Goldy

The other day I suggested that Washington state dramatically increase the motor fuel excise tax to pay for a massive investment in rail and other mass transit infrastructure. It was admittedly a bit of a thought experiment, as our state Constitution mandates that all motor vehicle fuel excise tax revenues be dedicated towards “highways,” and of course, amending the Constitution remains exceedingly difficult.

But then I got to thinking. Article II, Section 40 specifically refers to “excise taxes.” There’s nothing in the Constitution that says we can’t also levy a sales tax on motor vehicle fuel, and there’s nothing to mandate how such revenues might be spent. Thus all the hooey we’ve been fed about how we can’t spend gas tax dollars on anything but roads and ferries is exactly that… a bunch of hooey. A simple majority in both houses, and the stroke of the governor’s pen is all we need to create a dedicated fund for building mass transit. And of course, the people are free to vote yea or nay via referendum or initiative.

This isn’t just amateur legal analysis on my part. I checked with a constitutional scholar who assured me that my reading was correct, and that similar proposals have indeed been debated from time to time. And it’s not such an original or off the wall idea; nine other states already levy both sales and excise taxes on gasoline.

The point is we can tax gasoline to help pay for transit, and we need to start having this conversation while consumers are still able to absorb rising prices. With few transit alternatives, demand has thus far proven rather inelastic, even as fuel prices have nearly tripled in real dollars over the past decade. If this sort of energy inflation continues — and with increasing global demand and approaching peak oil, there’s no reason to suspect it won’t — there might come a point over the next decade or so when today’s common driving habits become an unaffordable luxury for the vast majority of working and middle class families.

Such a mobility crisis would have a devastating impact on the economy of a region as automobile dependent as ours, and it is past time we started building towards the transportation needs of the Twenty-First Century rather than waxing nostalgic on the car culture of the Twentieth. With all the Olympia talk of taking a comprehensive approach to transportation planning that considers transit and roads as part of an integrated system, it seems downright silly to perpetuate our segregated funding system. If roads, buses and rail are really part of an integrated system, why must transit compete for property, MVET and sales tax dollars, while roads enjoy the additional succor of a dedicated gas tax? It just doesn’t make sense.

The Seattle Monorail Project didn’t fail because a West Seattle to Ballard route wasn’t needed, or because the dollar-per-mile cost was too high. It failed because it didn’t have an adequate revenue source to pay off the bonds over a reasonable period of time. But had the Legislature granted Seattle the taxing authority to allow voters to additionally levy a sales tax on gasoline, we could have easily afforded the Monorail or some other transit project.

Perhaps I’m wrong, and mass transit isn’t the solution to our transportation needs. Perhaps Seattle and the surrounding Puget Sound region really is unique. But that policy debate and the transportation planning that comes out of it should not be shaped by a constitutional canard that says that gas tax revenues can only be spent on roads.

We can tax motor vehicle fuel to pay for transit. And we should.

With the Port of Seattle gaining a reputation for inappropriate politicking, secret deliberations and ethical scandals, it is good to see Seattle Port Commission President John Creighton finally buckling down and getting to work restoring confidence and accountability in… um… King County Elections…?

Yeah, that’s right. Rather than focusing on setting his own house in order (a house he was elected to keep clean) Creighton is lending his name, signature, and the prestige of his office to a letter raising funds for I-25, a county initiative that would make the King County Elections Director an elected position.

Huh. Is it just me, or does it strike you as a little ironic to see accountability championed by the president of an agency that holds a closed-door executive session before every so-called “public” meeting? And, um, speaking of “reforms that will return confidence” to a process, maybe I’m crazy, but I’m thinking one place to start might be to not allow commissioners to illegally sign secret memos authorizing $340,000 payoffs to patrons who raised their reelection campaigns hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oh… and when you believe a fellow commissioner has “committed an illegal act”, and should “submit her resignation,” I dunno, but the accountable thing to do might be to actually say so publicly.

Just an idea.

In fact, reading the fundraising letter, a few wise, old proverbs come to mind:

“Physician heal thyself.”

“Charity begins at home.”

“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

“Don’t shit where you eat.”

You know, stuff like that.

Why the urgent need to suddenly amend the County Charter? Well, according to Creighton, “citizens were concerned that absentee ballots were mailed late” in an election… five years ago. And…

In 2004, the problems made headlines and affected the outcome of the gubernatorial election.

Really? Problems actually “affected the outcome” of the election? And he knows this, how? Quick… Creighton should hand over his conclusive evidence to Stefan so that he can conduct a thorough and even-handed investigation.

There have been improvements, but there is a need to be more accountable to the people so that all the people can have confidence in the process.

And nothing restores confidence in the election process quite like falsely claiming that problems “affected the outcome of the gubernatorial election,” when you have absolutely no evidence to back this up at all.

What a putz.

The fact is, one of the reasons Creighton and his fellow Republicans are so keen on electing the Elections Director is because they know that a “nonpartisan” office like that — where they don’t have to put an “R” next to their name on the ballot — is just about the only office a Republican can win in King County these days.

You know, like the Seattle Port Commission.

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO:

7PM: Save the whales? Hell, first lets save journalism.
If like millions of Americans you’ve been mesmerized by the live coverage of a female humpback whale and her calf caught 90 miles up the Sacramento River, then Dr. Denny Wilkens says you are an “overly sentimental sap” whose been suckered by the media — again. Wilkens is a professor of journalism and mass communication at St. Bonaventure University in New York, and he joins us by phone to talk about how newsroom cutbacks lead to parachute journalism.

8PM: Can the Netroots save the Constitution?
Just before the November election the Republican Congress pushed through the Military Commissions Act, which amongst other things eliminated the sacrosanct right of habeas corpus for US residents. Ari Melber of The Nation argues that restoring habeas corpus and other civil liberties should be at the top of the agenda for the netroots and other progressive activists. Melber, an expat Seattleite, joins me for the hour.

9PM: Are Washington’s taxes too low?
Sandeep Kaushik of the Washington State Budget & Policy Center says yes, and he’s coming into the studio with the statistics to back it up.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

Poor David Postman… reduced to the level of sharing the screen with lowly bloggers like me and Stefan. All three of us appear today on KING-5 TV’s Up Front with Robert Mak: KING-5 @ 9:30 a.m. and NWCN @ 8:00 p.m.

If you miss it, streaming video will be posted to KING-5’s website, um, eventually.

UPDATE:
Oops. Up Front is usually on KING-5 at 9:30 a.m., but today it is preempted by (gag) poker. It’s on at 4:30 p.m. today instead.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
The streaming video is now online. (Our segment starts about 40% through.)

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO:

7PM: Are gas prices to low?
With gasoline prices once again hitting record highs it may seem like an odd time to argue for a hike in gasoline taxes, but argue the P-I editorial board did. And you know what? I agree. Sorta.

8PM: Have the lovely ladies of hate talk gone too far?
Hate talker Melanie Morgan got herself banned from the News Hour on PBS, after repeatedly dissing an Iraq War vet. Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter are outdoing each other in their efforts to reach new highs in punditry lows. David Ferguson, blogging as TRex at Firedloglake, joins me for the hour.

9PM: Jerry Falwell is dead. Al Gore and Fred Thompson live. Why?
A touching tribute to the dearly departed Rev. Falwell, followed by discussion of why the two presidential candidates generating the most buzz and excitement are the two not running.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

I want to strongly emphasize that not all right-wing Evangelical Republicans are serial child rapists. But you know… some are.

A former South Dakota lawmaker is accused of molesting his own foster children and legislative pages. […] Former State Representative Ted Klaudt is accused of manipulating, molesting, intimidating and threatening teenage girls who the state of South Dakota paid him to raise.

[…] The first victim to come forward told investigators Klaudt offered to earn her enough money to pay for college by helping her donate her eggs to a fertility clinic. She says Klaudt used a fake email address from the supposed clinic agent to trick her into letting him perform what’s supposed to be a surgical procedure.

The victims say Klaudt touched them while they were foster children at his home here in Walker. But the girls say the molestation also happened in Pierre during legislative sessions while some of them also served as pages.

Five different girls now say Klaudt did things ranging from manual “breast exams” to the painful procedure of actually going inside of them with a speculum and collecting body fluids. The girls say when they cried, Klaudt gave them a beer and told them to toughen up.

Just drink the beer and quit your crying. Uh-huh. I guess this is what George Lakoff means when he talks about the “Strict Father Model” that defines conservative metaphors for morality.

It should come as no surprise that Klaudt repeatedly voted for bills that limited or prohibited abortions. And according to the inimitable Howie Klein:

Klaudt fancied himself a radical right Republican (and an evangelical) and in 2005 was a leader against the formation of the South Dakota Mainstream Coalition, meant to turn Republicans back towards mainstream conservatism.

By “mainstream conservatism,” I suppose Howie means not serially raping one’s foster children.

Former Governor Booth Gardner seeks “death with dignity.” You know, as opposed to this.

See, this is why I’m really, really rooting for Rudy Giuliani to win the GOP nomination. In the words of Rev. James Dobson:

Speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party, I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision. If given a Hobson’s – Dobson’s? – choice between him and Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran – or if worse comes to worst – not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life. My conscience and my moral convictions will allow me to do nothing else.

Abortion, domestic partnerships, philandering, multiple marriages, dressing in drag… these are all reasons Dobson cites in asserting Giuliani is not “presidential timber.” And if Christian conservatives like Dobson can’t bring themselves to vote for the GOP nominee, many will stay home from the polls altogether, disadvantaging Republican candidates up and down the ticket. Democratic voters already tend to turn out in relatively greater numbers during presidential elections — imagine a close race in a rematch between Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert, in which the right-wing Republican base is turned off by a Giuliani candidacy.

I sure as hell am.

Futurewise and SEIU 775 are filing a complaint in King County Superior Court this morning, asking the courts to block Tim Eyman’s I-960 from the ballot, on the grounds that it is outside the constitutional scope of the initiative process. And, well… I just gotta laugh.

I know what Timmy’s reaction will be. He’ll be outraged, he’ll tell us, at this cynical attempt to prevent the people from voting on a citizens initiative. This is insulting. It’s undemocratic. It’s unprecedented.

In fact, it is not unprecedented, and I can’t tell you how much I look forward to skewering Eyman and his sanctimonious supporters in the press and elsewhere who echo his self-righteous condemnations of the complainants and their attorneys. For if these hypocritical defenders of the status quo are truly outraged by the prospect of such pre-ballot review, they had every opportunity to speak their minds concerning a similar case four years ago, yet remained strangely silent. Indeed the most sanctimonious of the sanctimonious — the Seattle Times editorial board — actually urged the courts to bar an initiative from the ballot on just such a scope challenge.

Of course I’m talking about I-831, my private joke cum baptism in hardball politics, a constitutionally protected initiative seeking to proclaim Tim Eyman a horse’s ass, that was summarily barred from the ballot by a stick-up-his-ass Assistant AG and an angry judge.

The Times and others cheered the judge’s actions, but it was absolutely clear to me at the time the precedent he was setting. Indeed, the brief my attorney presented before the injunction hearing seems downright prescient in light of today’s news:

Many initiatives are presented to the people that are arguably unconstitutional or beyond the scope of the legislative power. For example, Tim Eyman’s Sound Transit Initiative would prevent Sound Transit from spending money on a “Link Light Rail” system. This proposed initiative is clearly beyond the scope of legislative power under Ruano v. Spellman and other cases holding that initiatives cannot seek to prohibit administrative actions. The Attorney General has done nothing to prevent Mr. Eyman from going forward with his initiative. Proposed Initiative 824 is a statement. The Attorney General has taken the position in the present case that statements are not legislative, yet nothing has been done to prevent Initiative 824 from going forward.

Allowing the Attorney General discretion to select initiatives for challenge based on their palatability would violate the First Amendment. If pre-ballot review is to be applied to some initiatives, it should be applied to all initiatives that are arguably unconstitutional or beyond the scope of legislative power.

We concluded our brief by demanding that if the court engages in pre-ballot review, a “writ of mandamus” should issue requiring the Attorney General to seek pre-ballot review of all initiatives that are “arguably unconstitutional or outside the scope of the initiative power.”

Eyman, the self-proclaimed champion of direct democracy, had every opportunity then to take a principled stand in defense of the initiative process, but he refused. So forgive me if four years later I shed no tears for the legal predicament in which he finds himself. That his own unconstitutional initiative should face a pre-ballot scope challenge is the logical, legal consequence of the court order that ended I-831. My only surprise is that it has taken this long for an enterprising attorney to build on the precedent.

“I-960 is not a valid initiative and it will never become the law, so we shouldn’t be wasting tax moneys counting signatures and placing it on the ballot. I-960 seeks to amend the constitution by initiative, which the Courts have repeatedly said you cannot do,” noted Knoll Lowney, lead attorney on the case.

Specifically, I-960 seeks to modify the referendum powers defined in the State Constitution by creating a mandatory non-binding referendum process for all tax and fee increases not already subject to constitutional referendum, and, it attempts to modify the constitutional process for enacting legislation, by requiring a two thirds majority for raising taxes. I-960 is arguably unconstitutional, and, since it intends to amend laws that cannot be amended, it is also arguably not “legislative,” and thus outside the scope of the initiative process.

Unlike the Times, I’m not going to urge the court to rule one way or the other. I’m not a judge. And much to my mother’s chagrin, I’m not an attorney.

But I’ve read the complaint and I’m familiar enough with the case law from my own legal adventures to understand that this is not a frivolous complaint, and that it should be taken very seriously by the courts. Pre-ballot scope challenges are permissible, and indeed, I would argue, are long overdue. In fact, even while defending my own initiative, I argued for “a statutory mechanism for reviewing the constitutional sufficiency of initiatives prior to the ballot.” All I wanted from the AG and the courts was that such pre-ballot review be conducted with fairness and consistency.

Still, consistency is not something we’ve seen from my friends in the media in terms of how they have routinely approached Eyman and his initiatives, and I don’t expect to see consistency now. I fully expect Eyman to cry outrage, and I fully expect the editorialists — eager to prove that they are not aligned against him — to join him in his hypocritical sanctimony.

So come on Seattle Times… I dare you to prove me wrong. Four years ago you editorialized against a joke initiative, urging the court to bar I-831 from the ballot simply because it offended your delicate sensibilities. Do you have the balls to stand by your defense of pre-ballot scope challenges as a legitimate legal exercise?

I don’t think so.

UPDATE:
Andrew has more at NW Progressive.

Hmm.

• April 19, 2007 – Doolittle steps down from the Appropriations Committee following the FBI raid of his home. Doolittle is under investigation for his work with convicted lobbyist Republican Jack Abramoff
• May 11, 2007 – The Republican Conference names Ken Calvert – under investigation for a shady land deal — to replace Doolittle on Appropriations.
• May 15, 2007 – The Republican Conference names Tom Feeney – under investigation for his work with convicted lobbyist Republican Jack Abramoff — to replace Calvert as the senior Republican on the Space Subcommittee of the Science Committee.

Of course, in the GOP’s defense, if an active criminal investigation was enough to disqualify you from a committee assignment, half the assignments would go unfilled.

Reverend Falwell, fond farewell:
Your soul has fled its mortal shell
And flown across the great divide
To savor at your Savior’s side.
Or so you think… um… so you thought,
Well, so, at least, your Bible taught,
While unbelievers who deny
Eternal afterlife, like I,
Think when you’re dead, well, you just die.

But if, when I give up the fight,
I’m strangely drawn into the light?
And there your reverent form I see?
Don’t laugh sir, that the joke’s on me,
For since I’ve never claimed nor known
Your Savior Jesus as my own,
If you should meet this faithless Jew
In Heaven or in Hell’s review,
Well, either way… the joke’s on you.

I’m heading down to Oregon today at the invitation of the folks at Loaded Orygun, The Bus Project and The Portland Mercury:

What: Digital Politics Forum–More Than Meets The Eye
Who: Progressive wunderkind David Sirota, BlueO’s Kari Chisholm, The Merc’s own Amy Ruiz, Anna Galland of MoveOn.org and Grand Poobah of Washington State blogging, David Goldstein–fielding questions and discussing issues surrounding the ways that the netroots can and does transform politics.
Where: Acme Pub, Portland
When:7PM is the official start time. But I plan to show up by 5:30 and have some food–so feel free to make an early entrance and join me.

So I won’t be at DL tonight, and I likely won’t be blogging for the next 24 hours or so. Hopefully Will, Darryl and Geov can fill in for me both places.

With gasoline prices once again hitting record highs it may seem like an odd time to argue for a hike in gasoline taxes, but argue the P-I editorial board does:

We are as upset as anybody at oil companies. And roller-coaster prices are painful for everyone’s budget. But a key ingredient in any reasonably speedy energy-policy fix must be higher gas prices.

That’s particularly true if innovation and technology are to be utilized effectively. A federal gas tax increase of 50 cents or more would assure that there will be a market for new technologies.

[…] Congress should raise gasoline taxes or set minimum oil prices. Democrats might regard that as political poison to their new majority. But addiction to oil is poisoning the environment, weakening public confidence in the economy and undercutting U.S. ability to make wise, independent foreign policy decisions.

No doubt the tripling of gas prices over the past six years has been a hardship for working and middle class Americans, costing many families thousands of dollars a year. But to do nothing is to tacitly approve a course of action that would surely lead American consumers from bad to worse. Between global warming, Middle East security concerns and approaching peak oil, the price of energy is going nowhere but up.

So I’d like to one up the P-I editorial board and suggest that we cannot wait for Congress and the President to act unpopularly, if responsibly. We need to dramatically increase gasoline taxes in Washington state, while amending our state Constitution to permit gasoline tax revenues to be spent on mass transit and alternative energy research and development.

A massive investment in rail and other mass transit infrastructure is the fastest way to get Washington drivers out of their cars and away from the pumps. Meanwhile, given the focus and the money, there is an opportunity for the region to take the lead in the development and manufacturing of the alternative energy technologies of the future, assuring another generation of high tech jobs in the region to accompany those in the aerospace and software industries.

Gasoline prices routinely jump a dollar a gallon with barely a blip in consumption. Wouldn’t you rather the next hike in fuel prices represent an investment in our region’s future, rather than a 9-figure bonus for top Exxon executives?

Apparently inspired by my inspired defense of online anonymity, I received a rambling piece of anonymous hate mail yesterday, that amongst other things accused me of cowardice for failing to attack the Mormon religion.

This has been a relatively common theme in comment threads and emails since 710-KIRO was acquired by Bonneville International — a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Church of Latter Day Saints. In the same way that my righty critics smirked that I wouldn’t last ten minutes on the air without blurting out the word “fuck” or some other FCC-banned profanity, there also seems to be this expectation (hope?) that I simply will not be able to restrain myself from using the airwaves to attack the religion of those who sign my paycheck.

So I thought it time to finally address this thorny theological issue.

As a non-Christian — a self-described Jewish Atheist — I do not find the Mormon religion to be any more ridiculous than “mainstream” Christian denominations. So Mormons believe that Joseph Smith found some golden plates and translated them by looking at a seer stone through a hat. So what? Catholics believe that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ. Yuck. You tell me, objectively, that one is weirder or more or less likely than the other.

And yeah, Smith preached plural marriage (though the church later rejected it.) But the Vatican mandates clerical celibacy. I didn’t do so well with one wife, but given the choice, I’m going with Smith on this one.

My point is, to nonbelievers, the specifics of all religions come across as unbelievably fantastical, even Judaism — though the reformed rabbi at the synagogue in which I was educated and bar mitzvahed taught the Torah as allegory rather than literal truth. What is important are the ethical and moral lessons these stories teach you, not whether or not Adam and Eve really were the progenitors of all humanity. (And the icky incest issues a literal reading of Genesis inevitably raises.)

Me make fun of Mormons? Why? To me they’re just another Christian sect. Indeed, in some ways, Mormons have more in common with us Jews than they do with their fellow Christians, in that historically, we’ve both been persecuted, feared, ridiculed and despised by many in “mainstream” Christianity.

So enough with this goading me on to go after the Mormons. To be honest, all you Christians just kinda look alike to me.

Writing in today’s Washington Post, Tom Grubisich (if that’s his real name) sounds the alarm against the common blogosphere practice of pseudonymous posting. (Via The Agonist.)

These days we want “transparency” in all institutions, even private ones. There’s one massive exception — the Internet. It is, we are told, a giant town hall. Indeed, it has millions of people speaking out in millions of online forums. But most of them are wearing the equivalent of paper bags over their heads. We know them only by their Internet “handles” — gotalife, runningwithscissors, stoptheplanet and myriad other inventive names.

[…] In any community in America, if Mr. anticrat424 refused to identify himself, he would be ignored and frozen out of the civic problem-solving process. But on the Internet, Mr. anticrat424 is continually elevated to the podium, where he can have his angriest thoughts amplified through cyberspace as often as he wishes. He can call people the vilest names and that hate-mongering, too, will be amplified for all the world to see.

You would think Web sites would want to keep the hate-mongers from taking over, but many sites are unwitting enablers.

Yeah… an unwitting enabler. That’s me.

Um… do you think “Tom” could be any more condescending?

What I am is a witting enabler. You think I like the garbage dump that is my typical comment thread? You think I don’t know that my policy of no-holds-barred invective and pseudonymity is routinely exploited by faceless trolls who view hijacking a thread as some sort of ideological victory? You think I’m a fucking idiot?

I do plan to eventually move to a registration system that might cut down some of the most ridiculously extravagant trolling, and a community moderation system that will clamp down on it further. But I defend the right of every member of the HA community — no matter how vile — to maintain their anonymity.

Why? Because if you think the pseudonymous trolls are ruthless in their public efforts to trivialize and discourage the speech of others, just imagine the acts of intimidation that go on privately.

In the four years since unwittingly becoming a somewhat public figure I have found myself the target of all types of threats and attacks. My “fans” have told me that when “The Sweep” comes, they’ll be the first at my door, and that they’ll be in the front row cheering when I finally “hang for my crimes.” I’ve been assured that I can keep all my “fancy words” but that “we own all the guns,” and that I’ll someday “get what [I] deserve” for my gun control advocacy.

I’ve received hate mail from Nazis and fundies and other anti-semites warning me to go back where I came from. (Philadelphia?) I’ve had people forward me tidbits of my personal information to make sure that I knew that they knew where I lived, where I banked, and how I spent my money, and have repeatedly found unexplained queries on my credit report. I’ve had a load of horse manure dumped on my sidewalk, the tabs repeatedly scraped off my car, and my websites targeted with God-knows-how-many denial of service attacks. I’ve been falsely (and anonymously) reported to police for soliciting sex from minors online.

Perhaps all this attention just fires up the persecution-complex sufferer in me, but the average citizen just isn’t willing to put up with this kind of shit. There’s a reason why people resort to intimidation and threats — it often works. How many people are willing to passionately and openly express their opinions in the comment thread of a dinky, local blog, knowing that some asshole might call your employer to complain?

A paranoid fantasy? Just take a gander over at our friends at (un)Sound Politics, where Stefan “allows” anonymous comments, but is quick to out anybody who strenuously and effectively refutes his rhetoric? God help the public employee who dares express a personal opinion from a government IP, let alone a whistle blower on the wrong side of the powers that be and/or a vindictive mob.

In an ideal world, it would not take courage to attach one’s real name to a post or a comment. But this isn’t an ideal world. The public town hall meetings that “Tom” mythologizes may indeed be a paragon of openness and transparency, but they can also make for a stifling atmosphere of group-think and political correctness, where participants are actively discouraged from truly speaking their minds for fear of being ostracized by their neighbors. There are communities where being openly gay or atheist or anti-war can cost you your livelihood, let alone your social standing. Should these despised minorities be denied the opportunity to engage in public discourse because “Tom” has determined that pseudonymity is uncivil?

It is not more civility that is needed in the public debate, but more honesty, and sometimes the most honest words are those penned under a nom de plume. From “Silence Dogood” to “Publius” to “Mr. X“, our nation has a proud history of pseudonymity in public discourse.

Perhaps it is the very anonymity of the Internet that makes it such a powerful forum in the first place?