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Category: Washington Politics (Page 24 of 27)

Participatory democracy and caucuses

April 24, 2007 / / 2 Comments

The participatory democracy argument in favor of caucuses is disingenuous at worst and misguided at best. Last night when we were debating whether to support a primary election or caucus system for next year’s choosing of presidential delegates, two people argued the participatory democracy side of the caucuses.

This isn’t a direct quote, but it gets pretty close to what one of the guys was talking about:

It takes more of a commitment to come to a caucus, very little commitment to vote in a primary. We want to encourage commitment, not just drop in participation.

And

The caucus system is where people are coming together, and talking, it’s a real plus. It shows that the people in the state of Washington are really interested in creating relationships with people in their communities.

I agree with the sentiment of both of those arguments, caucuses are awesome in that they are participatory. People come together and chat, which is much more what democracy should be about than just indicating your preference in private.

That said, the Washington State Democratic Party does nothing else beyond the caucuses to encourage participatory democracy. Actually, its even worse. Before last night’s vote state party chairman Dwight Pelz gave a talk to the 22nd LD meeting (which every quarter happens right before the TCD meeting). He spelled out the ground game plan for 2008, which centered around a lot of people coming to the caucuses.

When all those folks are sitting on their hands while the precinct results are being tabulated, we PCOs are supposed to chat them up to see who we can get interested in volunteering with the party until election day. “We can use them for the next six months,” was something he said towards the end of his talk.

The caucuses aren’t about coming together and knowing your neighbors, if they were we would be doing them more often. They’re about recruiting ground troops for the fall of 2008.

What was implied to me was that after November of 2008, we don’t really care what happens to those folks. Some of them may stay on and stay engaged, but we’re not really worried about that.

The precinct caucuses should be the end result of a civic engagement campaign, not the beginning of a faux engagement campaign. People should come to the caucuses because the party is relevant and important to them in their community, not because we’re blackmailing them to come because its their only opportunity to vote in the Democratic primary.

Youth protest in Seattle (this is not called “The Kids are Alright,” although that would be accurate)

April 19, 2007 / / 0 Comments

I’ve not really been a big fan of protest lately, walking in the streets to prove a point. But, the coverage of the high school walkout in Seattle yesterday made me think differently. Protest can be good, and for some reason, really good if you’re in high school.

High school students have no other choice than to be in school, so walking out of class is the supreme level of civil disobedience. Its a world of difference from middle aged protesters taking on the Iraq War on the weekend or college aged kids doing May Day.

For the rest of us, protest should be weighed more heavily against other types of engagement, like voting, participating in public life and running for office. Have I mentioned that if you protested either the Port of Olympia or Tacoma recently, you should run for port commission? Lots of openings!

I especially liked the response to unnamed critics in the PI’s article:

Students also fired back at cynics who suggest they’re just lazy kids looking for a day off from school. Those who skipped school Wednesday could have opted to go shopping downtown or simply could have gone home instead of attending the rally, Salas said.

The fact they showed up “is very demonstrative that these kids care,” she said. “Adults need to see we’re willing to get detention for the day and get yelled at by our parents to do this.”

This is the same world that hundreds of thousands of high school aged and younger keep American Idol afloat, and we’re worried about high school students actually paying attention and reacting to the world around them.

Its also nice to see a little bit of online organization (here and myspace), even if it did get only 300 protesters from a district with tens of thousands of students. I would like to know more about how online or non-traditional organizing tools were used, just because I’m curious.

One reason Goldy is wrong about the Sonics

April 6, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Goldy says:

Just this past November, no less an authority than the Times editorial board itself put its finger on the pulse of the region’s voters, and declared a new Sonics arena dead. No, Seattleites aren’t the only fish in the Sound, but nothing passes countywide with three-quarters of Seattle voters going against it.

But more than just being unrealistic, it is downright insulting for the Seattle Bothell Times and its Mercer Island based editors to now ask for a countywide vote to approve a tax on Seattle voters to pay for an arena that we have already so overwhelmingly rejected. Hell… why not make it a statewide vote? That way, the Times gets to hawk sports headlines during those dreary months between football and baseball, while the rest of the state gets the opportunity to once again screw Seattle. Everybody’s happy.

Back ten years ago when Paul Allen asked for $300 million for Qwest Field, King County voted overwhelmingly in favor of it, 275,000 to 213,000. It was the rural counties, like Lincoln (2,200 to 900) and Okanogan (6,500 to 3,000) that voted no.

The difference between last year’s Seattle initiative and this year’s possible King County initiative is that someone will be campaigning for the stadium.

Tacoma is not a world class city (elevate this)

March 9, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Still the silliest argument in all of the the viaduct arguments (which to me is the ultimate in Seattle centric navel gazing) is the world class city theme (whether it be here or here). We should do something because Seattle is “world class.” Well, whether Seattle is world class is open to argument, but to put that argument out, seems to point to other cities and say “not world class.”

Not in the world class: Tacoma and the I-705.

And, I’d like to point out again that when I first complained about this “word class” theme I was wrong to point to Portland, which of course made the right decision when they took down their own waterfront highway and rededicated the money to transit.

Would anyone make the silly argument that Tacoma is a world class city? Of course not, but that it isn’t has absolutely no bearing on whether I-705 was the right thing to do for Tacoma. 705 provides easy access from I-5 into downtown Tacoma, and up into the waterfront in the Stadium district, but at the same time it also cuts downtown Tacoma off from the waterfront. Its also noisy and not that pretty looking.

Whether a particular highway is built should not be based on what a city thinks of itself. On the other hand, one could argue that because Seattle has easy freight access from their waterfront is one reason why Seattle is “world class.”

“World class cities,” he said, implying Seattle, “don’t build concrete highways over their waterfronts”

February 16, 2007 / / 0 Comments

(or: Fred Moody, where are you when we need you most?)

Of course, some do build the wooden kind, but that’s beside the point.

This argument is the silliest of all the viaduct silliness because it implies that Seattle is a world class city. Or, that it won’t be a world class city until it tears down the viaduct, and maybe builds a tunnel. The point, though, is to tear down the viaduct.

For everyone who thinks this way, that Seattle needs to freshen itself up for its world class status, I suggest: Seattle and the Demons of Ambition: A Love Story.

Seattle, beware the devil on your shoulder.

It almost seems like we’re repeating some of the history that Moody writes about in “Demons of Ambition.” The football team is getting close, but not finishing the deal. Our basketball team is threatening to jump ship, and the city itself rejects them, but forces behind the scene are lining up in support.

And, the viaduct is seen as a wall that prevents the city from being “world class.” Now, that is something that has gotten the city into trouble before:

What had been envisioned as yet another showcase for Seattle as an emerging world-class city has turned into an epic disaster. The WTO convention was shut down, and Seattle was being exposed to the world as an overreaching dunce.

I wouldn’t compare the WTO directly with removing the viaduct, but I think they’re a symptom of the same disease.

And in regards to Andrew’s picture from the above post, I give you, FDR Drive in New York:

Interstate 5 in Portland OR, which probably isn’t very world class:

Democratic Victory Circle: Exclusive Crap

February 6, 2007 / / 0 Comments

This will guarantee that I don’t get another “exclusive” email from Dwight Pelz, but what the heck.

The Democratic Victory Circle is a boneheaded idea. The last thing you should try to do, especially when you’re leading a political party, is ever try to be “exclusive” with your communication. Instead of taking a page from Colorado vice-chair Dan Slater who blogs out in the open, Washington State Democratic Chairman Pelz is sending emails seeking donations in exchange for “insider” gossip.

Here’s his “exclusive notes” on his trip to the DNC (published here). Here is the pitch for you to donate $1,000 a year so you can keep on getting these “exclusive” emails.

From the pitch:

Special Benefits Include:

  • Participation in quarterly Democratic Victory Circle events with recognized speakers and/or elected officials (i.e. nationally recognized pollsters)
  • Regular updates from Chairman Dwight Pelz on state and national political developments, projects, and events
  • Recognition at Washington State Democratic Party events
  • Special reduced rate to attend Washington State Democratic Party events
  • Photo opportunities with State and Federal elected officials
  • Special recognition in Washington State Democratic Party publications and website

This kind of “insider” stuff is one of the reasons I don’t like politics.

I understand the attraction of the recognition stuff and the reduced rates, photo opportunities and other stuff that don’t particularly attract me. I don’t participate in politics so people will like me, but rather to make the world a better place (I know how stupid that sounds). Writing special emails to a special group of folks who have paid for the privilege is a quick way to making politics unbearable.

The sad thing is that his notes would actually make a nice blog post, but for some reason, instead of actually sharing what he thinks Pelz wants folks to pay for it. The really sad thing is that I don’t think he expected anyone to copy and paste what he wrote.

Membership compromise discussion

January 16, 2007 / / 0 Comments

When I first starting talking about some sort of compromise in terms of a rank and file membership in Thurston County, I was hoping there would be a healthy discussion on this blog, our county Democratic blog, or somewhere else. That didn’t happen, but after we discussed the idea last week at the county executive committee, I emailed the idea out again.

Since then, there has been a more than healthy email conversation. Not as public as I would have liked, but there have been some changes in how I’d propose the compromise now. Those changes are reflected here.

The nut of the compromise is that someone can’t just show up one day, pay their $20 and be a member. They have to prove their commitment through a series of options, such as being a member of a TCD committee. One of the changes to the propose bylaw outlines who decides when someone has been active enough to become a voting member. In the current draft, it would be the Executive Committee, in a manner similar to how they approve unelected PCOs.

While most of the emails discussing the change have been supportive, not all have, including Guy Hoyle-Dodson’s from this morning:

This is asinine. Are you deliberately trying to drive away involvement by rank and file democrats? This kind of strident money grubbing, pedantic exclusiveness, and distain for keeping the county party a truly open public institution will only end in the total irrelevance of the TCD. It is just the outcome that was feared when dues were thrust upon us two years ago. Then as now, it is not well thought out.

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