to focus on the steps we are taking to strengthen Penn’s commitment to access.  We can reassure prospective and current students alike that our financial aid packages will continue to meet the full need of every Penn undergraduate. We are moving forward to substitute grants for loans for all undergraduate financial aid packages beginning in September 2009.  As previously outlined, typical students from families with income less than $40,000 will pay no tuition, fees, room or board.  Students from typical families with incomes less than $90,000 will pay no tuition and fees. All undergraduates eligible for financial aid will receive grants rather than loans in their aid packages.

Tuition and fees at Penn for the 2008-09 academic year come to a stunning $37,526, compared to only $6,800 for in-state students at the UW.  And yet, students from families with incomes less than $90,000 will typically pay no tuition and fees at all.

As you can see, for those who pay full fare, the UW would be an absolute bargain when compared to much pricier private schools, even if tuition were to rise to $17,800.  That’s why the university can still attract so many students paying the $23,000 out-of-state costs.  Yet for those students coming from families on the middle and lower end of the income scale… well… not so much.  The problem is, we’re subsidizing all of our students, instead of just those who need it, while those supposedly elitist Ivy League schools come across as downright socialist.

So don’t tell me the math doesn’t work.  The math works damn well at Penn, and hundreds of other schools.  On this particular issue, it’s our legislature that isn’t working.

SEIU local 925, representing 6,500 University of Washington employees in academic, research and business departments, overwhelmingly voted last night to voluntarily give up scheduled wage increases for 2009-2011.

“Giving up raises won’t stop staff layoffs,” said Anne Lawson, SEIU 925 UW chapter president. “But it will preserve more services for students, faculty and hospital patients, and keep as many experienced staff as possible.”

State employee union leaders aren’t stupid, and everybody I’ve spoken to has seemed more than willing to negotiate concessions to help soften the blow of impending budget cuts.  And that’s the way it should work, rather than the governor or legislature simply imposing wage and benefit cuts, unilaterally abrogating contracts that had been negotiated and signed in good faith.

In response to my post taking legislators to task for the deceptive language in their bill authorizing “carbonless energy parks,”  Rep. Jeff Morris (D-Hole I’m Digging For Myself) tells the Bellingham Herald’s Sam Taylor that I’m just plain wrong:

It currently is a nuclear site, they, Energy Northwest, want to build a thermal solar facility. The bill transfers a water right from the nuclear facility which was never built to the carbonless park….. or maybe they could store black helicopters there?

Well, we all know how much I hate being wrong, which is why, before publishing, I tend to research my posts, even the snarky ones.  So before throwing in that “black helicopter” line, let alone flatly refuting me, Rep. Morris should have done a little more research himself… or at the very least got his story straight with Rep. Brad Klippert (R-Kennewick) whose own press release on the bill actually touts the nuclear option:

Klippert said the bill provides for water usage from the Columbia River for cooling of nuclear reactors.

“We have one nuclear reactor in operation and two others partially constructed. This bill specifically addresses the need for water. With three operating nuclear reactors, we could produce as much electricity at Hanford as all the wind generators in the United States combined,” said Klippert.

Oops.  Is that the whirring of helicopter rotors I hear?

Rep. Morris is right that there is also talk of building a solar-thermal project on the 20-square-mile Hanford site,  but Energy Northwest’s Jack Baker makes clear that for now it’s just talk:   “We want to build solar facilities there in the future when the price is right, and have options there for future nuclear development.”

Again, I’m not opposed to debating nuclear energy; I think there are valid arguments pro and con.  But this adoption of the phrase “carbonless energy parks” on a bill that, amongst other things, specifically secures water rights and tax breaks for the construction and operation of two additional nuclear power plants, is clearly an attempt to deceive, not persuade.

Perhaps, in Rep. Morris’s defense, he too was deceived.  I dunno.  But when it comes to his assertion that this bill is about nothing more than transferring water rights from an unfinished nuclear facility to a solar thermal one, it is he who is wrong, not I.