Olympia Time

There was a contest in 1914 to design a new flag. No one said "the head of Washington."

The Washington State flag is deeply and historically bad and we should change it

February 15, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 23 Comments

Earlier this week, Representative Strom Peterson introduced House Bill 1938, which proposes a comprehensive process to redesign our state flag.

This bill closely aligns with the ideas I outlined a few months ago. Both proposals aim to replace our current flag, a design often criticized for its complexity, lack of relevance, and uninspired “seal-on-a-solid-color” format, with something more representative of who we are as a state today.

While the bill and my idea share a common purpose, they differ in execution. The legislative bill favors oversight by the Washington Arts Commission, while my proposal places leadership with the Secretary of State, which currently serves as the custodian of all our state symbols. In balance, it’s probably better for the arts community to lead the charge.

The Relative Privation Fallacy: Why Symbols Matter

As of this writing, I am only one of two people signed up to testify in favor of the bill. The balance is largely on the con (by almost 20).

I expect the strongest argument against this bill is that we have bigger problems and that revisiting our flag wastes the Legislature’s time. This is a classic example of the Relative Privation Fallacy, also known as the “Not as Bad as” fallacy or “Appeal to Worse Problems.”

This happens when someone argues that a problem shouldn’t be addressed because there are bigger or more serious problems elsewhere. It dismisses legitimate concerns by comparing them to other issues, rather than addressing them on their own merits.

For example:

“You need to eat the food on your plate; there are starving children in other countries.”
“How can you complain about the Seahawks’ running game when there’s visible homelessness?”

While prioritization is important, this argument falsely suggests that working on one issue means ignoring all others. In reality, multiple issues can (and should) be addressed simultaneously. It also rejects the idea that we can have nice things.

We all know that symbols matter. Without much prompting, we can all think of negative controversies about symbols.

If symbols didn’t matter, we wouldn’t worry about racists in Ohio waving Nazi flags on overpasses? No one would fly a Trump flag from their truck while honking annoyingly through downtown Olympia (This happens more often than you’d think) if symbols didn’t matter.

We can also think of positive relationships with flags:

When we went to the moon, we planted a flag.

Our national anthem is a song about a flag.

Establishing a broad-based, open, and public process to create a new flag that represents the entire state does not mean we’re ignoring all the other issues facing us.

Our Flag: Historically Uninspired and Not Our Own

Right now, Washington’s flag is uninspired. It was not the result of a broad public process but rather something we arrived at late, 34 years after statehood.

While state flags existed before the 1890s, it wasn’t until the Chicago World’s Fair that the state flag craze really took off. By the time Washington chose its flag in 1923, only four other states didn’t have one.

But arriving at things late is part of our history. We’re also in the habit of letting national symbols and decisions dominate us. A 1913 effort to establish a state flag commission was nixed because we didn’t want to overshadow the national flag.

Even the current design of the flag, adopted in 1915 and made official in 1923, reflects the fact that we didn’t even really choose our own name.

When the bill to create the new territory reached Congress in 1853, they overruled our local preference. Kentucky Representative Richard H. Stanton proposed an amendment to change the name from “Columbia” to Washington, in honor of George Washington. Stanton argued that naming the territory after a national hero would better reflect the nation’s (not the territory’s) ideals and unity. No one, it seems, suggested to Stanton that if he liked Washington so much, he should volunteer to change Kentucky’s name. Despite the lack of input from the people who actually lived in the region, Congress approved the amendment, and the territory was officially named Washington.

The imposition of “Washington” highlights a recurring theme in the region’s history: the tension between local autonomy and federal authority. While the name honors a national figure, its origins reflect a moment when the voices of the people living in the region were overlooked.

I’m not saying we need to go as far as changing the state’s name (that would be crazy! looks around), but we don’t need to underline it with a state flag.

You could almost say we’re fiercely ambivalent about the name and symbolism of our state. Because they were largely chosen by outsiders, we don’t focus on how our symbols could actually be important to us.

There’s a deep, hidden-in-plain-sight reason for this ambivalence. While Oregon and California became states before the Civil War, Washington maintained a “failure to launch” status for decades.

Washington spent more time as a territory than any other state in the lower 48. This extended period of territorial governance profoundly affected our development and identity. Unlike other territories that quickly transitioned to statehood, Washington’s path was slower and more complicated, shaped by geographic isolation, economic challenges, and political neglect.

Probably our best historian, Robert Ficken, argued that this prolonged territorial status fostered a sense of ambivalence among Washingtonians. Cut off from the rest of the country by the Rocky Mountains and lacking significant infrastructure, the territory was historically dominated by outside economic forces, generally from Chicago or California.

Ficken highlights that the push for statehood only gained serious momentum after the completion of the trans-Cascadian railroad in the 1880s. The railroad connected Washington to itself and the rest of the nation. Before this, the region’s internal isolation made it difficult to grow on our own without outside investment or assert our political voice.

If so many decisions were made outside of Washington State for us, why would we care?

State name? I’m sure there are bigger fish to fry.

Dumb state flag? Why do we need one? If we need one, who cares what it looks like? It makes sense that we’ve internalized not wanting anything nice of our own.

A Flag for the Future

So, the strongest argument for keeping the current flag is that it exists (we don’t need to expend any effort), that it’s old (seemingly historic), and that it accurately features the person our state is named after (Get it, Washington?). But even our state’s name was not our own choice. The flag serves as a reminder of that, but it doesn’t tell us anything about who we are today.

HB 1938 is not just a rejection of our current flag; it is an opportunity.

It gives us the chance to engage the public in a meaningful way and to choose a symbol that truly represents Washingtonians. Our state deserves a flag that is not just something we inherited, but something we can be inspired by.

Let’s seize this moment to create a flag that reflects the beauty, diversity, and spirit of Washington. After all, symbols matter, and so do we.

Directory of the KKK in Seattle WA just about a hundred years ago

The Pacific Northwest’s particular racist past exists

February 10, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 2 Comments

This week, there was a discussion about a couple of bills (HB 1710 and HB 1750) that would put more teeth into laws around voting and elections in how they address structural inequities against non-white voters. I’m not going to get into the details of the bills, but there was a phrase that kept on popping up throughout the discussion on the bill that I take great exception to.

“Our region does not struggle with a racist past, not the same way the deep South does.”

I take great great exception to this phrase and too many people who should obviously know better are repeating it.

What follows is a brief survey of our history around race in the Pacific Northwest. This is not an inclusive essay by any means. For example, I’ve skipped over any history regarding tribes, which should be anyone’s first stop on our troubling tour of racism in the Pacific Northwest. I also skipped over the 1920s anti-immigration laws that originated in the Pacific Northwest and our own experience with the Klan.

But, what I have tried to do here is show how we don’t need to be a slave state for the politics and the economy of the 1850s deep South to pervade our region.

Our region has a troubling history of systemic racism rooted in the idea that the region’s economy should primarily serve white people. This foundational belief, born during the run-up to the Civil War, has shaped the Pacific Northwest’s development and continues to influence its social and economic structures. From early exclusion laws to modern-day housing policies, the region’s history reveals a persistent effort to maintain a largely white society, even as it claims to move “beyond race.”

This blog post explores the direct through-line of our historical and contemporary manifestations of racism, focusing on how economic exclusion has been central to the region’s identity.

The Founding of a White Utopia: Exclusion Laws and Economic Competition

The Pacific Northwest’s racial history begins with its founding during the mid-19th century, a time when the nation was deeply divided over slavery. While Oregon and Washington were never slave states, they were far from being bastions of racial equality.

Early settlers, many of whom were white Appalachians fleeing the economic dominance of the slave-holding South, brought with them a vision of a free labor white utopia. This vision was codified in Oregon’s Black exclusion laws, which prohibited African Americans from living in the territory. As historian Alan Johnson notes in “Founding the Far West,” these laws were not motivated by a belief in racial equality but by a desire to protect white laborers from economic competition.

A territorial judge in Oregon encapsulated this sentiment in a ruling on a fugitive slave case, stating that slavery was incompatible with the “nature of the Oregon community.” He argued that allowing slavery would deter the influx of “free white labor,” which he described as a “fertilizing flood” essential to the region’s prosperity. In other words, the exclusion of Black people was not about moral opposition to slavery but about preserving economic opportunities for white settlers.

This early framing of the Pacific Northwest as a region for white economic advancement set the stage for a pattern of racial exclusion that would persist for generations. The region’s founding principle, that its economy should serve white people, became a cornerstone of its identity.

The Chinese Exclusion Era: Labor, Unions, Racial Scapegoating and Progressive Politics

The economic underpinnings of racism in the Pacific Northwest became even more apparent with the arrival of Chinese immigrants in the mid-19th century. Chinese laborers played a crucial role in building the region’s infrastructure, including railroads and mines, but they were met with intense hostility from white workers who viewed them as economic threats. As early as during the Civil War in 1864, the Washington Territorial Legislature enacted a discriminatory “Chinese Police Tax,” explicitly designed to discourage Chinese immigration and protect white laborers.

The anti-Chinese sentiment reached its peak in the 1880s, culminating in violent expulsions of Chinese communities from cities like Tacoma and Seattle. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first federal law to bar an ethnic group from immigration, further institutionalized this discrimination. White labor unions, including the Knights of Labor, played a significant role in these exclusionary efforts, framing Chinese workers as a threat to white economic stability.

This era highlights a recurring theme in the Pacific Northwest’s history: the use of racial exclusion to protect white economic interests. Even as progressive labor movements emerged, they often coexisted with deep-seated racial prejudices, creating a paradoxical legacy of economic justice for some and systemic discrimination for others.

The infection spread into the 1890s when the country was shaken by an economic depression and Progressive politicians took control in the region. Sylvester Pennoyer, governor of Oregon from 1887 to 1895, built his political career on anti-Chinese sentiment, positioning himself as a leader of exclusionary policies in the Pacific Northwest. He campaigned on the claim that Chinese immigrants undercut white laborers, a common grievance among white workers at the time, and openly supported the Chinese Exclusion Act. His rhetoric and policies reflected a broader trend in the region, where progressive labor movements advocating for economic justice often coexisted with deep-seated racial prejudices, particularly against Chinese communities. This paradox, championing workers’ rights while simultaneously restricting them along racial lines, was a defining contradiction of Pacific Northwest progressivism.

John R. Rogers, Washington’s governor from 1897 to 1901, similarly embodied this contradiction. Though best known for his contributions to public education through the “Barefoot Schoolboy” law, Rogers also espoused anti-Semitic views, blaming economic instability on Jewish financiers in his 1892 book The Irrepressible Conflict or the American System of Money. Like Pennoyer, Rogers demonstrates how many early progressives in the region fused economic reform with exclusionary and discriminatory beliefs. Their legacies reflect both the advances and the moral failings of a movement that sought justice for some while denying it to others.

Segregation and Housing: From Restrictive Covenants to Down-zoning

The legacy of racial exclusion extended into the 20th century through housing policies designed to maintain segregated communities. Racial restrictive covenants, which prohibited property sales to non-white buyers, were widely used in cities like Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane. These covenants, reinforced by federal redlining policies, ensured that Black, Asian, and Indigenous residents were confined to marginalized neighborhoods.

In 1964, a proposed open housing law in Seattle failed after significant resistance from local real estate interests and white homeowners. The law aimed to prevent discrimination in housing, particularly against Black residents. However, opposition was intense, with many fearing a loss of property values and an increase in racial integration. Despite strong advocacy from civil rights groups, the law was defeated in a referendum.

By 1968, a shift occurred in the political and social landscape, driven by heightened awareness of racial inequality and the Civil Rights Movement. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. earlier that year amplified the urgency for reforms. This led to the successful passage of a stronger open housing ordinance in Seattle. The new law prohibited housing discrimination based on race, religion, color, or national origin, marking a significant victory for civil rights activists. The 1968 law was part of a broader national movement toward racial justice, culminating in the federal Fair Housing Act later that year. The flip in Seattle’s stance between 1964 and 1968 reflected broader societal changes and the increased pressure for civil rights legislation.

Even after the Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed housing discrimination, Pacific Northwest cities found new ways to enforce racial exclusion. Down-zoning, reducing the density of housing in certain neighborhoods, became a tool for maintaining racial homogeneity. In Seattle, for example, neighborhoods like Queen Anne Hill were down-zoned in the 1970s, effectively limiting the construction of affordable housing and preserving the area’s white majority. Similar patterns emerged in Olympia and other cities, where down-zoning was used to prevent racial integration.

The impact of these policies is still felt today. Seattle’s historically Black Central District, once home to over 90% of the city’s Black population, has seen its Black residents displaced by rising housing costs and gentrification. The region’s history of housing discrimination underscores how economic exclusion has been central to maintaining a largely white society.

The Myth of Moving “Beyond Race”: Initiative 200 and Colorblindness, Bussing and the White Utopia Redux

In the late 20th century, the Pacific Northwest’s racial dynamics took on a new form with the rise of colorblind rhetoric. Initiative 200 (I-200), passed in Washington State in 1998, banned affirmative action in state employment, contracting, and higher education. Supporters of I-200 argued that the region should move “beyond race,” claiming that race-conscious policies were divisive and unnecessary in a supposedly post-racial society.

This rhetoric ignored the ongoing structural inequalities faced by people of color, framing racial disparities as a thing of the past. By eliminating affirmative action, I-200 effectively erased efforts to address systemic racism, reinforcing the region’s historical commitment to serving white economic interests.

The desire to move “beyond race” reflects a broader trend in the Pacific Northwest: the belief that the region’s racial problems have been solved. Yet, as the history of housing discrimination, labor exclusion, and educational inequality demonstrates, the region’s racial dynamics are far from resolved.

The issue of racial segregation in the Pacific Northwest extends beyond housing and into the realm of education. The 2007 Supreme Court case Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 highlighted the ongoing struggle for racial integration in schools. The case challenged Seattle’s use of race-based tiebreakers in student assignments, which aimed to maintain diversity and avoid racial isolation. The Court ruled that such practices were unconstitutional unless they were narrowly tailored to address a history of de jure segregation.

This decision reflected a broader national trend of retreating from race-conscious policies in education, even as racial disparities in schools persisted. In Seattle, the ruling effectively ended efforts to use race as a factor in school assignments, further entrenching patterns of segregation. The case underscores the tension between the region’s progressive ideals and its resistance to policies that address racial inequality.

Selling Seattle by James Lyons explores the nature of racism and white identity in the Pacific Northwest, set against the backdrop of Seattle’s cultural and historical development.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Seattle was often marketed as an urban area that “worked,” a city that avoided the strife and dysfunction seen in East Coast or California cities.

The book examines how Seattle, and the broader Pacific Northwest, has been shaped (despite marketing efforts to the contrary) by racial and ethnic tensions.

In terms of white identity, the book delves into how the Pacific Northwest has often been seen as a progressive region, but one where whiteness and white privilege have been maintained and even normalized in certain ways. It challenges the notion that the Pacific Northwest is a “colorblind” or racially neutral space, highlighting how the dominance of white identity has persisted in both subtle and overt forms throughout the region’s development.

Lyons acknowledges that, despite the region’s progressive image, the Pacific Northwest has a complex history of exclusion, segregation, and inequality, particularly toward Indigenous peoples and communities of color. He emphasizes that while Seattle may appear multicultural, the region’s structural and social systems often favor white residents, perpetuating the legacy of racism.

The book also highlights that the struggle for racial justice in Seattle and the broader Pacific Northwest involves both historical and contemporary issues, including ongoing battles around gentrification, immigration, and representation in local media and politics. Lyons argues that the region’s cultural identity—often associated with “liberal” values—can sometimes obscure these deeper racial challenges.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Pacific Northwest became a destination for white Californians seeking a “functional urban environment.” This influx of white residents further reinforced the region’s racial homogeneity, as many of these newcomers were drawn to the area’s reputation as a progressive, largely white society. The promise of the original settlers—that the region would be a haven for white economic advancement, was largely fulfilled, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of racial exclusion.

This era also saw the rise of the “post-racial” narrative, which framed the Pacific Northwest as a region that had moved beyond race. This narrative ignored the ongoing structural inequalities faced by communities of color, reinforcing the idea that the region’s racial problems had been solved. The reality, however, was far more complex, as the region continued to grapple with issues of housing discrimination, educational inequality, and economic exclusion.

The Pacific Northwest’s history of racism is rooted in the idea that its economy should primarily serve white people. There is a straight line black exclusion laws and Chinese expulsion of the 19th century to the down-zoning policies of the 20th century, the region has consistently prioritized white economic interests at the expense of communities of color. This legacy continues to shape the region’s social and economic landscape, even as it claims to move “beyond race.”

We’ve already seen how this idea of “moving beyond race” was central to the debate around Initiative 200 in 1998 and into the decision to challenge school desegregation system.

The Pacific Northwest’s promise of a “white utopia” has come at a steep cost. It’s time to reckon with that cost and build a region that lives up to its progressive ideals. This requires not only recognizing the past but also taking concrete steps to address the structural inequalities that continue to shape the lives of people of color in the region. By doing so, we can begin to create a Pacific Northwest that truly serves everyone, regardless of race.

The Pacific Northwest’s history of racism is deeply intertwined with its economic priorities, from the exclusion laws of the 19th century to the down-zoning policies of the 20th century. This legacy continues to shape the region’s social and economic landscape, even as it claims to move “beyond race.”

This history continues to shape our communities today, and a deeper understanding of our past equips us to better address the challenges we face now. While the Pacific Northwest is not the post-slavery South, it has its own legacy of racism, one that is as significant and damaging as Jim Crow, yet distinct in its origins and manifestations.

Comparing chattel slavery to exclusionary practices is not the right starting point. Instead, we must confront our own history directly, on its own terms, and grapple with the unique ways racism has been woven into the fabric of our region. Only by doing so can we begin to dismantle its enduring effects and move toward a more just and equitable future.

SB 5400 and the future of publicly funded local journalism

February 3, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

This week, I testified on SB 5400, a bill that would create a new way to fund local journalism in Washington State.

I emphasized the critical role of local journalism in combating election-related misinformation and ensuring the safety of election workers.

I also suggested a few ways the bill could be improved:

I highlighted the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium as a model for ensuring independence and expertise in funding decisions, and stressed the importance of adhering to the Institute for Non-Profit News standards, which require journalists to be based in the communities they cover. Lastly, I advocated for long-term funding solutions, such as taxing digital advertising, to address the revenue crisis caused by platforms like Meta and Alphabet.

SB 5400 proposes expanding a surcharge on large tech firms to fund an account managed by the state Department of Commerce. While the criteria for distributing funds are broad, the requirement that organizations have at least three full-time staffers could exclude smaller, newer local news organizations that rely on freelancers. In today’s media landscape, three full-time reporters is a significant number, and this requirement risks leaving behind the very communities most in need of local journalism.

It’s long past time to question whether we should publicly fund journalism in Washington State. The state already supports two examples of publicly funded journalism: TVW and the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication’s fellowship program. TVW, a nonprofit organization, receives over 80% of its funding from the state and provides in-depth coverage of state government. This model demonstrates how public funding can support independent, high-quality journalism. The Murrow College fellowship program, launched in 2023, places early-career journalists in under-served communities across Washington to report on civic affairs for two years. It currently supports 16 fellows who report on issues such as government accountability, rural economics, and environmental policy. Fellows receive ongoing training, mentorship, and a strong cohort experience, with their work available via Creative Commons. Future fellow placements depend on continued legislative funding.

SB 5400 follows on the heels of efforts in other states to tackle the local journalism problem. California reached a deal with Google to support local journalism, but it has been criticized for lacking meaningful, long-term solutions. The agreement allocates $55 million from Google and $70 million from the state over five years, but the legislative proposals surrounding it fall short. One stronger proposal called for a tax on digital advertising, while the other suggested a recycled idea for a link tax, which I will discuss below. The negotiated deal is a mess. It prioritized large corporate publishers over smaller, community-based media outlets and includes an AI accelerator program that journalists did not request. Big Tech’s influence in shaping the deal highlights the need for stronger, community-driven coalitions to counter corporate interests in future local-news policy efforts.

The New Jersey Civic Information Consortium (NJCI) is a nonprofit that receives state funding and distributes grants to local news organizations. Governed by a board with representatives from state universities, legislative caucuses, and the public, the NJCI ensures a fair and equitable distribution of funds. This model could serve as a blueprint for Washington, though adjustments would be needed to account for the state’s larger size and more rural communities.

Another proposal in Oregon under consideration this year (SB 686) is an example of the worst of all approaches. Similar to California’s original link tax proposal, it also attempts to prevent platforms from penalizing journalism organizations by outlawing algorithmic de-prioritization of news content. However, it fails to address First Amendment implications of this ban or provide a clear enforcement mechanism. This approach misunderstands the root problem: the decline of journalism is caused by the loss of advertising revenue to digital platforms, not the linking behavior of users.

How we should approach state-level journalism funding

For systems of state-level funding, I look for two key components:

A fair, equitable decision-making process grounded in local needs, exemplified by the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium’s statewide distribution of funding and emphasis on community-driven projects.
Funding derived from digital advertising taxes, not link taxes. Taxing digital advertising directly addresses the root cause of journalism’s revenue crisis, while link taxes harm the open web and fail to provide sustainable solutions.

We often forget how revolutionary hyperlinks were when they first appeared on the web. The Cluetrain Manifesto reminds us that hyperlinks are messy, decentralized, and inherently democratic. Taxing them undermines the open web and further entrenches the dominance of closed-garden social media platforms.

The real threat to journalism over the past twenty-five years has been the decline in advertising revenue, driven by the ad tech capture of Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and Alphabet (Google).

Taxing digital advertising directly addresses this issue, using the profits of these platforms to fund the journalism they have undermined. This is akin to taxing cigarettes or sugary drinks to fund universal healthcare, it targets the source of the problem to create a better future.

We should work to break apart the ad tech monopoly (United States v. Google LLC 2023), but lawsuits take time.

In the meantime, taxing digital advertising provides a sustainable, immediate solution to fund local journalism and ensure a well-informed citizenry.

We should be able to dispose of any statue we want. We missed on Rogers so far, let’s not miss on Whitman

December 28, 2024 / Emmett O'Connell / 3 Comments

When the legislature decided to swap out the statues of Marcus Whitman for Billy Frank Jr. in Washington D.C. and Olympia almost four years ago, they were pretty clear about what they wanted done with the D.C. statue: ask the Whitman County commissioners what they wanted done with it.

But the legislature was silent about the massive stone and bronze piece in the north entrance of the state capitol. So now, the various committees that manage the state capitol campus are months into figuring out not only how exactly to remove the statue but also where to put it.

First, spoiler alert: they shouldn’t be worried about saving it or moving it somewhere else on the campus. They should just get rid of it.

But first, we need to rewind a bit. This isn’t the first statue that should be removed from the capitol campus.

Not Our First Statue

Consider the case of the John Rogers statue in Sylvester Park. Governor Rogers is best known for his support of the “Barefoot Schoolboy” bill, which expanded education in Washington. However, his legacy is tainted by his explicit anti-Semitic writings, in which he blamed “Jewish Money Lords” for economic woes in the U.S. His statue was erected shortly after his death, during a period of heightened emotion, without the critical distance necessary to evaluate his full legacy.

The Rogers statue remains a reminder of a troubling era in Washington’s history. Rogers’ broader political philosophy was tied to the populist movement of the late 19th century, which included efforts to remove Chinese residents and contained threads of racial and economic animus. This context forces us to confront the problematic aspects of his legacy and question whether honoring him with a statue is appropriate.

The lesson here is clear: statues are not just about honoring achievements—they also preserve the broader, often darker legacies of the people they depict.

Statue Process

When I first wrote about the Rogers statue in 2021, the response I received was that the Department of Enterprise Services did not have a formal process to remove statues. And that seems to be the procedural problem they’re forced to grapple with now regarding the Whitman statue.

In 2022, Senator Sam Hunt sponsored SB 5570, which would have established a process for the removal or relocation statues on capitol campus. The bill would have authorized the Department of Enterprise Services (DES) to remove or relocate statues, monuments, and other significant works under specific conditions, such as legislative approval, construction needs, or a determination that the work was offensive or outdated.

It also outlined procedures for periodic reviews of major works and for convening a work group to evaluate removal proposals. The work group, composed of state officials and representatives from cultural commissions, would provide detailed recommendations to the State Capitol Committee, including costs and funding sources for removal or relocation. Despite its comprehensive framework, the bill did not pass, leaving the state without a codified process for addressing controversial or outdated monuments.

But DES and the state campus committees seem to be working on a similar process now. Boiling it down, once the legislature tells them to remove a statue, they’ll work with a broad set of historic and public art stakeholders, mix in some public comment, and make a decision.

Has the last four years been the Seattle Process for statues? With all the love in my heart for my other government-employed neighbors, yes, it is.

Marcus Whitman Should Not Be Saved

Bottom line: the last thing we should do is leave the Marcus Whitman statue right where it is. The current proposal seems to be to either leave it where it is or put it under the southern covered entrance.

But the Marcus Whitman statue should be removed from the campus entirely. We know what symbols mean, and we know that preserving the statue on the campus as it is preserves its original legacy as a historic lie meant to cement white supremacy in our state.

We knew what we were doing. The official program for the installation of the Whitman statue in Olympia casts our history in such starkly racist terms, we should be running away fast:

What the Whitman statue symbolizes now isn’t the false myth of Whitman. That is already in our historic dustbin. It doesn’t even represent some sort of minor figure deserving of honor. There are dozens of historical actors remembered without needing larger-than-life bronze representations.

What the statue symbolizes and celebrates now is the decades-long propaganda campaign that framed American Pacific Northwest history and society in a factually wrong, racist, and religiously sectarian context. We know the people behind the Whitman myth lied. We know why they lied. The physical representation of their lies should not stand.

It is absolutely okay for us to not only move the statue somewhere else but to dispose of it entirely.

We should bury it, give it away to an artist to adapt to a modern frame, or hand out metal files or hacksaws to people who donate $5 for a crack at it. Anything other than being a fully formed Marcus Whitman statue on the state campus.

Why does Jim Walsh need to remind everyone Eric Crowl was elected?

December 2, 2024 / Emmett O'Connell / 1 Comment

Why Does Jim Walsh Need to Remind Everyone That Election Results Matter?
Specifically, when it comes to Precinct Committee Officer (PCO) elections and county political party reorganization meetings?

It probably has something to do with a county judge invalidating election results last summer in a small, rural county in Eastern Washington.

First, What Are PCOs?

I’ve always been fascinated by the role of Precinct Committee Officers in Washington State. I’ve run for PCO myself a couple of times, once as part of a contested slate to maintain control of the county party. I also took part an effort nearly 20 years ago to allow non-PCOs to hold membership in my local party. That effort slightly eroded the power of PCOs and I’m still very proud of that.

Controlling the county party apparatus still matters, although perhaps less than it once did. Today, candidates and campaign committees often handle their own fundraising. However, county parties still control critical campaign services, such as access to walking lists, which would otherwise be expensive for candidates to obtain.

State law emphasizes the importance of local political parties being accountable to voters. PCOs are elected rather than appointed to ensure democratic legitimacy, transparency, and grassroots accountability within political parties. This gives PCOs a stronger mandate and ensures they answer to their neighbors, not just party leadership. If PCOs were appointed instead, it could lead to favoritism or undue influence by party leaders. Elections keep party organizations tied to the grassroots, rather than concentrated in the hands of a few insiders.

PCO elections can have lasting political impacts. Two years ago, after a particularly rough election cycle for Republicans in Washington State (despite it being the midterm of a Democratic presidency) there was an under-the-radar “Red Wave” in PCO elections. This shift led to more MAGA-aligned county organizations and ultimately contributed to the election of the above-mentioned Jim Walsh as state Republican chair the following summer. That, in turn, led to the Washington State GOP’s unusual endorsement-heavy convention earlier this year when they passed over the odds on favorite Republican standard bearer for a more conservative option.

What’s Happening in Pierce County?

So, why does the chair of the Washington State Republicans have to point out that elected PCOs should be able to attend reorganization meetings? Let’s dive into what’s happening in Pierce County.

Eric Crowl (OutragePNW on X), the elected PCO for Precinct 28-556 in Pierce County, says he’s struggling to get a legitimate invitation to the Pierce County GOP’s reorganization meeting. This appears to stem from personal conflicts between Crowl and local party leadership. Crowl, however, believes he is being excluded illegally.

The “reorg” cycle, which happens every two years, is when newly elected PCOs essentially refound their local party. They elect new officers and set a fresh course for local politics. For PCOs like Crowl, participation in this process is fundamental to the role they were elected to perform.

That said, Walsh’s statement that “A County Party can’t unelect an elected PCO” is false because of what happened a few months ago in Pend Oreille County when in fact that did happen.

What Happened in Pend Oreille County?

To understand the context, let’s look back at a shocking event in Pend Oreille County last year, where a judge overturned the results of a PCO election.

After the August primary, Pend Oreille County Superior Court Judge Jessica Reeves disqualified Joe Seaney from serving as a Republican PCO, despite his decisive 63-14 victory in the primary. The court ruled that Seaney was ineligible under the Pend Oreille County Republican Party’s bylaws, which require formal membership, including paying dues. Seaney argued that his long history of voting Republican and identifying with the party should suffice. The judge disagreed, finding that he had failed to meet the party’s criteria.

This challenge was spearheaded by Bill Deilke, chair of the Pend Oreille County Republican Party, who also sought to disqualify another candidate, Brian Smiley. Deilke claimed neither Seaney nor Smiley fulfilled the party’s membership requirements. However, Judge Reeves upheld Smiley’s candidacy, determining that his role as an elected Republican county commissioner granted him ex-officio party membership.

This case stirred broader debates about voter rights, party autonomy, and internal fairness. Critics, like The Newport Miner, argued that voters (not party leaders) should decide who represents them. The editorial board pointed to Seaney’s overwhelming win as proof of public preference and criticized the party for procedural roadblocks.

Deilke defended the party’s actions, asserting that membership rules ensure party integrity and citing state laws that allow parties to define their membership criteria.

Why It Matters

First, I disagree with how Pend Oreille worked out. I have a very specific argument to the judge that cuts through her decision. PCOs elected in August technically don’t take office until after the general election and reorganization meetings. Current PCOs serve through the reorg process, during which new bylaws may be adopted that decide who going forward qualifies as a party member. This creates a convoluted timeline where parties can influence the legitimacy of elected officials before new rules are even in place.

More broadly, the ability of party leaders to cut out elected PCOs raises questions about how political parties should operate. Elections should matter, and it’s baffling to use public resources for electing PCOs if parties are just going to game the system anyway.

Political parties should play a critical role in connecting communities to politics, but they risk becoming even more irrelevant when they narrow participation. I say “should” and “even more” because the role of local party organizations has declined in my lifetime to a staggering extent. Years ago, local newspapers regularly covered party meetings and reorganization cycles because they were integral to public life. Now, parties seem more insular. During my time in local politics, I was asked not to live-tweet county party meetings. I declined the request but it was a telling message that we were not doing public business.

Ultimately, parties should be open, public, and relevant to the communities they aim to represent. It is not lost on me that the party at the center of this debate currently is not the party I’m associated with. That doesn’t matter at all. Parties should matter because they bring people into civic life from all directions.

The Pend Oreille case demonstrates how party leadership’s insularity can override the clear will of voters, while the Pierce County situation shows how internal grievances can block elected PCOs from participating in crucial reorganization meetings. These examples highlight a troubling pattern of prioritizing party insiders over democratic accountability. If parties continue to narrow participation and sideline elected representatives, they risk becoming even less relevant to the broader public. To regain trust and fulfill their role, political parties must ensure their processes are transparent, accessible, and rooted in the grassroots. Anything less undermines their purpose and weakens the connection between politics and the communities they serve.

We all know the Washington State flag is pretty bad. Here’s how we change it

September 7, 2024 / Emmett O'Connell / 18 Comments

Designing a new state flag before we know how to replace the state flag is putting the cart before the horse

This is my serious proposal for a new Washington State flag. No, not really. This is my proposal for the flag of movement to replace our universally admitted to be bad state flag.

Get it? We’re putting the cart before the horse. I am hilarious.

Anyway.

New Washington State Flags and Why

So far, we Washington State flag dislikers are too interested in getting to the point of replacing the state flag with something cooler (cool, cool, coooool, they’re all so cool) than realizing that replacing the state flag will take some work.

The state flag is an official state symbol determined by and managed by the state, specifically the Office of the Secretary of State.

Why is the Washington State flag terrible? This video does the best job explaining the concepts of flag design and why ours is just bad (a flag is not money). Watch the entire thing, it is pretty entertaining, but I linked to just the Washington State portion.

Process over Proposals

So, here is my serious proposal for a Washington State Flag Commission. Like many good things, I stole it. This proposal is based on a process recently undertaken in Minnesota to replace their reprehensible flag with something not only cooler, but something that falls into line with the rules of flag design (vexillology).

The Washington State Flag Redesign Commission would created by the state legislator, led by the Secretary of State (who overseas state symbols), and include a diverse group of members to ensure broad representation.

The Commission would set goals and create a design brief that outlining the vision and values for the new flag. Public engagement will be a priority, with a statewide design contest, outreach to schools and communities, and opportunities for public input.

After reviewing submissions, the Commission will select finalists and gather additional feedback. The final design will be put to a public vote during a general election, allowing Washingtonians to choose between the new flag and the current one.

Utah had a similar process recently, which culminated in a vote by the legislature. It is worth pointing out here, but a statewide vote seems more in line with how we work in Washington State.

Exile Ourselves

September 3, 2024 / Emmett O'Connell / 1 Comment

Earlier this year, a county commissioner in Mason County suggested a plan to banish certain residents from the county. Under the proposal, individuals convicted of specific misdemeanor offenses would be required to leave the county for up to a year if they failed to pay fines, complete community service, or seek treatment at their own expense.

In Seattle, a much more serious proposal would restrict people from entering a stretch of a busy road through the northern end of the city. While scaled down in recent proposals, the system would ban people who are part of the sex trade from entering the area.

The idea that we can just send the homeless “somewhere” is something you’ve heard before if you live around here. Pick your favorite not liked place or institution, and someone has argued that we should send the homeless there. Hippy college in that hippy government town? Send the homeless to Evergreen State College. Old island prison that the state closed down because old island prisons are expensive to run? Send those homeless to McNeil Island.

This idea of homeless exile ignores that the homeless came from somewhere already. And, knowing what we know about how homelessness has become endemic in our region, the somewhere is right here. We know homelessness is a housing issue. We made housing in short supply, and since there aren’t enough housing or even shelter beds for everyone, someone in our community is literally left on the street.

And more broadly, we’ve been dealing with this idea for as long as we’ve founded our first colonies on the doorsteps of the indigenous people. The idea that we can keep people from coming to a place, that the place will be better if we just keep some people out, is something that pervades American history in the Pacific Northwest.

Exile is different from prison because in the examples of exile I pointed to above, those exiled are still otherwise citizens or residents. We haven’t taken away their civil rights, taken away their right to vote while in prison. They aren’t wards of the state in the way that would mean where they sleep, when they eat or what they wear is controlled by the Department of Corrections. We expect them to maintain their own home, food supply and clothing. But also, there are places they cannot go that otherwise, but the rest of us can.

Washington State is like a lot of places in that we’ve used laws to exclude people of certain races. For example, we didn’t invent racially restrictive covenants in Washington State, but we seem to be stuck in a constant cycle of surprise and denial that they ever existed or that they still have an impact. We have to keep front and center that the era in which they were enforced, either legally or tacitly, was also the era when your ability to own a home became equal to your ability to maintain wealth and transfer it to your children.

Washington State also didn’t invent using single family zoning after racial housing discrimination became illegal in the 1960s to prevent neighborhoods from integrating. But many cities in Washington State downzoned in order to preserve “neighborhood character” and ensure the wrong kind of people, people that could only afford to live in houses smaller than detached, single family homes, would ever move in.

Where our exile comes from

The American colonialists’ first taste of exclusion in the Pacific Northwest came in the 1840s, as soon as the first permanent white, American settlement touched down west of the Cascades.

Unsurprisingly, early settlers to the Oregon Territory (then included what is now Washington State) brought with them the politics of slavery.

Overland settlers to Oregon were most likely to be non-slave holding farmers from Appalachian border areas around Kentucky, Ohio and Missouri. These settlers were not pro-slavery. They were also not New England human rights activists or abolitionists. They didn’t like slavery because they saw it as unfair competition in the form of cheap labor.

Appalachians came to the Willamette Valley to establish a territory of “free soil, free labor,” where smaller farmers would pay for their labor. The black exclusion laws passed in the Oregon Territory before the Civil War were technically also “anti-slavery” laws, as the Free Soil activists that settled the region would have seen them.

They were fine with slavery existing somewhere, just as we’re totally okay with criminals, poor people, people of color and homelessness existing. They didn’t want to solve slavery, just in the same way we’re agnostic to homelessness and crime. As long as it exists outside my own neighborhood, on the Evergreen State College campus, not in Mason County or not along one particular street in Seattle, we’re not concerned.

An Oregon territorial judge, in a case regarding a fugitive slave, put to words what would seem to become the regional perception of slavery. It was incompatible with what he described as the nature of the Oregon community. “Establish slavery here, and (y)ou will turn aside that tide of free white labor which has poured itself like a fertilizing flood across the great States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.”

When Oregon was putting together its constitution, one of the points that all could agree were “…in absolute agreement about (was) the need to preserve homogeneous populations, and that was race.”

So, when Black people (or at least, non-white people) came across the mountains, they were not welcome in Oregon and told to leave. George Washington Bush was raised a Quaker in Pennsylvania, the son of an African from Indian and an Irish-American. He had already reached the Pacific Coast once in his young adulthood as a fur trapper. He set out again in his 40s from Missouri, putting a successful life as a cattle rancher behind him. George Washington Bush, as far as we know, never lived in the antebellum South. He was never subject to chattel slavery. He lived in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Illinois and traveled the Rocky Mountain West more than once. But when he showed up in the Willamette Valley, surrounded by four other white Appalachian families, he was asked to leave for fear he would bring slavery and threaten the economic order of the community.

So, while north of the Columbia was still technically part of the Oregon Territory, Bush took his party to the Puget Sound, exiling himself to a place where the racial exclusion laws could not touch.

The racial exclusion laws did not address the issues, economic or otherwise, around slavery. They did just enough to create the illusion of safety, but probably did more harm than good for a growing colonial community on the edge of the continent. There aren’t many ways to see exiling a rich rancher from the Willamette was economically beneficial.

But we see the Pacific Northwest repeat the mistake of the Oregon black codes throughout our history.

Right after the Civil War, we taxed Asian migrant workers a “police tax” to allow them to work.

We used mob violence to drive Asian families out. On November 3, 1885, a mob of white residents forcibly expelled the Chinese population from Tacoma. This event is often referred to as the “Tacoma Method” because it was seen as a methodical and organized expulsion.

The anti-Chinese riots in Puget Sound during the 1880s were part of a broader wave of anti-Chinese sentiment and violence across the United States, particularly in the Western states. These events were driven by economic competition, racism, and xenophobia, as Chinese immigrants were often blamed for taking jobs and driving down wages.

This violence was tied directly to labor organizations such as the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which were influential in the Progressive movement, often excluded Asian and Black workers. In the Pacific Northwest, labor leaders blamed immigrants for driving down wages and advocated for restrictions on Asian immigration. The Asiatic Exclusion League, founded in 1905, was a powerful force in Washington and Oregon, campaigning for further immigration restrictions.

The keystone to the wave of anti-immigrant exclusion actions in the Pacific Northwest was the Johnson-Reed Act, which banned immigration from Asia into the United States in 1924. The “Johnson” in Johnson-Reed was Albert Johnson, an Aberdeen Congressman and a prominent nativist and eugenicist. His work in Congress reflected the racial and anti-immigrant sentiments prevalent in the Pacific Northwest.

This wasn’t a sideshow in our region’s politics, this was the show.

Excluding people economically, geographically and socially within a place has hurts everyone. It keeps us from solving the problem, from addressing what is really going on. For farmers in the Willamette Valley or labor unionists in Tacoma, the issue wasn’t members of a certain race working, it was a broader system that allowed anyone at all to be exploited.

If slavery exists, we all suffer. If we exclude anyone, we all suffer.

If someone is spending the money to bring over Chinese citizens to work, it is the system that allows Chinese citizens to be underpaid is the problem.

If you hear a policy that seeks to address a social ill by keeping someone out of a particular part of town, be sure that the issue really at stake isn’t being addressed.

How we all suffer exile

Lisa Daugaard is a criminal justice reformer and co-created the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, which diverts low-level offenders into community services instead of jail.

Daugaard argues that reintroducing banishment measures in Seattle is ineffective and counterproductive. Drawing on research, she explains that exclusion fails because people return to the areas due to personal ties or access to services, leading to repeated jail stays and further destabilization. Instead of addressing underlying issues like homelessness and addiction, banishment shifts the problem to other neighborhoods without offering real solutions.

LEAD addresses the root causes by diverting individuals from the criminal justice system and connecting them to essential support services. Rather than arresting people for minor offenses, LEAD provides access to substance abuse treatment, mental health care, housing, and job training. This approach targets underlying problems and aims to reduce recidivism by offering holistic, coordinated support, ultimately helping individuals stabilize their lives and reintegrate into society more effectively.

Joshua Leavitt argued 20 years before the Civil War that slavery was an economic drain on the entire country. It may have been good for southern landowners, but for banks and northern workers and anyone else, it was a major economic drain. Today, new research Richard Hornbeck and Trevon D. Logan point out the inefficiencies of slavery were far greater than previously understood. While abolitionists made economic arguments, their research shows how emancipation generated economic gains worth between 4 and 35 percent of the American economy. This growth was at least as important as railroads.

Slavery cost the economy, cost us all. Slavery took $40 out of the economy for each slave, about four percent of the gross national product in 1860.

When some of are excluded (from a place, from the economy) it costs everyone.

The most effective way to exclude people is through zoning. One of the best examples of how we’ve exiled people in our communities has been the expansion of single family zoning since the Fair Housing Act was passed in the 1960s. Prior to the late 1970s, Olympia had a balanced approach to housing, with a significant portion of new developments consisting of multi-family units such as duplexes and quadplexes.

Driven by about barely coded concerns about “ghettos” and racial segregation, the Olympia City Council downzoned neighborhoods, drastically reducing the construction of multi-family housing. This shift led to a preference for single-family homes, resulting in car-dependent, less walkable neighborhoods. The transition to single-family zoning has contributed to increased urban sprawl, diminished walkability, and greater economic and racial segregation. The areas with more single-family homes tend to be whiter and more affluent.

While the downzones may not have been intentionally racist, they are classically institutional racism in that they have perpetuated segregation and inequity in housing. The exclusionary nature of single-family zoning has had long-lasting negative effects on community diversity and equity.

What we also know is that keeping Olympia economically (and racially) segregated ended up punishing kids at the bottom end of our community. Research by economists Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, and Lawrence Katz shows children from low-income families who move to better neighborhoods show significant improvements in long-term outcomes. These include lower teenage birth rates, higher college attendance, and increased earnings as adults. Their study showed that children who moved to lower-poverty neighborhoods earned 31% more and had better life outcomes compared to those who stayed in higher-poverty areas.

A broader study of 5 million families also confirmed these findings, showing that children in better neighborhoods had higher college attendance rates, lower teenage pregnancy rates, and greater incomes. The benefits increased with longer residence in improved areas. Zoning to allow a broader use across the city will lead to less expensive housing among more expensive housing, meaning better outcomes for kids from less wealthy families. All the while, kids from wealthy families are not harmed.

Where we go after exile

I think it is important that I made this entire argument without citing the exclusion built into our colonial Pacific Northwest DNA. The treatment of treaty tribes in Western Washington (that I am most familiar with) and the Pacific Northwest broadly, is the first and largest “you don’t belong here” we ever committed. Now it is baked into a legal treaty relationship that, while we’ve gotten better at, is something we still stumble through more than we should.

We are going to continue proposing exile as a solution. This persistent practice underscores a troubling historic trend of shifting societal issues rather than addressing our root causes.

Historical patterns of exclusion, from the racial black codes of the Oregon Territory to modern-day zoning policies, are a longstanding attempt in the Pacific Northwest to manage societal problems by isolating certain people rather than integrating and addressing their needs.

Let the decimation of the Everett Herald be when we decided to save journalism in Washington

July 20, 2024 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

The sudden news at the Everett Herald is a reminder of the ongoing decline in working journalists in Washington State. Last month, 10 out of the 18 reporters on the ground and two editors were laid off at the daily newspaper in Snohomish County.

The story is sadly typical. Old chain ownership declares bankruptcy, new owners swoop in and pick up mastheads, circulation and advertising contacts at bargain-basement prices. The sale is made more palatable by cutting non-revenue positions at the get go. While the backlash may be loud, it’ll normally fade into the darkness as subscribers drift away and the rest of us accept the new normal.

While the percentage of reporters is itself startling, I was shocked by the gross number. Ten reporters is about twice the number of reporters that cover Olympia or Thurston County (from Olympia and Thurston County) any given day.

And while such a large cut at one time in one paper is a shock to the system, reporter layoffs in the Puget Sound, or nationwide have been going on in earnest for about two decades.

The odd thing about the state of newspapers and news is that relatively speaking, Washington is doing better than most states news desert wise. Only Asotin County is officially marked as a news desert on the notorious UNC Journalism map. But even that is belied by the existence of a newspaper in Lewiston across the border in Idaho that covers Asotin County news.

But the fact that many of our newspapers have so far survived, just shows that the Herald layoff are just a reminder that there is still pretty far for us to fall. If we assume that Washington State has lost newsroom jobs at somewhere near the national rate, we are saving mastheads by losing reporters. Which means at some point, the newspapers themselves will start disappearing.

I started my career as a reporter over two decades ago in small, rural papers. While I loved the work, it didn’t take me long to move over to better paying media relations jobs. As someone who tries to earn media for a living, I can see how the decline in places to earn it has had an impact on our communities and my work.

I remember the early days of social media and the promise of telling “our own stories” without an intermediary. That certainly didn’t work out the way we thought it would. At first, we were migrating our work and content to platforms that “our audience” were using anyway. We adapted our content strategies to follow the curve preferred by platforms, then we began paying to access the audience that had opted in to seeing our content in the first place.

Now, most of our content is buried in walled gardens that are increasingly moving away from promoting content with outside links.

I’m heartened to see the Everett community fill up the Letter to the Editor inbox at the Herald with their pain. These letters are making the righteous case for local journalism. They aren’t wrong that communities are being made better when reporters are working. But to work, reporters need to get paid. And the economic argument of a post bankruptcy purchase. Even the most civically minded owners, profit, non-profit, (whatever) need money.

But I’ll be honest with you. There is no money is local journalism. There are two reasons.

Reasonable expectation that content on the internet is accessible (free). It is just how the web works. I click here, I get that. So if I have to pay for it, that’s too much friction for me to care. Especially when it is less than scintillating news about local issues. People expected they’d pay to have a newspaper delivered to their house or out of the box, but to pay for something on the internet is just too much bother.
Meta and Alphabet and programmatic advertising houses hoover up all the online ad revenue. Even if local news companies decided to open up their doors and lean totally on ad revenue, they could never keep up. These advertising behemoths operate on a different level. Their profit margins are massive because they don’t support supplying content to go alongside the ads. They just spend their time on profit producing spy tech that captures users and delivers incredibly cheap ads to eyeballs. As someone that controls an incredibly modest digital ad budget, I would be wasting money if I didn’t use these platforms. It is definitely time to break them up, but that is the job of the federal government, to be honest.

So, that’s the setup. More and more legacy media organizations will drift onto the shoals as the online media ad platforms lower the tide by sucking the ocean dry. If these legacy companies don’t just die, they’ll stay alive as raiders come by and keep them alive to pump the last bit of economic value out of them.

So, here’s what we should do

We don’t need to support the old legacy organizations. In a lot of places, we should. Despite their chain and, oftentimes, hedge fund owners, the people left working there are highly trained professional journalists, and we may consider honoring their work by helping pay for it any way we can. But they don’t have to be the only game in town.

So let me say this: if Everett comes out of this emotional moment in their community with just a smaller Everett Herald, I’ll be disappointed. Gig Harbor Now, Range (in Spokane) show how green shoots of new growth can start showing up in our communities.

If Everett is as worked up as they seem to be from the letters to the editor, the community up there should start talking about launching a new effort, raising money and generally not giving up.

Other than starting a brand-new thing from the ground up, the Everett community should also consider simply raising money to increase journalism in any form in their community. This can literally start tomorrow (hint hint)

Other examples of local private funding are the Nebraska Journalism Trust and the Central Valley Journalism Cooperative in California. I’m part of a team trying to get this going in Olympia too.

Lastly, I don’t think it is too far to explore how government can help support journalism. I spelled this out last year pretty comprehensively. Basically, I think we should copy the New Jersey Civic Information Network. But there are a few new developments that I think are worth covering.

Let’s not copy the JPRA in any sense. It is a link tax that ignores the structure of the open internet. And like I said above, the platforms the JPRA supporters say are “stealing” links are either actually driving traffic to legacy organizations that are starting be ignored by platforms anyway. Jeff Jarvis has the best thoughts on this, so I’ll defer to him.

A tax on online advertising that would fund a civic information network would be an almost perfect policy solution, though. Online advertising monopolies create negative externalities for local journalism. Carving off a piece of their revenue gained in Washington State and paying reporters would be a tight little loop. Both California and Maryland have passed these taxes, Washington should join.

Break up the ad tech giants. Just that.

Will Thurston County deaths outstrip births again?

June 15, 2024 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Last year’s population estimates were historic in Thurston County, for at least one reason: for the first time since records have been kept, the number of annual births were outpaced by deaths. The county still saw a population increase because of in-migration. But, even those numbers were relatively flat, keeping with a recent trend of steady (if historically median) in-migration. Since the historic in-migration in Thurston County in the 1970s, the number of people moving here has bounced between 2,000 and 5,000 people each year, despite the increase overall in population.

The data below is based on last year’s population data release from the state.

In regard to how we got to a negative natural population increase, it looks like a combination of a flat birth rate since the recession and a rapid increase in deaths in the last few years. I’m not an epidemiologist, but it seems likely that the natural decrease is probably a combination of the impacts of generational population change (baby boomers getting older), obviously Covid and a flat birth rate.

One thing I’ll definitely want to do with the chart above is change it from raw population data to growth by year as a percentage to give a clearer trend from the 1970’s massive growth to today.

But now let’s look at the historic battle between birth and death:

Underlying data on births v. deaths in Thurston County

Source: Populations estimates (OFM)

While the gap in deaths vs. births was tightening in recent years, mostly because of the flat birth rate, the pandemic spiked deaths in Thurston County, driving the total number of deaths above births.

But, well we zoom out, we see that Thurston County is not alone in losing the battle with death.

Thurston County’s situation seems to be part of a statewide trend across all counties starting a decade or so back. Here are all natural change totals as a percentage of population, colored for increase (blue) or decrease (red):

Underlying data on county level natural population change.

Source: Components of population change (OFM)

Generally speaking, Washington counties had healthy natural population increases until the mid to late 1980s, and then they began sliding downward.

There seems to be a fascinating correlation in this particular data that deserves more exploration. The leading counties in this trend seem to follow a particular model. The counties that led the trend in this decline fall into two general groups: Pacific, Wahkiakum, Clallam, and Jefferson (declining Olympic Peninsula timber counties) and Garfield and Columbia (tiny upper Snake farming communities).

Bill and Tony Norton and the criminalizing of candidate names in Washington State

May 14, 2024 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

At the eleventh hour, a similar name appeared in the candidate filing for what was poised to be a contentious political contest. Rumors swirled and recriminations between the men ignited over two elections. Throughout 1942 and 1943, two men vied for the Democratic nomination for King County Sheriff and later for Seattle City Council, fueling a saga that inspired legislation aimed at clarifying such pooperhousery, which still carries weight today.

Just last week, conservative activist Glen Morgan orchestrated the filing of two other men named Robert Ferguson, sharing the name with the state Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate, Bob Ferguson. Both men withdrew their candidacies by Monday’s deadline, citing the original Ferguson’s reference to a 1943 law that prohibited poophousing similar-name campaigns.

In spring 1943, Tony Norton, a former Seattle Police Chief and sheriff’s department captain, had filed to succeed an outgoing sheriff.

Meanwhile, William Norton held a seat on the Seattle City Council and chaired its public safety committee.

Although Tony Norton had a well-established campaign, announcing his filing in March 1942, it was City Councilmember Bill Norton who managed to submit his candidacy just in time. Tony suspected foul play:

“I approached Bill Norton, and he denied any involvement in such a scheme. Even Norton’s acquaintances echoed similar sentiments. Yet, to my surprise, Norton filed, leaving the public to draw its own conclusions.”

To his credit, Bill Norton conducted what could now be viewed as a genuine campaign. Advertisements for his candidacy appeared in the Seattle Times, highlighting his grasp of modern policing, efforts in public safety on the city council, and a commitment to good governance.

In the 1942 Democratic primary for King County Sheriff, the Nortons finished third and fourth, respectively. Had all Norton supporters consolidated their votes, they would have surpassed the leading Democratic candidate by several thousand votes. Nonetheless, Harlan Callahan, the leading Republican contender, outpaced even the combined Norton vote by several thousand.

When Tony Norton challenged Bill Norton for his city council seat in early 1943, it was Bill’s turn to retaliate. He pointed to a municipal league statement alleging that Tony Norton, in his roles as both Seattle Police Chief and a King County sheriff captain, was “long identified with lax law enforcement in King County.”

Tony Norton’s advertisements struck a notably different tone, urging “WAKE UP, LABOR!” and warning that “Voting liberal is crucial to preserving your rights, as the reactionaries will vote!”

In the March primary, Tony Norton finished a distant fifth. The top three finishers were automatically elected (which is an interesting election system that we don’t use today), showcasing the potential impact of similar names on the race. The top two candidates received 28,000 and 25,000 votes respectively. Incumbent Bill Norton secured a somewhat distant third with over 19,000 votes, potentially harmed by some of the 11,000 votes Tony Norton garnered in fifth place.

Amidst the heated city council race, one of Seattle’s most influential politicians metaphorically slammed his hand on the table, demanding that the Nortons “knock it off.” Representative John L. O’Brien, who would later serve as Speaker of the House in the 1950s and have the state office building housing the House of Representatives named after him, introduced HB 57. This bill was a resurrection of an earlier failed attempt in 1941, apparently reignited by the Battle of the Nortons.

Interestingly, the 1941 bill was part of a larger reform package that aimed to overhaul Washington’s entire election system, which still retained the Blanket Primary system. Prior to the current Top Two system, voters could participate in an open partisan primary where they could vote for their preferred candidate from any major party. The 1941 reform proposed keeping voters in one lane and, in some cases, establishing a state-sanctioned endorsement process for political parties.

HB 57 was signed into law just over a week after the Seattle City Council primary, effectively curbing the Norton strategy of electoral poophousery for decades.

In a peculiar epilogue to the saga, Tony Norton passed away in September 1943 while undergoing emergency surgery in Okanagan County.