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Crosscut launches

April 3, 2007

The new news site called Crosscut, planning news coverage around the Northwest, launched on Sunday, and it will be worth a watch.

The overall approach bears some resemblance to the New West organization based out of Montana but extending into (among other places) Idaho and Oregon. Crosscut shows some indications, though, of being relatively Washington- and Seattle-centric. But that may change as posts continue and the site develops.

Joel Connelly at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer gives it a sendoff and describes its background.

NASCAR out

April 2, 2007

The plan to build a NASCAR track near Bremerton was never a starter idea; the only question ever was at what point it would crash. It was placed in a spot where transportation is strained already, and it was reliant on a huge amount of public-backed funding. It never was going to fly. That's been clear for half a year or more.

So when the pullout by International Speedway Corporation was announced this afternoon, the basic response might be: It could have gone on longer and been uglier.

ISC can now take a third crack at it (remember the first proposal in Snohomish County), and maybe this time make two alterations that might reasonably result in a NASCAR operation in the Northwest: Put it in a geographically logical place, of which Washington (and Oregon too) have a number; and don't expect a massive public underwriting of ISC's private entertainment business.

An ISC spokesman had this to say: "We still think the Northwest and Washington is a great opportunity. It is a huge economic benefit generator for the state, which has a significant fan base. In the interim, our focus will be to regroup internally and decide what the best course of action is."

That could still include the Northwest.

ID Session grade

April 2, 2007

The Idaho Statesman's web site poll today asks the question: What grade do you give the just-concluded state legislative session?

With 514 votes in (at this writing), the self-selected poll says: A 1%, B 6%, C 24%, D 29%, F 32%.

Chopp shop

April 1, 2007
Frank Chopp
Frank Chopp

Frank Chopp, the speaker of the Washington House, has been an important figure in Washington politics for some years - most of a decade anyway - but he's not been particularly a household name, unless your house is in Olympia or maybe Chopp's 43rd district in Seattle. But now it seems to be getting that way, which is something he may relish or would rather go away.

His importance, as builder, solidifier and governor of the Democratic majority in the House, has been accepted in political spheres for some time. (So has his larger than life personality, and patterns of communication some writers have started to call Choppisms.) But few legislators emerge into the larger public consciousness even so.

This year, Puget Sound people have begun seeing headlines about Chopp's role on the Alaskan Way dispute - if Chopp doesn't want it, it's dead. The sense you got was of not only outsized personality, but of outsized power.

What the Slog and the Olympian are now reporting about Chopp and his dealings with two other legislators could take that image a step further.

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Otter’s session

March 31, 2007
Butch Otter
Butch Otter

Afew weeks back Idaho Governor Butch Otter, who tends to be a bit more candid than the average successful politician, acknowledged a couple of weeks ago, "There's a lot of things that I pointed out in my State of the State that haven't passed. Unfortunately, I can't think of one that has."

A couple of weeks later, another marker cropped up: A quick, substantial string of six full (plus one line-item) vetoes in rebuttal to a legislature firmly controlled by lawmakers who are a philosophical and partisan match for the conservative Republican governor. Vetoes are a part of the process and they can be useful or even necessary, but in an important respect they are a trouble sign: They are what happens when things haven't been resolved through more peaceful means.

So you can't really call this a successful session for the still-new governor. (Of course, leaving aside areas of gubernatorial involvement, it was a session unusually light on accomplishment.)

But we'll hold off grading the governor's efforts until we see how he does next time. That will tell whether he's learned the right lessons from this year's efforts. First sessions are often tricky for governors; and this one tried to do some large things without laying the proper groundwork. The year ahead will give him that opportunity.

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Idaho xgr: done for the year

March 30, 2007

The Idaho Legislature has just adjourned for the year - sine die (properly, that's see-nay dee-ay, though no one says it that way). The last bit of business was a compromised (and apparently somewhat straightened out) highway bonding bill.

Reflections tomorrow on the session and Governor Butch Otter's relationship to it.

Best places

March 30, 2007

This should be good for a Friday afternoon laugh . . . if, of course, you don't live in Seattle.

The new edition of Seattle Metropolitan magazine is out with, as is typical of such magazines, a rundown of the best places in the area to live. (Portland's counterpart did one on special neighborhoods in this edition.) And it determined the best Seattle place to live.

The Slog announces: "Do you know where Seattle Metropolitan says the best place to live in Seattle is? Kent. Kent is the best place to live in Seattle. Thank you, Seattle Metropolitan! See you next month!"

The comments section is priceless.

Facing Smith, from the right

March 30, 2007

We've been viewing the subject of a from-the-right primary challenge to Republican Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, a topic arising periodically on blogs both left and right, with interest but not with the thought that anything critical is happening, yet. At least one name has surfaced - activist and initiative organizer Bill Sizemore - but even that prospect has simply been in the kicking-it-around stage.

Club for Growth Oregon Until now. Now, a post on Blue Oregon points out, Club for Growth is getting into the picture, notably with the establishment this month of Club for Growth Oregon. And that could change everything.

Oregonians haven't seen it a lot, but Club for Growth may be the single most serious player nationally in support of hard-conservative campaigns. It's not too much to say it is the biggest reason that, across the border in Idaho, Bill Sali is now in the U.S. House - Club for Growth threw in masses of support for him, millions of dollars and much more backing besides. When he seemed to be in trouble, they redoubled their efforts for him and against his opponents, Republicans and Democrats. The Club's role in the Sali campaign was the topic of much discussion, brought up even more (in debates, speeches and elsewhere) by Sali's Republican opponents than by Democratic. The story was similar in Club-backed races elsewhere; it is, for example, why Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee nearly lost his primary to a much more conservative challenger in what may be the most liberal state in the country. And there were a bunch of additional cases in 2006. The Club is solidly Republican, but it sees Republicans who violate its definition of conservatism as no better than Democrats, maybe worse, and ripe for attack.

The Oregon site so far mentions only statehouse politics and legislative actions, and it may become somewhat involved on that level. But the Club for Growth has only one credible reason for paying serious attention to Oregon in this cycle, and that would be going after Gordon Smith.

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Road revenge

March 29, 2007

There was the case in the last session of the Oregon legislature where leadership of one party tried to quash a transportation project pursued by a member of the other party. And denial of legislation and pet projects to minority members is not especially unusual in any legislature.

But what emerged on the floor of the Idaho Senate today is something else - punishing an entire region because the people in it voted against the candidates of the majority party.

This came up on what was supposed to be the last day of the Idaho Legislature this year (still might be), as the Senate was getting ready to consider what was to be its last big decision of the year - approving authority for issuing GARVEE bonds for highway construction. It was the subject of concern and negotiation for some time (there was a reason it was held off until the end), and a final draft of Senate Bill 1245 was presented to the Senate only today, after several leaders in the House had worked on it.

Which is when the senators found out what had happened in the guts of the bill: One of the half-dozen big highway projects in it had been eliminated. This project concerned work on Interstate 84 at Boise from Orchard Road to Isaac's Canyon - central and southeast Boise. The precise area, in other words, in which voters in the last couple of elections have thrown out their Republican legislative delegations and gone Democratic.

We might be willing to chalk this up to uneasy coincidence; spending priorities will differ according to one's viewpoint. Except that by legislators' own accounts there's no debt that this was the precise reason the project was dropped. Betsy Russell's Spokesman-Review blog has the quotes that nail it. Start with Senator Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, co-chair of the budget committee, speaking on the Senate floor: “There was one of those six projects that was removed altogether. Why? Because the senator and the representatives from that district were from the wrong political party. . . . It’s time for us to step back.” Drilling down, he later said it happened “because it’s in Elliot’s backyard,” referring to Boise Democratic Senator Elliot Werk.

There were some sort-of demurrals, though House Speaker Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale, seemed to distance himself: “I was never in a meeting where that was discussed” (though he said other House leaders did discuss the GARVEE plans).

The Senate spent almost two hours debating the bill; afterward, it decisively killed it, 23-12.

There may be more to this, and we'll keep watch. But if Russell's reportage so far is accurate (and it's rarely not) and if Cameron is right (and his statements would be extraordinarily out of character if they weren't), then this is a dark passage: A message from legislative leadership that you'd better vote Republican, or else.