Category: Washington Politics (Page 8 of 27)

The imaginary battle for Washington’s state capitol

March 9, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Jerry Reilly deploys hypothetical politics to defend the state legislature stepping into a local planning process (or Olympia telling Olympia what to do):

Opponents of this legislation should consider two questions:

If the state were just now deciding where to locate our capital city, would it be reasonable to ask the City Council of Olympia to agree to forgo intense development on the isthmus in order to protect the views from and to the Capitol Campus?

Would city leaders be likely to accept this limitation as a fair trade for the enormous benefit of being the capital city?

Here’s my consideration:

The last time there was a serious attempt to move the state capitol from Olympia was just about 100 years ago. Tacoma tried to step in and snatch the seat of government. There was a less serious attempt in the 1950s that involved quietly moving state agencies up to Seattle. We beat back that challenge, along with others.

So, I don’t really consider the threat to move the state capitol serious, even hypothetically.

And, for the “enormous benefit” we receive as being the capitol city, I wonder how many city’s our size would appreciate their largest industry not paying property taxes?

Also, since Lacey and Tumwater are now having nice new state buildings built in them, its high time the state legislature dip into their local planning processes as well.

More state constitution fun

February 23, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 1 Comment

I recently had a the joy of learning more about the Washington State constitution.

Some people should know more:

Ms. Kimberlie Struiksma has filed a ballot measure (Initiative Measure No. 1040) that would, among other things, “prohibit state use of public money or lands for anything that denies or attempts to refute the existence of a supreme ruler of the universe, including textbooks, instruction or research.”

The State Constitution:

No public money or property shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise or instruction, or the support of any religious establishment…

God bless those atheists.

FOCA strawman vs. Bread of the World afterthought

February 15, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Three weeks or so after the FOCA-mania at St. Mikes (with no bill actually having been introduced to congress), I finally see the double standard for political issues at church.

Inside the bulletin, there is a notice for a letter writing campaign from “Bread of the World.” Granted, it was a full page notice with another article a few pages deeper, but this is a far cry from the sermon and postcards being passed down the pew version for FOCA a few weeks back.

I don’t have a problem with politics in church. I think its healthy to be informed how your faith and public policy intersect.

What I have a problem with is the double standard on which we treat political issues in the Catholic Church. If its a “life” issue, we deal with it full-throated. For other issues, you know like feeding the hungry, there’s room in the bulletin, but not on the pulpit or in the pew. And, you want to write a letter? Use your own stamp.

Bread of the world does make it easier than that with this online letter writing tool that I’m going to take advantage of.

Bonus FOCA: Here’s a recent FactCheck.org update on FOCA. Differing views on its impacts. A sort of “Rorschach blot” of policy. Depending on what side of the debate you fall on defines what you see in the intent and impact of the legislation. Makes it even less likely that it would ever get passed.

The sad part about the above update is that it gave me the feeling of homily as email spam. Ugh.

Rich Nafziger pulls his blog down again (gaaaaa! And, puts it back up again))

February 15, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

UPDATE (like literally moments later): No sooner did I write this that he’s up with two new posts. His old archive is still gone though. See below to find that.

Last week, Rich Nafziger (local blogger and senate dem chief of staff at the Big-Greek-Building) wrote a funny blog about the governor (“Hoover Award” Ha!). He first took the post down and then his entire blog. ~~As of right now, if you go to his blog, it will be empty of posts.~~

Nafziger would have a much better blog if he didn’t pull it down so often. He’s done this before, a couple of times at least. Once (as I remember it) soon after the Olympia School Board began to become interesting and then when he left the school board for his current job.

I shared all of the recent posts from his blog that reached my feed reader, so if you go to my shared items, you can scroll around and find all of them. Aside from the Hoover piece, the rest of his blog is pretty smart and harmless. I’d actually love for more people like Nafziger to take the time and seriously maintain a blog the way he had.

It is sad that he feels the need to pull back from blogging so often. I am going to take the liberty of having saved his posts on my shared items

Nafziger pulls down Gregoire’s Hoover award

February 11, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

It was a pretty funny post while it lasted, but Rich Nafziger (day job: state senate Democratic chief-o’-staff) took down his post awarding Gov. Chris Gregoire a “Hoover.” It happened soon after the Spokesman Review’s political reporter noted it on his blog.

I guess it makes sense you can have a big shot Dem staffer poking fun at the Dem governor.

You can see the old post here on my shared items, just scroll down a bit, you’ll find it.

New kind of dialogue with state government

February 8, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

I’m shaking off the tragic metonymy in his title, but Rich Nafziger makes an interesting point here. Despite the Washington State legislature (not “Olympia” sucka) having one of the most open systems in terms of who gets to talk during a committee meeting (first come, first serve) the system still isn’t perfect:

The fact of the matter that the public hearing process in Olympia could be improved. Citizens are unable to take time off of work to come down make their opinions. Meanwhile, lobbyist earning 7 figure incomes clutter the hearing dockets and roam the halls. This is broken.

Several committees piloted web dialogues in the past couple of sessions. In the online dialogues, committee chairs ask questions relevant to key bills and citizens can register online and comment on the bills and the ideas. The dialogues provide a string of a conversation where both legislators and the public can raise new ideas, ask each other questions and comment on each others’ posts. Unlike newspaper online comments, the tone was always civil and constructive.

In my short experience with the few online forums the legislature sponsored (can’t find the link now), I was impressed. The online committee hearings took place outside of session and covered more general topics instead of actual bills. I guess that’s one reason the conversation, as Rich says, more constructive than a newspaper comment thread.

I’ve been toying around with an idea in my mind, a sort of super public comment tool for state government on down. Each level of government in Washington at some point has a need for public comment. It would be interesting to create a system online where a citizen could create a user profile using their voter registration (or some stand in for folks who aren’t registered) and then see open public comment processes in the jurisdictions they reside in.

So, in my case, I’d see public comment for the city of Olympia, Thurston County, the local PUD and port and the state of Washington.

I’d be able to post comment to any of the open processes and either have it archived for whatever public official will review the comment or immediately accessible to other users so they could comment back on my comment.

Of course, normal rules like not being able to overuse the system (three comments a week, for example), not being rude and not using particular language, would apply.

For this system, the important thing would be to segregate people into public comment processes that they actually are involved in. So, keeping Kitsap residents from commeting on an interesting issue in Renton would be a priority.

Trying to explain why Karen Valenzuela was legally appointed

February 3, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

UPDATE (Wednesday, February 4): Yes, legal.

The lawyers that can actually explain to me why this is bunk are either not explaining or haven’t gotten back to me. But, from a Socratic exchange of emails with someone who should’ve been able to supply a straight answer, I’m figuring the whole problem out.

The problem lies in trying to prove that Amendment 52 passed two years after Munro v. Todd (which said the governor has no authority to appoint a county commissioner) gave the governor the authority to usurp the authority of the county commission.

The current RCW seems to assume this authority exists. But, I can’t find any historic record that indicates that the point of Amendment 52 was to give that authority to the governor. That said, the only thing left to do is to compare the section of the state constitution before and after the Amendment to see if the changes indicate that intent.

And, by the way, in writing this out, I can pretty much say that “The Washington State Constitution, A Reference Guide” misstates it’s title. It is not a great reference guide. It makes a huge mistake in implying the governor doesn’t have the authority to name a county commissioner.

So, here is a line by line comparison of the 1956 version of Article II, Sec 15 of the state constitution and the 1968 version (that followed Munro v. Todd):

I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not confident in saying that the new paragraph inserted by a statewide vote in 1968 was aimed at solving the problem presented by Munro v. Todd. I also haven’t been able to find anything like a history or newspaper article that says that was in the intent or effect of the Amendment.

But, there it is. This settles it in my mind, but I would also like a more definitive answer by someone trained in such things like Washington State constitutional law.

TO: Carl @Effin’ Unsound

February 2, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Not that I have any problems with Horsesass, but don’t do it:

Speaking of HA, Goldy is thinking of integrating some of the more established local blogs like he’s already doing with Publicola. I’m inclined against joining at this point for a few reasons: I like the independence of having a separate blog. I don’t mean that Goldy will act censorious of anyone who writes here, but that some day he may decide he can put his skill set to use not hosting a bunch of blogs for very little money, and then where would we be? Also, I like the out-of-a-can feel of EffU; that there aren’t many bells and whistles, or ads helps keep focus on the writing, and it’d inevitably lose some of that switching over. But I’d like to hear what y’all think.

Because, we need more bloggers, not fewer.

Was Karen V’s appointment legal?

February 1, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

UPDATE (Wednesday, Feb 4): It is totally legal. Never mind, move along. Nothing to see here.

UPDATE (Tuesday, Feb. 3): So yes, it probably was. As I’d hoped.

Let’s just get this out of the way: I sure hope it was, because I want Karen as my next county commissioner.

But.

I’m not sure it was legal. On a totally separate project today I picked up a copy of The Washington State Constitution: A Reference Guide, which includes this passage:

The power of the governor to appoint has been held to extend only to vacancies in the Legislature and and not to vacancies in county elected offices (Munro v. Todd, 1966).

Here is a copy of the Munro v. Todd decision, which seems to point in the same direction:

Thus, a board of county commissioners with one vacancy is a legally constituted body capable of carrying out its legal duties with full constitutional authority, by reason of Art. XI, § 6, to appoint a qualified person to fill a vacancy on the board.

There is no cessation of county government. If the legally constituted board fails to carry out its constitutional duty, it may create a political hiatus (as distinguished from a legal one) for which the two members may be answerable to their constituents; but it does not create a situation in which the legislature may delegate to the governor a duty that the constitution requires must be performed by the board of county commissioners.

Can the governor legally take the decision out of the hands of the county commissioners? A forty year old Supreme Court decision seems to say no.

Any lawyers out there? I’m emailing Hugh Spitzer, one of the co-authors of the 2002 book that I’m citing above. He’s at the UW, hopefully I’ll get an answer from him quickly.

More FOCA strawman

January 27, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

More Catholics on sermons, homilies and postcard campaigns against FOCA.

Shannon Says…

I don’t agree with putting people on the spot when it comes to politics nor should it be done in church. I feel if they said something and let people know there were postcards in the back and what FOCA was all about, it would not seem so pushy.

A very good legal analysis of FOCA pretty much points to the law as being what I thought it was, just fodder, not law:

The same combination, however, makes it a very good weapon in the abortion wars that have divided this country for over thirty years now. In my view, that is the true purpose of FOCA, which has been lurking around Congress in various versions for nearly two decades. Ultimately, the bill should be seen less as a serious attempt at lawmaking than as abortion-war propaganda dressed up as legislation. It’s noteworthy that from a purely political perspective, FOCA is useful to both prolife and prochoice activists. The bill helps prochoicers ward off any perceived threat to the right to abortion-even as, in its ominous shadows, prolifers see new threats to unborn life, and mobilize accordingly. And a new battle begins.

Which of course, is depressing, because that means our church isn’t smart enough not to rise to the bait.

One Catholic priest refuses to rise to the bait though:

Obviously church leaders have every right to promote their concerns in the public arena. But FOCA is a phantom threat. It is meant to limit legislation by Congress on abortion. It will not be passed. Why would Congress pass a law to limit its own power? One well-placed Catholic commentator stated, “FOCA has as much chance of passage as the [now 0-15] Detroit Lions have of winning the next Super Bowl.”

So, why is it that we were asked during mass to fill out postcards to our federal representatives to voice opposition to FOCA when we’ve never been asked to write postcards about more likely legislative topics like torture or health services funding?