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Parks
building: 3rd turn of the wheel

Anyone interested in the intersection
of politics, business and the law in Idaho could do worse than hie
directly to the latest Idaho Supreme Court decision in Gillingham
Construction v. Newby-Wiggins Construction (decided
July 22), a case turning most basically on contract and liability
law but containing food for thought ranging far afield.
It has to do with the construction of a major
state building, the Department of Parks & Recreation building
northeast of Boise on Warm Springs Road, going back to 1993. (Yes,
the battle is still on, and not over yet.)
The prime contractor on the project was Newby-Wiggins.
The architect was Lombard-Conrad, and the firm hired to do grading
and excavation was Gillingham. The fireworks began when, as the
Court noted, "After completing approximately 85% of its work,
Gillinghams project superintendent, Robert Allen, discovered
a problem with the existing site elevations which were much higher
than those previously reported on the Projects site plans
and specifications."
That ultimately meant delays and higher costs
for Gillingham, and weather meant additional delays; the work was
completed in 1994. The work was apparently satisfactory; the question
was, who should pay for the extra cost owing to the site elevations?
GIllingham sued Newby-Wiggins; Newby-Wiggins sued Gillingham back;
it also sued the state of Idaho for indemnification; and the state,
finally, filed a third-party suit against Lombard-Conrad.
Amazing how these things spread like civic sprawl.
Parts of this legal activity dropped by the way
over time. But the battle between Newby-Wiggins and Gillingham continues.
Their conflict went to a jury trial before 4th District Judge Cheri
Copsey; after Gillingham delivered its case, Newby-Wiggins moved
for a directed verdict in its favor, and Copsey agreed. She ruled
for the prime contract mainly as a matter of law but also saying
there wasn't enough evidence to support a key part of Gillingham's
case. The Supreme Court generally agreed on the law but said the
evidence issue should have gone to the jury.
That was the first Supreme Court ruling. Back
in district court, a jury this time sided with Gillingham. Copsey
issued an unusual (not unprecedented) directed verdict, notwithstanding
the jury verdict, in Newby-Wiggins's favor. Back at the Supreme
Court, the justices said that each of the three reasons Copsey gave
for her decision was flawed, and sent the case - yes - back to district
court.
Two points of note grow out of this. One is a
question - the answer isn't specifically noted in the high court
ruling - how much did Gillingham actually lose in the course of
the construction work, and does it even begin to approach the cost
of all these legal expenses?
There is also this, buried down in the court
decision, arrived at through a review of the case files.
In the course
of post-trial proceedings the fact developed that the district judge
engaged in conversations with the jury following the verdict but
before post-trial motions were heard, or could even be filed, and
before a final judgment was entered. The district judge discounted
the effect of the contact, but the language concerning that disavowal
is potent evidence to the contrary. The district judge stated the
following:
THE COURT:
I do have question for you and Im going to Im
going to tell everyone up front that after the decision, I went
back to talk to the jury, as I always do and I never comment on
a jurys verdict at all. But the jury asked me a question and
I came back and it was the first question they asked me. And that
was were really curious about the settlement about
what this agreement was. So I told them what the agreement was.
And they asked me did Gillingham receive money from the State and
I said, yeah. They were shocked. They all indicated that they would
have that this would have affected them. The reason that
becomes important normally I would not say its important
and certainly if the parties ask for me to do a remittitur at the
very least, at the very least I would do a remittitur in this case,
but your comment to the jury in closing argument which said, if
you find the State is responsible, my client receives nothing. It
really becomes crucial when I heard the jury make that remark. And
it was crucial before I even heard it because I still have a problem
with that statement and Ive read what you have written in
your brief, but to me that was such a fundamental error and the
wrongness of that comment was brought home to me when I went back
to the jury. ... For the purposes of this discussion, I am not going
to take into account what the jurors said to me when I went in there.
In my view it is not relevant to
my decision. All Im saying is that it did draw my attention
to the enormity of your
statement, because they understood that your client would receive
nothing. Thats what
they understood.
There are a couple of observations here. The
narrower is the Supreme Court's commentary: "To the extent
there is a practice of trial judges engaging jurors in a dialogue
of questions and answers following a verdict, but before post trial
matters, including sentencing, are heard
and decided, it is improper. It is no different than any other ex
parte contact that may influence the outcome of a proceeding. After
a verdict is taken the judge may thank the jury members for their
service and address those issues of accommodating the jury members
convenience. Otherwise, the door between the bench and the jury
is closed so long as the case is pending, only to be opened in a
proper proceeding."
But there is another issue here. Clearly, the
judge and the jury reached clearly different conclusions, based
on large part on what information was presented and available to
each. And that information was not the same. There are some real
implications in all this about what it takes to make a jury process
work.
And I'll stop it there, before this post foes
on as long as this case has. 07/31/05
16:34 [comment / reprint]

I-cracked

Looks like the Congress is
about to send $220 million to Seattle for work on the
crumbling Alaska Way Viaduct. (The decision wasn't yet final at
this writing, but it looked strongly probable.) The work as a whole
may cost between $3-4 billion depending on the option chosen, but
the federal bucks are still no small consideration. Now the question
is going to be, will Seattle get to keep the money?
That's because the federal money
is a match, depending on the new money made available from the recently-passed
increases in the state gas tax, 9.5 cents phased in over the next
few years. As with so many other taxes, Tim Eyman has taken aim,
and his initiative troops have put the measure, Initiative 912,
on the ballot. Early polling indications suggest that support for
the measure - the repealer - strong out of the box, and that its
chances in November seem good.
And very likely so. But before we
leave this matter, a couple of points should be lodged.
The gaggle of tax-related initiatives
arising in states ever since the late 70s are a particular kind
of mindless: They focus exclusively on one half of an equation,
letting the other dangle out of sight. Wanna cut your taxes? Of
course you do! Just sign and vote here ... The problem then being,
of course: What are the consequences of doing that? Maybe the consequences
are good and proper, but the initiative backers haven't allowed
themselves to be bothered with tidying up after the explosions they
ignite.
So, a modest proposal, to be repeated
here from time to time: Constitutional amendments in the states,
providing that initiatives carrying a fiscal impact have to balance.
That is to say, if you're advocating spending, you have to say where
the money is going to come from; and if you want to cut taxes, you
have to tell everyone where exactly the budget impact will be. That
would make an honest proposition out of these initiatives, attention
to real-world consequences instead of reliance on feel-good voting.
In the case of I-912, for one example, Eyman and his group should
have to put on the table either an alternative source of funding
for the transportation projects - which polling shows the voters
overwhelmingly think need repair - or specify which ones would be
dropped. It would put the voters in an real driver's seat, instead
of a fake one.
The other point, involving some
similar ideas, can be found in Joel Connelly's excellent
column today outlining the situation and its political challenges
and opportunities.
His basic point is that the backers
of the road funding deal have a responsibility now to defend it
- to engage the public interest in a sound road system. And Connelly
suggests the way to do that, by building trust that the money will
be spent wisely.
Connelly: "Gov. Gary Locke
was at his worst in such situations. The former governor's feeble
counterattacks against Tim Eyman's anti-tax initiatives reminded
me of French army attempts to breach Wehrmacht lines in 1940."
This, in short, is where new Governor
Christine Gregoire can position herself as a truly strong leader,
or fall into the same old trap. Connelly even outlines the specifics,
a series of steps she could take to build the trust and put the
state's transportation needs back on front burner.
This isn't a campaign that has to
be lost. I-912 isn't a guaranteed winner. It will win only if no
lessons are learned from the mass of tax initiatives past, and if
voters think they need to consider only one-half of the equation.
07/29/05
10:41 [comment / reprint]

Dragging, to the end

We really wanted this bipartisan
session of the Oregon Legislature to work. It should have; but at
this point, even few of its advocates are likely to call it a success
when it it adjourns, as it likely will within the next couple of
weeks.
It will adjourn by then mainly if,
as now seems the case, lawmakers have given up on doing work of
any substance beyond passing a budget - the one thing they are strictly
obliged to do. And even that has come only with agony.
The latest Oregonian reports
on budget progress has focused, necessarily, on closed-door conferences
between the legislative leaders and Governor Ted Kulongoski (featuring
shifting collections of players). The paper reported that in one
of those meetings, after one futile effort at compromise after another
(and the Rs and Ds are not very far apart on the numbers) fell apart,
a silence draped over the room. These top officials sat there, looking
at each other and saying not a word, for 45 minutes.
The Middle East isn't tougher than
this. But at least the players in the Middle East have better excuses.
The leadership agreement emerging
from the drawn-out talks was hardly a satisfying deal. The Republicans
seemed to like it a little better than the Democrats, a signal that
Republican will was stronger than Democratic will, even though two
of the three power centers were in Democratic hands.
What's driving this unwillingness
to compromise? It isn't the substance, at least not basically: The
two sides were close on the numbers, and other issues could have
been negotiated out (but often weren't). Probably it wasn't the
personnel in leadership, either. On a personal level, most of these
people seems to be adults who actually get along with each other
reasonably well. The results may make them look like school children
in the sand box, but that doesn't seem to be the right explanation.
The explanation seems to arise more
broadly from the caucuses and more broadly than that from the two
political parties. Headed in the 2006 election, with no more session
ahead of them, neither party could stand a loss. Neither wanted
to suggest a willingness to be rolled. Republicans especially probably
were sensitive to what happened the last time substantial portions
of their number actually worked with Democrats to try to resolve
the landmark 2003 session: Few of those Republicans remain in the
legislature. The Democrats probably have absorbed the lesson too.
Does this mean the only way the
Oregon legislature (or in other states) can do meaningful work is
under one-party control? An answer in the affirmative seems to be
getting ever more unavoidable. 07/26/05
08:53 [comment / reprint]


Moving
Southwest

Most intriguing transportation
story so far in a year full of them is the proposal this week
by Southwest Airlines,
which said it - in effect - wants to quit the big regional SeaTac
airport south of Seattle, and set
up what would amount to its own airport closer to town.
The closeness to Seattle, of course,
isn't the driving factor here. What makes this proposal so interesting
is the idea that one airline could, less expensively, set up its
own terminals, runways (on the existing Boeing field, but with major
modifications), security system and much more, for less than it
would pay by staying at SeaTac. It would run its regional flights,
more than 80 daily including all of its northwestern operations,
out the new location. The location it seeks actually is now called
King County International Airport, and the county runs it, but it
is not currently a schedule-run general purpose airport like SeaTac
(or PDS or BOI or LAX, for example). Southwest would be building
the structure for that.

The cost estimate may sound incredible,
but it's not. Costs at SeaTac (my fingers want to keep typing "SeaTax")
have been driven so high that private operators there across the
board have been complaining for some time now. Whatever else this
move may suggest, it should prompt the Port of Seattle (which runs
SeaTac) to do some financial re-evaluations. If going outside the
regional hub airport pencils out, as Southwest maintains it does,
something is wrong in airport management.
Southwest warned specifically in
its proposal, "If these airport costs continue to rise, Southwest
may be forced to drastically cut service at Sea-Tac."
Whether the move will actually happen
is another matter; it looks iffy at best. In the last couple of
days it generated both
support and blasts. (The questions it raises are many. Some,
such as the transportation issues, do not seem especially difficult
- given the proposed location near I-5 and bordering a large industrial
district.) Others are much knottier. From a traveler's standpoint,
for example, how would you handle plane transfers between Southwest
and other airlines?)
But the concerns that led Southwest
to push in this direction are worth consideration. 07/23/05
09:39 [comment / reprint]


1st
CD: Turning unpredictable

Our intent in tracking the Idaho 1st
District race was to track the prospects for the candidates - who
was most likely to be prevail, who was a longshot.
We'll return to that soon enough. But for the
moment, the race is almost perfectly unpredictable - as hard to
call as any for major office in quite a few cycles. Our
latest report is up. 07/21/05
09:58 [comment / reprint]


The
superintendency

There has been no word from Superintendent
of Public Instruction Marilyn Howard herself, but if the recent
uptick in interest in her office on the part of others is any indication,
she may not run again.
Elected twice to the education office, Howard
has since 2002 been the sole Democrat in statewide or major office
in Idaho. She ousted a Republican incumbent (a badly self-damaged
one) in 1998 and turned back an emergetic campaign four years later.
Her 2002 performance suggests she would not be easily to unseat
in 2006. But the stress has to be wearing, and she's well into retirement
age. (She started teaching in 1960.) There were indications even
in 2002 that might be the last time.
Evidently that's the growing perception at least.
The lesser indication of that is preparation on the part of several
Republicans for a campaign prospectively for an open seat.Notable
among these is a Republican with a statewide known last name, Steve
Smylie, a veteran legislator and a teacher; he has been touring
the state this summer to guage support.
More indicative is Democratic state Senator Bert
Marley of McCammon. Also an educator, he
says he is preparing for a run - not, certainly, against
Howard should she file, but for the Democratic nomination if she
does not. The level of effort expended so far indicates that is
thought to be a reaslitic prospect. 07/21/05
08:53 [comment / reprint]


Gone
fishin'

Amusing story in the Spokane
Spokesman-Review about
retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a continent
and a world away from Washington where her replacement was being
nominated. (No, neither I nor they made this up.)
She was on the St. Joe River, out
in a remote stretch near Avery, fishing.
An S-R outdoor writer asked
her whether she preferred fishing from a boat or standing out in
the river. The latter, she said: "I don't want to be confined
in some little boat when you can have a whole river around you.
I sit on my butt enough."
The headline, of course, wrote itself:
"O'Connor picks wade over row." 07/20/05
11:42 [comment / reprint]

HP: A bullet dodged?

As in any number of other places
around the world, economic planners in the Northwest are inquiring
minds: What effect will the massive round of Hewlett Packard layoffs
have locally?
So
far, HP isn't trotting out any local-effect numbers, only
to say that about 14,500 jobs in the international megacorporation
will be going away. That, of course, is many more than are employed
at all of the Northwest HP operations (there are three big ones,
one in each Northwest state - at Corvallis, Oregon, at Vancouver,
Washington and at Boise, Idaho). But the cuts amount to just about
a tenth of overall employment levels.
And if new CEO Mark Hurd is trying
to trim unprofitable areas, the Northwest would seem to be an unlikely
place. Operations in this area are heavily focused on the corporation's
centerpiece, its printer operations. The Boise operations just wrapped
up early publicity on its new low-cost color laser printer rollout.
More critical than the prestige is the profit, since the printer
division accounts for more than half of all HP profits.
We'll know soon. But don't be surprised
if the Northwest is spared. 07/19/05
19:13 [comment / reprint]

Ongoing contemplation

The quote was ironic to say
the least.
It
came as Kevin Mannix took his leave as chair of the Oregon Republican
Party. It was an overdue leave-taking, as some Republicans have
noted, because Mannix is an all-but-announced candidate for governor
next year, and he has opposition within the Republican Party.
The
quote: "It was important to wrap up my responsibilities
with the party. Now, I can move on to contemplate the governor's
race."
Move on, in other words, to what
he's been doing for quite some time. But a party structure headed
by new Chair Vance Day of Salem (not be confused with Chris Vance
of Washington) may find their jobs a little easier when they no
longer have to deal with inside/outside candidates for governor.
07/17/05
11:26 [comment / reprint]


Cantwell-McGavick?

Now that former gubernatorial
candidate Dino Rossi has definitively
taken himself out of consideration for the 2006 Senate race,
Republicans have a job to do in trying to oust an incumbent Democrat,
Maria Cantwell.
The key to do that, GOP chief Chris
Vance has accurately noted, lies in uniting behind a single candidate
right from the beginning. That was what the state Republicans did
with Rossi's run for governor, and it came right to the edge of
working. The approach was sound.
Whether that will happen in this
case is not yet clear. Cantwell is perceived by many Republicans
to be vulnerable (though she may prove tougher than some now acknowledge,
her razor-close 2000 win notwithstanding), and so there is some
attraction to the race. Diane Tebelius, an attractive candidate
last year in the 8th House district, is one possibility, and she
now seems likely to run. Vance himself is another.
But the most interesting news
report on all this, in the Tacoma News Tribune, suggests
that Republicans might line up quickly behind Mike McGavick, CEO
of SafeCo. Though quiet in public, the story notes, "hes
quietly laid the groundwork for a campaign, making the rounds of
GOP leaders in both Washingtons and rounding up endorsements from
some of the states top Republicans. Some whove met with
him expect him to declare soon."
These races get earlier and earlier.
07/16/05
11:21 [comment / reprint]


Press
pressure

Most reporters and editors in local news
media do not stay there - anymore, at least - for their whole careers;
that was once fairly normal, but no longer. When they leave, where
do they go? Most often, they go to public information or public
relations jobs, frequently with government entities. This is a regular
and frequent transition well known to those in the media.
One of the less-noted pressures on the news media
below the national level comes right here, in the awareness on the
part of reporters and editors that the subjects of their stories
today may be their employers tomorrow.
This has especially pernicious results in a one-party
state: It tends to dampen serious inquiry into the powers that be,
especially because only one side provides almost all of the post-media
jobs.
Some of this emerges with the reports
that Associated Press newsman Chuck Oxley is leaving that position
to become communications director (a new position) for the state
Democratic Party. What's so unusual here is someone in the Idaho
media going to work for a Democratic, rather than Republican, organization.
The
blog by Spokesman-Review reporter Betsy Russell quotes
Oxley, "Ive watched this since 94 when I came to
the state. Every year there was just more and more imbalance.
They just continually run over the Democrats in the Legislature.
A lot of our friends in the press have gone to Republican administrations
I thought maybe the other side needs some help.
What friends? Russell notes a few
of them (and this is just a small sliver): "Notably, in recent
years, longtime AP reporter Mark Warbis left to become press secretary
to Republican U.S. Rep. Butch Otter, both longtime AP correspondent
Bob Fick and former Idaho Statesman political reporter Wayne
Hoffman left journalism for jobs at state agencies under the Kempthorne
Administration, and former Idaho Statesman business reporter
Mike Journee became press secretary for Gov. Dirk Kempthorne."
Idahoans might bear that in mind
the next time they hear complaints about the supposedly "liberal
media." 07/15/05
13:14 [comment / reprint]


Primary
redux

So toss all those calculations
about how the new top-two Louisiana-style primary will affect
Washington politics. Looks now as if it won't happen, and we're
back to the Montana (or Idaho) style. Washington voters, in other
words, still will not have to register by party, but will be limited
in primary elections to selecting one party within which to vote.
Traditionally, Washington voters have been able to cherry-pick among
parties. (Fine headline
at the Seattle P-I: "It's Back to Pick-a-Party PRimary.")
The decision
by Judge Thomas Zilly sides with the odd bedfellows of the
state Republican and Democratic parties (and even the Libertarian,
which also joined in). They had contended, as Zilly recounts, "that
Initiative 872 is unconstitutional because the
Initiative prevents voters who share party affiliation from selecting
their partys nominees. The Republican Party also alleges that
Initiative 872 forces the Party to be associated publicly with candidates
who have not been nominated by the Party, who will alter the political
message and agenda the Party seeks to advance, and who will confuse
the voting public with respect to what the Party and its adherents
stand for."
Zilly is evidently aware he's overturning
the will of the voters here; he expressly says that in passing Initiative
872 "The voters were forced to choose between voter choice
and party nominations, and the voters chose voter choice."
In this case,
The
State of Washington argues that Initiative 872 does not nominate
political party candidates for public office, and does not create
a nominating primary. Rather, the State contends that Initiative
872 makes party nominations . . . irrelevant to qualifying
candidates
to the ballot. See State Response, docket no. 65, at 12. The
State urges that unlike a nominating primary, Initiative
872 is a winnowing primary in which the primary voters
do not choose the partys nominee. Changes by the Initiative
to Wash. Rev. Code
§ 29A.04.127 revised nominating to winnowing.15
The Republican Party argues that calling the primary a winnowing
primary, rather than a nominating primary, does
not distinguish the Initiative 872 primary system from the blanket
primaries rejected in Jones and Reed, and does not change the fact
that Initiative 872s primary nominates candidates.
The state is exactly right: "winnowing"
is what the Louisiana-style approach does. In many cases the system
may result in a Republican and Democrat running head to head in
November, but in many other - in many Seattle districts, and in
many rural eastern Washington areas - it may result in two members
of the same party battling it out in November. It winnows, doesn't
nominate. It does have the effect, most likely, of weakening the
party structure as a result, but that wasn't a key argument here.
Zilly's take was that this "transforms
the partys right to 'nominate' into a right to endorse,"
and he said the right to "nominate" is a constitutionally-protected
right. There's probably some truth in that, but one wonders at the
value of another central point the judge makes: "The association
of a candidate with a particular party may be the single most effective
way to communicate to voters what the candidate represents."
Washington voters may have been conteding, in their vote for I-972,
that that's exactly what's wrong with much of our politics: Domination
by ideological purists, instead of the centrist pragmatists who
led Washington so well for so many decades. 07/15/05
14:03 [comment / reprint]


The
ever-deepening incident

If you have a single situation and from
it draw conclusion A, that doesn't mean you can't also draw a non-conflicted
conclusion B. That point may be about to come home in the never-ending
battle over charges in the 2003 Boise mayoral race, and could possibly
open it to levels of interest hitherto unforeseen.
That race for a nonpartisan open seat featured
two identifiable Republicans, developer Chuck Winter and Ada County
Sheriff Vaughn Killeen, and an identifiable Democrat, legislator
David Bieter. Prevailing speculation pre-election day was that Winder,
who seemed to be getting the larger share of the Republican support,
and Bieter would end up in a runoff election.
Winder had been dogged by allegations that he
had a sweetheart property management deal with the city of Boise.
The whole situation - contracts, payments, various parties involved
- was complex. Both city officials and Winder delivered explanations
of the deal which may have been fully explanatory or, depending
on one's point of view, maybe not. The Boise Idaho Statesman
has written about the matter, but not in depth - not depth sufficient
to resolve the various questions.
Just before the election, a wave of anonymous
calls swept around Boise focusing on the Winder-city deal. Since
the city was then just coming off a big scandal in the Brent Coles
administration, these calls had resonance. The end result put Bieter
in first place and with just enough of a lead - by a few hundred
votes - to avoid a runoff.
The election settled the leadership of Boise's
city hall, but it left behind a web of mysteries.
The first and most obvious is: Who was responsible
for the last-minute calls?
That part has begun to emerge into the light.
Winder, understandably, has wanted to find out, and because the
failure to report those political expenses probably was a violation
of city code, the city would like to know too. (Ironically, the
beneficiary of the activity - Mayor Bieter - never has been seriously
accused of being involved, and as details have developed his innocence
seems clear.) Tax activist Laird Maxwell (whose partisan work has
involved badgering Republicans to be ever-more conservative) has
said he was responsible for the ads. Boise attorney Bill Litster,
who also has worked on Republican efforts, was associated with the
effort (as an intermediary at least). From this we can reasonably
put together the identity of the backers.
As that spotlight has brightened, another aspect
of the tale has re-emerged: Winder's relationship with the city
and their property management agreement.
A couple of weeks back another Republican Boise
attorney, Jim Harris, sent to Boise-area news organizations (Ridenbaugh
Press was among the recipients) a packet of materials - letters,
transcripts, contract copies - which he said resulted from his inquiry
into the Winder lease deal in the fall of 2003. Winder said that
he was not involved with the last-minute ads but "became interested
in this situation during the early fall of 2003 after several rumors
circulated about Winder's dealings with the City and the Boise Depot
property. As a private citizen, I undertook a rather thorough review
of the public documents and an investigation into the involvement
of Chuck Winder and his Boise City related business, particularly
the issue of how he discharged his 'management duties' at the Boise
Depot. To my knowledge this was the only relatively complete investigation
ever done (to this date)."
He said he concluded that, whatever one thinks
of the last-minute telephone campaign, "there is significant
factual substance to the message delivered ..." What he proposed
is an investigation into the whole issue, to get to the bottom of
it.
Harris' documentation is extensive makes a substantive
case - whether conclusive may be another matter.
He most especially blasted the Idaho Statesman,
which he said had ignored the substance of the phone calls and did
not fairly report the Winder lease situation. That point has been
re-upped in a new piece by the Boise Weekly looking
at the situation. It noted that
Following
the last-minute calls on the eve of the election, Statesman writers
Dan Popkey and Brad Hem consistently described the content of the
ad as "erroneously," "inaccurately" or "unfairly"
linking Winder to City Hall and Gary Lyman, the former mayoral chief-of-staff
ousted during the Brent Coles spending scandal of 2003. In a May
12, 2005, editorial, the paper also called Citizens for Trustworthy
Government, the then-anonymous group behind the call, "a secretive
band of rogues" who "duped" and "lied to"
voters. This is where Harris's complaints begin.
And when Popkey ventured on radio, Republican
conservative Rod Beck asked him about the Harris report; Popkey
(according to the Weekly) said he'd not seen it - that the
real issue is the legal violation of campaign laws and the shrouded
people behind it. That's an issue, all right, but why necessarily
is it the only one? As to the new developments in the substance
of the ad, the Statesman hasn't substantially reported on
it all, either, leaving the Weekly a free field. Which seems
odd.
More questions emerge ...
Why did the Harris materials emerge almost exactly
at the time when the "John Does" responsible for the ads
were becoming uncovered?
How serious is, or was, the situation? Harris
seems to be referring to a loss to the city of about $4,000 in office
space rental, hardly an enormous amount, especially since there's
no indication that Winder enriched himself. But Harris does suggest
a pattern of lawbreaking - is there more to this than meets the
eye? Is something more going on here than a single, small-scale,
lease deal now seven years old?
From a political standpoint, at least, something
surely is.
Winder was the candidate of choice for much of
the Boise Republican establishment, but he has remained the focal
point of criticism for an apparently substantial number of conservatives
for long after his candidacy has ended. Why? What's the real war
going on here - and what really are the stakes?
The "John Does" may be emerging, but
the work of solving the attendant mysteries apparently is only beginning.
07/14/05
13:34 [comment / reprint]
-
Randy Stapilus
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