Ridenbaugh Press

If we’re up to the responsibility of a pure democracy, which is deciding directly by popular vote on all policy matters, then the rationale for Tim Eyman’s latest - which would seek to overturn the gay rights bill just passed by the Washington Legislature - would make some sense.

But doing away with representative government altogether never has been much on the agenda. Do all of us have time to educate ourselves and carefully consider the hundreds of policy decisions that come to legislatures, councils, commissions and the rest every year? In initiative-heavy states, not many voters even do so dandy a job of self-education on the issues. (Don’t get us started on self-education re the candidates.)

So here we have Eyman delivering a statement to the press saying this: “Politicians are deciding based on special interest group pressure and their own reelection calculations … The voters have watched this disgusting display of arrogance and selfishness for weeks.”

Putting his point in different words: Politicians have been listening to people who petition their governmental policymakers (something encouraged in the federal constitution) and have been bearing in mind “their own reelection calculations” - which means they are bearing in mind whether their constituents will favor or oppose their actions. Horrors!

Eyman is even more explicit, though, in his actual initiative, numbered 927. (more…)

So curious that not only did Washington state’s two main political parties both elect new chairs on the same day, but - even more - that essentially the same underlying logic informed both choices.

New Democratic Chair Dwight Pelz (replacing Paul Berendt, who held the job for a decade), is no insurgent or boat-rocker. He’s been around, as a community activist, a labor organizer, a state senator, a member of the King County Council (replacing Ron Sims on that panel). he just ran and lost a race for the Seattle City Council, but had no lack of Democratic-based interest group support in the effort.

Endorsed by such fellow party members as Governor Christine Gregoire, Senator Patty Murray and Sims, you can expect that Pelz will keep things rolling very much as they have been. If you wanted major change within the Democratic establshment (from a Democratic standpoint), you probably supported the other candidate, natural-born boat-rocker Laura Ruderman. But Washington Democrats have been doing pretty well; there’s a good argument for staying the course.

The parallel with the Republican selection is not precise, since Republicans do need to change something about their act; in a state where the partisan split is precariously balances, Republicans have been losing (a little) more than their share of elections. Consequently, any candidate for the Republican chairmanship had to run as something of a change agent.

The longer shot but more interesting choice here was Fredi Simpson, the state party’s vice chair and by various accounts an aggressive partisan. She was endorsed by Dino Rossi, who so closely lost the governorship last year. Her loss in the bid for chair may say more about Rossi - whose name failed to work magic in an intraparty contest - than anything else.

But a word is merited too for the winner, Diane Tebelius. She is, like Pelz, a safer, more establishment choice; during her unsucessful run for Congress last year, she was often compared to former Representative Jennifer Dunn, and not just because of appearances. Both passionate in her views and articulate in expressing them, she is unlikely to fall into some of the rhetorical traps to which outgoing Chair Chris Vance was occasionally prone: A former prosecutor, she is likely to plot her moves carefully.

Rational choices on both parts, with chairs who will have to hit the field hard just as the campaigns gear up.

You could say that the Trish & Halli show, formerly on KID-AM 590 at Idaho Falls, was at least a local outpost of political talk on radio dials dominated almost exclusively by national canned chatter. Of course, you also would have to say that its replacement by conservative talker Laura Ingraham will not change the philosophical tenor of the time spot, or the station, or talk radio in Idaho, much at all.

Still, Trish Oak and Halli Stone got their critics’ nickname of “Trash and Holler” by going after, on a very personal level, people in Idaho - people like House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, memorably, among many others. In their prime, they got people talking. But the kind of talk was often of the sort that tears communities, and neighborhoods, apart. Valuable as is locally-produced material (and business), Trish & Halli pushed the point, hard.

When the laws on lobbyist filing and registration were passed, the idea was throw light on some of the dark corners of government policymaking, so that - if we care to find out - we can know who is working on what, and who is spreading whose influence in which directions. We can’t either know or understand how our government works, as a practical matter, without such information.

That’s why the February edition of the Idaho Public Affairs Digest will include (as it has before) a full list of registered lobbyists in Idaho. That list in itself tells almost as much about the way Idaho government works as anything brought to your attention in campaign season.

But not all of it. One of the names curiously absent from that list is that of Phil Reberger, a former chief of state for Governor Dirk Kempthorne. Reberger is a campaign manager of legendary skill, but he also has turned to other employment since leaving state government. In contrast to so many people in politics, Reberger has a positive aversion to the limelight; if his name never showed up again in an Idaho newspaper until it runs his obituary, that would doubtless suit him fine. But he is deeply involved governance and policymaking in Idaho.

Some of the evidence for this is concrete. Since 2003, according to records in the Secretary of State’s office, he has been a partner with (registered) lobbyist Pat Sullivan, who is one of the very busiest lobbyists in Idaho today, in the firm Sullivan & Reberger. (more…)

State Senator Jackie Winters, the Salem Republican, has quite a bit going for her as she seeks a second term this year (after two in the House). She’s a warm, engaging and smart candidate; she knows details and background without seeming overly wonkish. Her community service pushups are extensive and of long standing. Her district is mostly Republican, according to party registration at least (42.5% Republican, 34.5% Democratic). She lost a 2004 primary race for the U.S. House, but campaigned well - her reputation did not suffer.

And yet her run for re-election is worth closely monitoring this year. Her electoral strength has been less than overwhelming in the past. (She won in 2002 with just 54.4%, less than commanding for an incumbent legislator in a party-favorable district.) And this year, her Democratic opponent, announced yesterday, has the potential to be formidable.

This could be one of the most interesting, and impressive, contests in Oregon this year. (more…)

Backers of the gay rights bill (HB 2661) which cleared the Washington Legislature on Friday, after more than a decade of effort, were heavy into celebration Friday afternoon. That’s understandable enough after disappointments through the years, but two significant points should not go unnoted. Taken together, they point out the road ahead: Passage (and the certain signing) of the bill are only early steps down this path.

The first point is what changed between last session, when a similar bill failed, and this one. Nothing much changed in the House, where it passed both times. Only a little changed in the Senate, where it failed by a single vote in 2005 and passed by one this time. The difference was one senator, Kirkland Republican Bill Finkbeiner, who voted against last year and reversed his stand this year.

This was expected (and already announced), which is why Senate approval was expected. Finkbeiner was the only Republican (he is a former Democrat) to vote in favor (two Democrats voted against), but he carries some significance, for two reasons. One is that last year, he was the Republican floor leader but resigned from that post between sessions; you can’t escape the speculation (though he hasn’t said so) that Finkbeiner resigned from leadership so he could cast this particular vote. And why would that be so significant? Gets to the second reason: (more…)

The case of Washington v. Tracey Johnston revolves around the subject of spoken threats, and whether the threat is “real” or not.

This may sound either esoteric or like the trickery of a clever defense lawyer. It’s not. How many times have you muttered a desire to wreack bodily harm on someone - maybe, for example, a driver on the highway - with no practical intention to follow through? (When I was in college, the phrase “he ought to be taken out and shot” popped up from time to time, usually for minor offenses.) Death and injury feature regularly in metaphor. Should all that be actionable as a felony offense?

On its face, Washington law (RCW 9.61.160(1)) seems to contemplate something like that. It says, “It shall be unlawful for any person to threaten to bomb or otherwise injure any public or private school building, any place of worship or public assembly, any governmental property, or any other building, common carrier, or structure, or any place used for human occupancy . . .”

The first amendment does come into play here, because courts have ruled that speech can be circumscribed only under extreme circumstances. The legal principle is that while most speech is “protected,” one of the categories of unprotected speech is that of a “true threat” - a threat issued with apparent connection to actual or intended behavoir. The Washington Supreme Court has defined it, “in a context or under such circumstances wherein a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted . . . as a serious expression of an intention to inflict bodily harm upon or to take the life of {another individual}.”

So what to do about Travey Johnston, who blurs the lines just a tad? (more…)

Budgets for state higher education institutions have been taking a hit in Idaho for quite a few years. Even during times when public schools or other angeices are bumped upward, the colleges and universities (except for some one-time construction projects) have had to make do with ever less, in terms of percentage of state spending and in buying power.

Some of the reasons why may have emerged in a discussion involving University of Idaho President Timothy White, who was speaking to the legislature’s budget-writing committee (the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee), and St. Maries Republican Representative Dick Harwood, who is one of that committee’s 20 members. As Spokane Spokesman-Review reporter Betsy Russell quoted Harwood:

“In my community, we have four people, the only thing they got was high school graduation, and yet they’re the main contributors to our community. The key to being successful is to find something you love to do and doing it – not really the education.”

Pieces of Idaho’s education funding policy thereby stand explained.

Had wondered whether the talk about Hillsboro Republican Representative Derrick Kitts running for Congress against Democratic incumbent David Wu, was so much smoke.

It’s more than that: Kitts is in the race. He faces an uphill run.

You can understand the pressure. University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer, who is no one’s idea of an off-the-deep-end kind of guy, says that action is needed, and needed soon:

The UO is growing substantially, and is going to need more space soon. It has limited options: It is surrounded, pretty much, by developed Eugene; it is a big institution with few available growth options. A few are available, notably a state office property and a former car sales lot. Of them, he says, “This is property that only comes on the market once in a generation, maybe once in a century. If it’s gone, it’s really gone.”

How to raise the money to buy it? Well, there’s a 400-unit student apartment building on campus which could be sold off.

The catch, of course: What about the residents, hundreds of students, who probably would have a hall of a time finding affordable housing somewhere else near campus?

Students and the university Senate are opposed to the selloff, at least until that question is resolved. That’s the question too that have Eugene’s legislators lining up against Frohnmayer, and asking: Do you really have to move so fast? And especially: Before you’ve figured out what to do with all those people whose housing has been taken away?

Frohnmayer’s stance on this looks - looks - irreversible; he has indicated there is no choice but to go forward. But he’s on a collision course, and this could rapidly be turning into the biggest trouble he’s faced in his dozen or so years at the university.

In November 2004, Frohnmayer delivered an address in Portland on situational ethics. Toward the end of it, he had this to say:

A major component of ethical judgment is to recognize the flashing yellow lights that say “don’t enter the valley of the shadow.” The admonition to avoid the “occasions of sin” may be more important that we have realized. We can easily go too far – authority is seductive; we can reach a personal tipping point after which our hands are inescapably dirty. Some environments blind us to the human consequences of our actions– so we MUST be attuned to the consequences of our behavior and our own weaknesses, our own sins - whatever they may be. This ethical life is hard work – “knowing right from wrong” requires diligence, self-scrutiny and looking into a very well-lit and refractive mirror.

Wise words.

An so Albertson’s is about to be no more, so we may conclude.

Albertsons has been sold (pending some final but expected approvals) to a group of business interests, and the second-largest grocery store chain in the country, one of the largest enterprises ever created in Idaho (and one of that state’s bragging points), likely will be no more, and most of its currently large Boise presence, and the associated business activities, likely will move elsewhere.

Is that too firm a conclusion? Possibly; there’s nothing in the massive buyout that explicitly keeps the Albertsons stores and operations from going on and doing business exactly as they have been doing. But if that’s all that lies ahead, why go through the whole business of a sellout and buyout? Something different is in the wings.

There’s no positive conclusion what that will be. But some careful thinking was underway in downtown Boise on Monday, and underlying it is the point that Albertsons is going not to a single operator, but to a consortium with different interests. Some are in retail. But others are in real estate, and still others have other interests.

Credible current speculation runs along these lines:

Supervalu, which apparently gets the Idaho and Northwest Albertsons stores among many other properties, would replace Albertsons as the second-largest grocery company nationally. But there are quirks: Will all those stores retain the Albertson’s name? (Don’t count on it.) How does that part of the deal mesh with the part relating to Cerebrus investments, which seems to be approached more from a real estate and property management perspective?

As for Boise headquarters, the immediate word was: no change. But then, that was the word out of Albertsons leadership three weeks ago. Current expectations: Most corporate and administrative offices will be stripped out of Boise, though probably one or two divisions will be left in place. (That appears to be a standard procedure with some of the purchasing companies.) Not everything will be moved out. Most of it will be.

The grocery world, and Boise’s business world, has been upended.

New argot for the Puget: The criticality of”the 12th man” in the game, as the Seattle Seahawks prepare for today’s championship game.

It’s been a local concept for a while, but the push on it lately has been remarkable. The Seawhawks’ web site even notes, “The Seattle Seahawks 12th Man Flag, a fixture at Qwest Field’s south endzone, will be raised atop Seattle’s Space Needle to salute Seahawks fans and the team during the NFL playoffs. The flag will be raised Tuesday, January 10 at noon and will be displayed throughout the Seahawks postseason.”

The Tacoma News Tribune enthuses, “We’re a closer community right now. And it’s great to be a part of that.”

But attention should be paid to another commentary in the TNT, that being today’s Peter Callaghan column about the “13th man” - the taxpayers who made possible the stadium in which the Seahawks play.

That gangrene on our society called talk radio - it needn’t and shouldn’t be gangrenous, but too typically is - runs to its worst when the effort is to draw lines between the perfectly reasonable “us” and the out of line, irrational, zany “them.” It’s worst when it’s subtle - alert listeners won’t get what’s being done surruptitiously.

Here’s the background story (and the facts happen not to be disputed, because the incident was captured on Tri-Met cameras).

A Portland resident named Randy Albright was pedaling his bicycle (he happens to be an activist on bicycling issues) around Hawthorne Bridge, one of the bridges crossing the Willamette River in Portland. He was not riding in the bicycle lane (most Portland bicyclists are scrupulous about sticking to these) since it had extra garvel that day, but in the main lane.. A Tri-Met bus rolled up and passed him, narrowly, there being little space available. He shook his fist at the bus; he may have swung at it with his fist as well. Then he followed the bus and, when it arrived at its next stop, he tried to get the attention of the bus driver. He apparently either did not, or the driver ignored him. Albright then walked his bicycle in front of the bus and planted himself and it there.

Almost immediately, a man exited the bus, swung at Albright and pushed him back onto the sidewalk. (Albright has said he was battered.) The man then re-entered the bus, which promptly drove off. Albright has filed a complaint against the driver; the activist passenger evidently has not been identified.

Talk jock Lars Larson, whose home station is Portland’s KXL, asks the following on his web site: “Bicyclist suing Tri Met for his own road rage. Was rider [presumably, the bus passenger] unreasonable?” (more…)

Those porous borders around the Northwest are super-sensitive to legislation, maybe more so than anywhere else in the states. Subtle distinctions can have a big effect on interstate traffic.

As a student at the University of Idaho at Moscow, I would watch from my form window toward the west, to the point where Idaho became Washington, and where cars slipped between the two on Highway 8. Early in the evening, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, I would watch the steady stream of white lights from Pullman - heavy traffic to Moscow. After midright, the lights would turn red, traffic headed back to Pullman, home of Washington State University. The reason? Idaho’s drinking age then was 19, to Washington’s 21.

Change now drinking to smoking, as reports now point to smokers flocking across the border from Washington - where almost all public places, including bars, are required to be smoke-free - to Idaho, where the rules aren’t quite so strict. That’s ironic, since Idaho did toughen its statewide smoking rules considerably just a couple of years back.

So expect to see some altered traffic flows on the Lewiston-Clarkston, Pullman-Moscow and Spokane-Coeur d’Alene lines. The legal marketplace at work.

Ron Saxton, Republican candidate for governor, is a man pulled in a couple of dstinct directions. His main appeal is as the guy who’s centrist enough to win over voters in the general election. But to get to the general election, he has to win a primary election where most of the voters are conservative.

That makes for a question ticklish in the extreme: How “moderate” - or “conservative” - is Ron Saxton?

All this should be prefaced with our usual disclaimer: Such labels as “conservative,” “moderate” and “liberal” have long since passed any point of real meaning, especially when the most “conservative” politicians in our nation’s capital qualify as the most radical major politicians of the last couple of generations. The terms have more to do with branding and with group self-identification, and there they have real political impact and significance.

In running against two candidates commonly defined as “more conservative” - Kevin Mannix and Jason Atkinson - Saxton has been shorthanded as the moderate in the race. He hasn’t really seemed to push against that definition, maybe because of the general election advantages it could confer.

But he has gotten support from a number of Oregonians who define themselves as very conservative indeed, and that may - with less than four months remaining till primary election deadline - start to send some ripples, and shivers, around the state. (more…)

Spokane’s new mayor, Dennis Hession, must know a bit about how Gerald Ford felt in the late summer of 1974 - a low-key, cool personality taking over in the wake of a mighty storm of chaos.

It may be just the right way. Introducing himself (till recently, he’s not been a household word in town), and talking a bit about his upbringing (as a Catholic in Salt Lake City), a family man and a professional with a load of civic involvements, he struck a modest chord as he launched into his first state of the city speech:

“I believe strongly in open, accessible government. With that in mind, I thought it was important to disclose some information about myself. I’ll understand if by the end you are wishing for less transparency, but here goes.”

Odds are Spokane wasn’t looking for less transparency at all: The surprise opaque nature of Hession’s predecessor, Jim West, underday the eight months of chaos the city endured before West’s recall on December 6. By starting as he did, Hession gave a nod to the point that civic transparency is good politics as well as good government. (How many in Spokane heard Hession’s opening lines and - just for amoment - cringed and thought: No shockers, please!) (more…)

Oregon went for simplicity in its preferred design for a state quarter, opting for a basic view of Crater Lake over more complex sets of images. In looking at designs for something as small as a quarter, that makes sense: Less can be more.

Will Washington go the same way?

When Governor Christine Gregoire gets to make the choice for her state, she’ll have a similar option: Clearly, one of the designs - the salmon and mountain look to the left - says the state more swiftly and cleanly than the others. The middle design, of a tribal rendering of a fish, is simpler graphically, but also subtler - it would probably leave a bunch of people scratching their heads.

What’s the popular choice? The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has put the designs on its web page and asked readers to vote. Of the more than 3,100 votes so far, more than half (51.8%) went forthe design at the left, just 19.9% for the design in the middle, and 28.3% for the more complicated design to the right.

Before any Northwest politician makes pronouncements in this campaign year - and most of them, of both parties, will - about how wonderful their state’s economy is, they had better first read and take into account the new report Searching for Work that Pays: 2005 Job Gap Study.

If they have any real interest in how real people in their states really live - not just an unfortunate sliver of people either, but most of them - this study by the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations should have a strong sobering effect.

Consider this key finding and then ask how much our “booming economy” is doing for actual Northwesterners: “Of all Northwest job openings, 34% pay less than a living wage for a single adult and 79% pay less than a living wage for a single adult with two children, as shown in the chart below. It is important to note the distinction between jobs and job openings. Not all jobs come open during the course of a year, but some jobs may open repeatedly during a year due to turnover or seasonality of the work. Job openings are of particular interest because they provide employment opportunities for people looking for work.”

The days of all boats experiencing a lift clearly are over. And yet the problem, and solutions, have to do with more than job pay in itself. (more…)

In the Watch for More file: That conversation between Oregon Senator Ron Wyden and now Chief Justice John Roberts.

In the decision released yesterday on Oregon’s death with dignity (assisted suicide) law, Roberts wound up in the minority along with Justices Scalia and Thomas. The question: To what extent did that comes as a surprise to Wyden?

The reason for the question (as has been noted elsewhere) is that after Wyden and Roberts conversed last summer, in advance of the Senate vote on Roberts’ confirmation, Wyden gave the impression that he had the impression Roberts would not vote to overturn the Oregon law.

An Oregonian story from August 10 noted, “Wyden said Roberts’ comments on personal liberties and other issues of constitutional law left him hopeful that, if confirmed by the full Senate, Roberts would rule to protect Oregon’s law allowing physician-assisted suicide. … Roberts told Wyden that he would look closely at the legislative history of federal laws and would be careful not to strip states of powers they traditionally have held — such as regulating the practice of medicine, Wyden said. ‘You don’t get the impression from how he answered that he’d let somebody stretch a sweeping statute like the Controlled Substances Act,’ Wyden said.”

As the current confirmation process continues, what does that suggest about the level of honesty involved - either the official players with each other, or some of them with us?

Yes, it’s a competitor - to Wal-Mart - speaking, but also a business leader, calling for greater corporate responsibility.

And Craig Cole has the grounding to speak. His Washington-born and raised grocery business has been losing ground, and shutting stores, in the face of a growing Wal-Mart presence. And a significant part of the reason, he says, is that while almost all of his Brown & Cole grocery employees receive health insurance benefits, most Wal-Mart workers do not. In changing the shape of our economy and culture, Cole suggests, Wal-Mart has become a kind of “social pollution.” The Danny Westneat column spelling it out is worth a read.