Author: Emmett O'Connell (Page 142 of 177)

I know it is still pretty early, but with King County still yet to report, I feel pretty safe saying that all three sitting Supreme Court Justices and both targeted Appeals Court judges (Mary Becker and Joel Penoyar) are going to win.

What does spending millions, $1.5 million on one alone, get you? Nothing so far. One race, between Justice Owens and Stephen Johnson, may yet go to a run off in November.

Despite this, I hope we still find a way to transition this debacle into public funding for at least judicial races. While I think all elections should be, at least in part, publically funded, judicial seats especially should have the protection from special interest money.

Judgeships, especially, should not be bought. And, this year they won’t

One of the things that I find sad is the holier than though grandstanding by Democrats and Republicans over the fate of our primary. Yes, the open primary is probably here to stay, for a bit. The blanket primary and the Top Two were always unconstitutional and the parties have every right to organize their nominations any way they want.

Doesn’t mean that dancing on the hurt feelings of thousands of Washington voters is the right thing to do.

This discussion over at Washblog is a good example of not doing this.

Andrew’s post last night, which inspired this post, is a good example of forgetting that more than 60 percent of Washington voters don’t like the current system.

What I had hoped for would be a broader discussion on how we vote and how exactly parties are relevant and important in today’s political world. People keep telling me that, and I too believe it, but it shouldn’t simply be something we say. We should worry about how parties are relevant.

How we vote, that we need to pick a ballot, does not instantly make the parties relevant.

How the parties act, whether they are of service to voters (for example) beyond brand names, make parties relevant.

Ever since Sinced Sliced Bread, I’m surprised that more projects to collect “good ideas,” especially for laws, haven’t cropped up. If you were a organization like People for Puget Sound or… geese what’s another one… well, another single issue organization, it would be cool to send out a letter to all your check writers and ask them to come up with the next great “idea” in your little slice of the world.

How to best clean up Puget Sound or best way to keep farms in business. But, from what I’ve seen, no one (in an organizational sense) has jumped on the Idea Train.

There are a few examples of broader efforts:

The first is totally self promoting, but I’m part of a loose group of bloggers who are trying to put together the “Washington Netroots Agenda,” a grassroots written collection of laws for (hopefully) the 2007 session.

We had a pretty good start, but in the last three or four weeks, things have pretty much tapered off.

Second is a group that has made a pretty good name for itself in the past several months, More Perfect is a wiki site that lets users rewrite things like the constitution, the bill of rights, and my favorite, Priorities of Government for Washington.

The Netroots Agenda has hooked up with More Perfect, by the way, on this page.

Scott Chacon, a former congressional candidate in California has launched thereoutabealaw.org, which seems to be very similar to the Netroots Agenda, but with a much broader scope.

One of the major differences is between the NA and TOBAL is Scott is looking for politicians or lawmakers (strange distinction now) to sponsor a few of the bills suggested in TOBAL, bring them to the front of public debate.

He also allows people to suggest changes to a bill, which the bill sponsors can keep if they want. Something I wish I was a cool enough coder to understand how he did.

If I was to find one point to all of these sites, it would be that the “sausage making process” that lawmakers imply we don’t want to be any part of, or even see, is actually the most important process. What gets traded out, what we can live without and what we won’t back down on in terms of our laws, is the most important conversation, politically.

Jon DeVore points out inaccurate and illegal robocalls are going out against Appeals Court Judge Penoyar, who deserves reelection. Especially over a partisan hack who has no experience as a judge.

From the TNT this morning:

A random test shows 85 percent of the Pierce County primary election ballots are being marked properly and will be counted for partisan races, Auditor Pat McCarthy said Tuesday.

The checks of 200 randomly selected ballots – made Monday at the request of state elections officials – showed 169 voters indicated a party choice by connecting the front and back of an arrow with a line.

Conversely, 31 voters, or 15 percent, did not choose a party. As a result, their choices in partisan races can’t be counted under state law. Of the 31 ballots that did not indicate a party choice, 19 were marked along straight party lines, 11 were marked for only nonpartisan races and issues, and one was left blank.

Why is 20 percent in Snohomish County bad, but 15 percent in Pierce ok?

I hope they run some ads in Washington. Civility be damned, we got some taxes to cut!

Stupid latte drinkers…

The pick a party primary has turned 2o percent of Snohomish County voters into either sloppy or pissed off people:

Failure to complete the ballots properly likely reflects two problems, Diepenbrock said.

“Partly, people aren’t reading the directions, and, two, they don’t want to pick a party,” she said.

State law requires voters in the primary to stay within one party in selecting candidates for partisan races. With touch-screen voting machines in use before the switch, each voter had to select a party before being allowed to pick candidates.

This is the third year voters in the state have had to pick a party since the open primary, in which voters were able for decades to choose from among all candidates from all parties for each partisan office, was found unconstitutional.

Some voters write angrily on ballots about being forced to choose a party affiliation, and election workers have received as many as 250 telephone complaints on that issue since ballots were mailed Aug. 30, Diepenbrock said.

Matt Rosenberg is correct in his assessment of politics (in relation to a wiki-politics site like moreperfect.org): “people need a little bit of blood and guts to really become engaged in politics,” he said. “Politics is a contact sport.”

What he is wrong about is that he seems to assume that it is supposed to be this way. Politics, and our democracy, I’ve heard recently described (pdf file) “how any given society functions to achieve ends transcending social tensions.” (emphasis mine). Transcending social tensions, not becoming social tensions.

According to Morris Fiorina politics are a contact sport because the 20 percent who care a lot, and aren’t worried about compromise, control the conversation. They are the loudest, they are the most eager, and they hardly ever listen.

Better put by him:

Republican and Democratic elites unquestionably have polarized. But it is a mistake to assume that such elite polarization is equally present in the broader public. It is not. However much they may claim that they are responding to the public, political elites do not take extreme positions because voters make them. Rather, by presenting them with polarizing alternatives, elites make voters appear polarized, but the reality shows through clearly when voters have a choice of more moderate alternatives…

Democracy isn’t just about being heard, it is also about listening and compromising.

We all compromise in our daily lives. We compromise with our families, our children, friends, and especially at work. We don’t see this as a failure, but rather as a good way of getting things done. Its effective, and in the end everyone gets close to what they want. Only the most selfish person would ever go through life never compromising.

And democracy is just life with people you don’t know, but you still should listen. So, yes, something like moreperfect.org can and should work.

From the Political Wire:

GOP Hopes Rest on Low Turnout

GOP Planning Negative Ad Barrage

A party planning on convinving people not to vote is a party not worth supporting. I only wish the Democratic Party was as bold as Kinky Friedman:

Convincing People to Vote: We think that it’s not Kinky Friedman vs. Rick Perry. It’s Kinky Friedman vs. apathy. If we get a big turnout, I win. Almost everybody agrees with that. The last thing Rick Perry wants to see is a big turnout. That’s the last thing he wants to see. And that’s a shame because our elected leaders ought to want to see democracy in action — instead of the last turnout, which was 29.3 percent. For governor! $100 million spent, 29 percent vote. It’s sick. If we could get it up to 40 percent, I’m governor.