Goldy

The Seattle Times editorial board today urges the state Utilities and Transportation Commission to “Block PSE sale,” arguing that the highly leveraged proposed buyout of Puget Sound Energy would be “hazardous to ratepayers.” And, well, I don’t disagree.

Why do this transaction? For shareholders, the answer is easy: They get $30 a share, in cash, immediately, for a stock that traded recently in the lower $20s, with the profit taxable at the 15 percent capital-gains rate.

For Puget’s CEO, Stephen Reynolds, who has options on 300,000 shares priced at $22.51, the attraction is obvious. He also gets a payment of $4.4 million from the acquirers, with the tax paid by them.

[…] And then there are the people who rely on Puget for their electricity and gas. As a result of this deal, they get a utility burdened with $1.4 billion in extra parent-company debt, a mortgage that buys the ratepayers nothing of value to them. And it is not a mortgage really, but a medium-term debt that will have to be refinanced a few years hence at an interest rate no one can now determine.

Last week I kinda-sorta debated uber-conservative Grover Norquist on the limits of governments, and it’s issues like this that really test the ideological purity of self-proclaimed free marketeers like Norquist and his ilk. No doubt, this is a deal that is good for shareholders. And no doubt the unchallenged doctrine of the invisible hand would argue that the market always makes the most efficient allocation of resources. But it’s hard to see what if any benefit would accrue to ratepayers by having foreign investors mortgage PSE’s assets to facilitate a leveraged buyout?

PSE is after all a monopoly throughout most of its coverage area, leaving consumers no alternative supplier of electricity or natural gas. Given a deregulated market (the conservative ideal), it would be equally foolish to expect investors to build competing power lines in response to rising rates as it would to believe that competing power grids could somehow constitute an efficient allocation of resources.

One can reasonably argue with specific regulations and the specific decisions of government regulators, but there are simply some products and services for which a regulated monopoly—or God forbid, a government agency—provides the most efficient and beneficial economy of scale. To inflexibly argue otherwise—that regulation is always harmful and that the public sector is always less efficient than the private—is to argue that PSE should not only be free to sell out to whomever it pleases under whatever conditions most benefit shareholders, but that it should also be free to raise utility rates as high as consumer demand will bear… which in a natural monopoly for a crucial commodity can be pretty damn high.

Imagine electricity rates quadrupling the way gasoline has done, with no end in sight, and imagine what havoc that would wreck on our local economy. That would be an unregulated free market at work.

I expect there are arguments to be made against recommendations that the UTC block PSE’s sale, but I’m wondering if anybody can cogently argue against giving UTC the power to do so?

Washington Post political blog The Fix has bumped WA-08 up a couple notches to list it as the 17th most likely US House seat to flip parties this November:

17. Washington’s 8th (R): Every Republican strategist we talk to insists on the one hand that Rep. Dave Reichert is the only GOPer who could possibly hold this Seattle-area seat but on the other acknowledges that Reichert’s time may be up. Barack Obama at the top of the national ticket is bad news for Reichert, as the Democrats’ presidential candidate will roll up the vote in metropolitan Seattle. Darcy Burner, who took 49 percent of the vote in 2006 against Reichert, is, by all accounts, an improved candidate. The political environment is everything in this district. If Obama wins big in the 8th, he is likely to carry Burner along with him. (Previous ranking: 19)

Yeah, but then what do you expect from an amen blogger like Chris Cillizza?

The Seattle Times editorial board just loves the King County Sheriff’s Office’s crackdown on underage drinking, which resulted in 143 arrests or citations over the first weekend of its annual “Party Patrol.”

Every year, parents are nabbed in the act of willfully ignoring the party they know is being thrown in their absence. A few genuine idiots get caught trying to be the cool mom and dad who host an event and provide alcohol to minors.

Yeah, well, it was certainly a different era, but my mom and dad hosted a couple high school parties at our house where they provided the beer, and they certainly didn’t do it to be “cool.” I suppose you can argue with their judgment, but they were pragmatic enough to know that the kids where going to drink regardless of the party’s location, and they’d rather it happen under their close supervision.

Ironically, the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving was started by the angry mother of a classmate of mine, after my parents called her to pick up her daughter, who was in no condition to drive home. It wasn’t the first or last time I saw this girl get drunk, but it was the only time I saw anyone prevent her from getting behind the wheel of a car.

Illegal, underage drinking only became more normalized in college, where the university actually threw a kegger for us during freshman orientation, and the RA’s made a point of explaining which local bars served undergraduates and which did not. Attitudes started shifting near the end of my senior year (1985) after a study revealing a serious binge-drinking problem on college campuses (duh-uh) was reinforced by a string of alcohol related campus tragedies.

Ominous headlines led to crackdowns by both local university and law enforcement officials… but that only drove the parties off campus. In one memorable example of the media hysteria of the time, a group of Rutgers students held a clandestine end-of-semester kegger outdoors in a wooded area near campus, where the metal keg was subsequently struck by lightning, killing one student and injuring several others. Newspaper headlines the next day trumpeted “another tragic alcohol related death” at a local campus.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an advocate of underage boozing—especially of the binge variety—but having been a teenager myself I seem to recall that kids will be kids, and I find it hard to believe that arresting a few teens or their parents is going to have much of a long term impact on the problem. I hate to get all libertarian on you (that’s Lee’s job) but it strikes me that law enforcement provides exactly the wrong approach to what is at its core a public health issue, and thus I’d much rather the Sheriff’s office focus their resources on apprehending and punishing drunk drivers, rather than waste their time on efforts that may draw flattering headlines, but really do little to address the larger societal problem.

We, as a nation, have an unhealthy attitude toward alcohol and other drugs, that leads to the sort of binge consumption that truly puts our youth at risk. And I don’t think an annual police crackdown, or a couple of rah-rah editorials, does much to promote a thoughtful discussion on the issue.

Of course, we could just spend all of our transportation dollars building and expanding roads, as Dino Rossi and Tim Eyman would have us do, or we could actually give commuters more options… you know, before steadily rising gasoline prices takes our only option away.

The Government Accountability Office has granted Boeing’s challenge of a lucrative refueling tanker contract, citing numerous errors by the Air Force.

Officially challenging the contract was widely considered to be a risky move on Boeing’s part, as the GAO is not known for lightly granting challenges, and Boeing risked its relationship with military officials. But the GAO decision now gives more ammunition to members of Congress seeking to overturn the $40 billion contract that largely went Europe’s Airbus.

I guess John McCain has some further explaining to do to WA voters.

Via The Other Side Online, a photo of the Rossi signs that have been popping up all over Eastern Washington.  Notice there is no “paid for” notice as required by law, allowing Rossi to deny responsibility, but really… we all know these professionally printed signs are as much a part of the Rossi campaign as the BIAW’s multi-million dollar media blitz.

But you know, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.  If it’s okay for Rossi to stoke anti-Seattle passions in Yakima, while the media covers for him back here, then I think Seattle voters deserve to see the same message, paid for by equally anonymous benefactors.  So I’m going to anonymously check out what it costs to put up this sign on a prominent billboard in downtown Seattle, and then anonymously launch an anonymous fund drive to pay for it.

I’m heading down to Vancouver for a day, and hope to use the train ride to write up a few observations on last night’s debate with Grover Norquist. No doubt my co-bloggers will help fill the void during my travels.

UPDATE:
BlatherWatch has a review of last night’s debate.

Early Sunday, on Father’s Day, my daughter and I awoke to a distressing break from our normal morning routine, which typically begins with a changing of the guard at the kitchen door as our dog and our cat tentatively pass each other in opposite directions. The dog went outside as usual, but Wompus, our smallish, nine-year-old black cat, was nowhere to be seen, failing to return from his usual nocturnal rounds.

This in itself would not have been so alarming if not for the evidence of a commotion throughout our property. A jerry-rigged section of fence had been pushed over from the outside, apparently ripped from its posts; paw marks were clearly visible where the moss appeared to have been scraped at high speeds from what passes for a front lawn; and the “bee cooler” had been knocked several feet from the side of the house, the lid having slammed shut on the angry hive inside. (Yes, we have Coleman cooler filled with bees… but that’s another story.) For her part, the dog sniffed ferociously throughout the crime scene, occasionally peeing on invisible scraps of evidence, an obvious sign of unwanted canine intruders.

All this, combined with recent news of cat-killing coyotes in Seward Park, led us to immediately fear for the worst. I kept reassuring my daughter that it was too soon to jump to conclusions, that the cat would sometimes come home a little late, but that hadn’t really happened in years, and I never really believed it. I followed the dog for a while, hoping at least she might sniff out the remains, but nothing. By noon my daughter had dug a small grave for the cat’s spirit, and tearfully marked it with a stone.

When you adopt a cat from the animal shelter they make you promise to keep it indoors, sternly repeating the grim statistic that the life expectancy of outdoor cats—exposed to disease, cars, and wild animals—is fully half the 14-year average span of those that live their lives entirely indoors. Wompus was a Christmas kitty, and I honored my promise through the winter and spring, but as the sun came out during the early days of summer, so gradually did the cat. At first he just joined us in the garden, before eventually enjoying longer yard adventures on his own. But his annoying, relentless, door-side yowling, and growing proficiency as a mouser, soon earned him permanent in-and-out privileges.

We loved Wompus, and always understood that our permissiveness would likely cut his life short, but it seemed to me a reasonable quality of life trade-off. I had previously owned an indoor cat, from ages 11 through 25, a beautiful calico who proved as neurotic and bored as she was pampered and beloved. As affectionate and playful as cats can be, they are also natural born killing machines, thus locking them indoors condemns them to a life that runs counter to their very nature. I found it impossible to do this to Wompus, especially against his very loudly expressed will.

Wompus had a job—to rid my garden of rats and other rodents—and he joyfully executed his mission with brutal efficiency. On one fall morning alone, after setting the clocks back for daylight savings, we let the cat in to discover five rats laid out by the back door… an incident that came to be mythologized in our family as the “Fallback Massacre.”

And now the predator had become prey, which I told myself was a more noble death for a hunter—a circle of life kinda thing—than being crushed by a car… and far quicker than that of my childhood cat who at the ripe old age of fourteen simply stopped eating, slowly starving herself before dying in my arms, a veterinarian’s needle stuck in her leg. Nine years old—two years past the average life expectancy of an outdoor cat. But at least it was a happy, productive, cat-like nine years, we consoled ourselves.

And so depressed and wracked with guilt (I could have heeded the coyote warnings, though I don’t live all that close to the park, and we’ve heard rumors of coyotes before), I sat down at my computer to write Wompus an appropriate memorial… when in he walks through the open back door, disheveled and agitated and six hours late, but surprisingly, very much alive.

What really happened in those early morning hours we’ll never know, though the physical evidence, the cat’s sudden reluctance to head outdoors, and his renewed nervousness around our dog (who has a more than passing resemblance to a coyote) suggest that our original supposition might not be far off the mark. For now Wompus will remain indoors, at least at night, but once his PTSD wears off and his late-night demands for egress once again escalate into a struggle between life and sleep deprivation, no doubt he’ll return to his usual nocturnal routines, perhaps wiser and more wary, but with every passing year a little slower and less agile. Some might argue with my decision to let him choose life over longevity… but not my cat.

After the jump, the memorial I had planned to post in celebration of Wompus’ life and death, a poem he had inspired me to write for my daughter back in 2002: “The Little Black Cat’s Big Catch.”

[Read more…]

I know some of you thought it was a particularly dry piece of satire, but I really am debating conservative kingpin Grover Norquist tonight at an Outback Steakhouse. If you’re interested in cheering me on, you can call the folks at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (360.956.3482), and see if they still have room.

Anyway, I’m spending the rest of the afternoon prepping for the debate, reading up on Norquist’s close connections to Jack Abramoff’s web of corruption, so don’t expect much posting from me the rest of the day. Likewise, I’m taking the train down to Vancouver tomorrow afternoon ahead of a Wednesday morning speech before the Washington Education Association, so again, expect light posting from me over the next couple days.

In what’s turning out to be a parallel to the presidential race, the Reichert campaign is once again pushing the experience meme to the local media, picking up where they left off with their sexist job interview ad from 2006. (As I’ve mentioned before, Reichert’s dismissive comments about powerful and capable women, combined with his staunch opposition to reproductive rights, suggests a less than modern attitude toward the opposite gender.)

The Seattle P-I’s Gregory Roberts is the latest journalist to ask the question of whether experience will play a decisive role in this campaign, and over all, I think he answers it in a pretty evenhanded manner. Though of course I’d think that, considering much of that answer included an extensive conversation with me.

Burner established her credibility as a candidate with her ability to raise money. She caught on quickly with the “netroots,” the informal community of left-wing bloggers that was emerging as a political force.

“She’s one of us,” Seattle blogger David Goldstein said recently. “Deep down, she’s a geek.”

Goldstein solicited donations for Burner’s campaign on his horsesass.org Web site. He met Burner in 2005 at a training program for would-be progressive political candidates and activists.

“She’s one of the smartest politicians I’ve met,” Goldstein said. “She is an incredibly hard worker. She is just absolutely relentless.”

Burner’s political ideology makes her more appealing to the left than Reichert: She wants immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, while he wants to fight to victory; she’s pro-choice, while he’s anti-abortion; he supports the Bush tax cuts, and she thinks they wrongly favor the rich.

But beyond that, Goldstein said, Burner’s background is a plus.

“Congress could use a little bit of Microsoft, and coming from this district, that kind of makes sense,” he said.

“What we don’t have in Congress are people like Darcy Burner who truly understand high technology and the industries that are driving our economy and our region,” he said.

Besides, Goldstein said, Reichert’s experience didn’t prepare him especially well for Congress, where he’s rated as the 401st most influential House member by congress.org.

“He wasn’t a lawyer, she’s not a lawyer. He wasn’t a legislator, she’s not a legislator,” he said.

“This idea that she should have been a city councilperson first and then moved on up — that’s an argument for incumbency,” Goldstein said. “That says the only experience for public office is public office.”

Reporters who have interviewed me know that not only do I like to talk, I can sometimes get pretty damn tangential, so if anything, Roberts has me coming off a bit more concise and focused than I probably did on the phone. That said, I can pretty much sum up my thoughts on this issue by restating my belief that holding elected office should be an act of public service, not a reward for it.

Campaign spokesman Mike Shields likes to point toward Reichert’s long career in law enforcement as a prerequisite for office: “Dave has done this since he was a cop on the beat — helping people solve problems.” But while I certainly honor and respect the hard and sometimes dangerous work of all our first responders, it is not especially relevant to what goes on in the halls of Congress, as evidenced by Reichert’s own ranking as the 401st most powerful person in Congress, ahead of only 34 other representatives, some of whom aren’t even retired, indicted, behind bars, or dead.

It is understandable that in 2004, Reichert ran as “the Sheriff”—that is how most voters knew him, and that was the experience, however irrelevant to the task of legislating, that best recommended him for the job. But after two terms in Congress, it is past time for him to start running as “the Congressman.” And if voters find his job performance in that capacity wanting, then it’s time for them to give Darcy Burner a second, closer look.

When Seattle Times political reporter David Postman sat down with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently, talk turned to the difficulty Dems have had sticking to their agenda in light of the narrow majority they hold in the Senate. But Pelosi told Postman that they were working harder, particularly on Iraq. (The emphasis is mine):

“This time we just said, ‘What do we want in this bill? What is the statement that needs to be made?’

Part of that statement has been to reflect what is in a document called the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. Created by Burner and a team of experts, the plan calls for a rapid troop withdrawal and an increased diplomatic and humanitarian effort in Iraq.

The plan has been endorsed by other Democratic congressional challengers, as well as some retired military officers.

Big threads of the plan include legislation that already existed in Congress but failed to pass under two years of Democratic control.

“You could think of a million things you could do better in terms of Iraq, probably at least a million,” Pelosi said. “But it’s a question of where you put the focus. And yes, indeed, what she has done helped focus that.”

And Burner got other candidates to sign on. “That drumbeat isn’t lost on Congress.”

There are some who have attempted to dismiss Burner’s efforts on the Responsible Plan as mere political calculation, while others have attempted to dismiss the effort itself. When asked to comment on the Plan, Dave Reichert routinely brushes of the questioner, claiming matter-of-factly that Burner didn’t even write it.

As usual, Reichert couldn’t be further from the truth. Indeed, the back story on the Plan is at least as revealing as the Plan itself.

The Plan was conceived during the heady days of Burner’s remarkable Internet fundraiser, when she raised an astounding $123,000 in small donations from 3,200 contributers over a weekend in August. As President Bush was stopping traffic in Bellevue to raise money for Reichert, Burner and a handful of experts assembled at a hotel down the block to livestream an innovative, online “town hall meeting” on the war in Iraq. And near the end of the broadcast, Burner made a surprise announcement that Gen. Paul Eaton had agreed to work with her to create a comprehensive proposal to responsibly draw down our troops and bring them home.

Burner’s bold announcement drew little coverage, even here on HA, because quite frankly I thought she might have gotten a little caught up in the moment. This is not the kind of thing that mere congressional challengers do—or are even capable of doing—and I winced at a promise I thought she would have a tough time delivering in a credible manner.

Burner’s staff and advisers were even less enthusiastic. A candidate’s primary job early in a campaign is to raise money, and the consultancy class frowns upon nearly anything that might distract the candidate from precious “call time.” It is also generally accepted campaign wisdom that challengers are usually best off avoiding specificity on issues so that it is the incumbent’s record that draws the scrutiny of voters.

Throughout the fall of 2007 advisers suggested Burner reconsider the project, and I had more than one conversation with nervous staffers who worried that her efforts were costing the campaign far too much in time, focus, and financial resources. The DCCC, whose favor Burner couldn’t afford to lose, was equally unenthusiastic, and while I’m told they never asked her to abandon the plan, they never encouraged her either… and they certainly didn’t encourage other challengers to sign on.

But Burner proved undaunted. No doubt personal ambition drives all politicians to some extent—like blogging, it is an inherently narcissistic profession—but Burner’s political ambitions have always been motivated by what she sees as an extraordinary opportunity to make a difference. For Burner, most of the elements of what eventually became the Responsible Plan were obvious; in fact many had already been proposed by the Baker-Hamilton Commission or in existing legislation. What Burner hoped to produce was a comprehensive proposal that could serve as a framework for enacting a realistic legislative agenda over a relatively short amount of time.

And that is what Burner eventually willed into creation, a Responsible Plan so credible that it has drawn the endorsement of over 50 other House and Senate challengers along with numerous military and national security experts, and has, in the words of Speaker Pelosi, “helped focus” the agenda of the Democratic leadership.

One thing that remains clear is that by sending Darcy Burner to the other Washington, 8th CD voters will not only get a reliable vote on the issues they care about most, but a remarkably smart, independent and creative leader who through hard work, determination, and sheer chutzpah will quickly rise up the Democratic ranks. Burner doesn’t want to go to Congress to be a rubberstamp for Nancy Pelosi, she wants to go there to solve problems.

That is what she has done with her Responsible Plan. And that is what Burner will do as the elected representative from Washington’s 8th Congressional District.