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Posts published in “Day: January 12, 2011”

Threats to the north

January 12, 2011

Food for thought as the shootings in Tucson reverberate: The Northwest has had its share of political violence-tinged activity in the last couple of years, most notably in Washington. (Remember the death threats and imagery of hanging aimed last year at Senator Patty Murray?)

Add another today. The FBI has charged and arrested Charles Turner Habermann for threatening a federal official, specifically Representative Jim McDemott of Seattle. Threaten hardly begins to cover what the charges cover, though. Here's a sample from two paragraphs that don't even address McDermott (some of that is worse, and the language sinking well below what we try to maintain here), but rather a state legislator in California:

11. On March 23, 2010, a California Assembly Member received two voicemail threat messages from HABERMANN. In the first voicemail message, HABERMANN threatened to kill the assembly member. The second voicemail message started out with HABERMANN saying he wasn't going to kill anyone. HABERMANN went on to say that the Assembly Member should "watch his back." HABERMANN also said that the founding fathers, if they were alive today, would kill President Obama and other officials. The State of California, Department of California Highway Patrol, Dignitary Protection Section was notified of the threats.

12. CHP learned that HABERMANN came into the Assembly Member's office on March 18, 2010, to discuss the current health care bill. During the meeting HABERMANN began ranting about the current federal health care bill and how HABERMANN was "very well off" and did not want to support immigrants and Latinos. HABERMANN was described as agitated, paranoid, uneasy and couldn't keep still ...

As for the voice mail about McDermott, Habermann was quoted - after rants about the Federalist Papers and John Locke - as saying, "And I'll tell you something right now, I'll f--- hunt that guy down and I'll f--- get rid of him. Do you understand that? I'll get the f--- rid of him. I'll pay people. I'll pay my friends." In another message, he said that if "Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, or George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, if any of them had ever met, uh, Jim McDermott, they would all blow his brains out. They'd shoot him in the head."

Another one-off crazy loner.

OR remap: Early steps

January 12, 2011

At the Oregon state Senate committee on reapportionment this morning, members convening for the first time were asked to talk a bit about their districts. (Chair Suzanne Bonamici said that when the committee on judiciary organized earlier, members did the same thing - often while eying her closely.) The comments were educational, from people who know those pieces of turf in fine grain.

Senator Jason Atkinson said much of his district, around the Grants Pass and Medford area, could be seen as "a string of small towns connected by some of the most famous rivers on the coast," the Rogue and Illinois among them. Senator Chris Telfer spoke of moving to her Bend-centered district, which includes most of Deschutes County, and seeing it transition from a timber community then to one without a timber mill but with a fast-growing tourism sector. She and Bonamici, who represents a slice of west Portland and eastern Washington County, spoke of the fast growth of those places; Bonamici noted that one of the two House districts within her Senate district now by itself has more people than the Senate district represented by President Peter Courtney.

They'll all have to learn some new turf after the committee's work is done and, as Bonamici said, "most people will not be happy." The immediate hammer hanging overhead is this: Most of the time, since such reapportionments started half a century ago, the legislature hasn't succeeded in pulling together a plan that works, and the final maps have come from courts or from the secretary of state. The members were vowing that this time, they will get it done. It will be a challenge.

The process will be intensive. There will be no more meetings until after February 1, when the legislature returns, but the Senate and House committees likely will meet together a lot after that. "We want to work together with the House," Bonamici said. (The House panel didn't hold its organizational this week; a planned meeting was dropped.) Bonamici said that a decade ago, the reapportionment panel held 17 hearings around the state, somehow managing to make none of them overnight trips. The first couple of meetings this year will consist of orientation and backgrounding.

After that, the committee will be tested. And no one will be grading on the curve.