Washington state megathread

[Alcon]

State House voted 54-43 today to force Pierce County to switch to all-mail voting.

f**k!  Effective immediately?

Where's the vote list, out of curiosity?

[Alcon]

Vashon rejected a school levy?!

The earth just ended.  I think it and Bainbridge Island are the only SDs to have never failed one.

Snoqualmie Valley's is passing no problem, assuming it makes turnout requirements.

[Alcon]

This might help explain why the Vashon Island bond failed:

http://www.thenewstribune.com/topstories/story/657680.html

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That's $7,458 per person on Vashon, or $47,484 per public school student.

I mean...damn.

[Alcon]

Almost below-the-radar, if it weren't for Facebook: Jeannie Darneille's perennial Voting Rights Bill passed the House today, 53-43.

In the simplest terms, the current system requires that convicted felons:

A) Serve their full sentence, including community custody, parole and probation.

B) Pay all of their restitution fees and legal fees, without any consideration for indigence waivers.

Darneille's bill fully eliminates requirement "B."

Regardless of your feelings about felon/ex-felon enfranchisement, this bill does have one tangible benefit.  It is a hell of a lot easier to track felons based on state custody status, than by using the tangled mess that was the voting rights restoration process.  Keeps the rolls cleaner, and we need that.  I say this as a concerned citizen and a convicted felon.

Edit:  My guess is that the SoS's office pushed this bill privately, for that reason; it's not really a political winner at large.  This guess happens to be pretty un-guessy, considering that David Ammons (ex-AP, now-Reedite) was the first attaboy on FB.

[Alcon]

Almost missed this, too.  The State House passed SB 5688 today.  SB 5688 expands Washington's domestic partnership law to basically be marriage-without-the-name.

The vote was 30-18.  Linda Evans Parlette (R-Wenatchee) was absent.  Can't imagine she would have voted yes.

Democratic switchers were Jim Hargrove (D-Hoquiam), Brian Hatfield (D-Raymond), Tim Sheldon (D-Umbass) and Paull Shin (D-Edmonds). 

Republican switchers were Dale Brandland (R-Bellingham), Cheryl Pflug (R-Maple Valley) and Curtis King (R-Yakima).

I thought King basically rode in on challenging Jim Clements from the right.  His vote for the "loose" domestic partnership bill last year was a surprise to me, and now this.  It's not like he's playing to his district's politics by voting liberally on gay rights.  Strange?

Anyway, opponents threaten Prop.-8 style campaign.  I'll go out on a limb and say that would be unlikely to pass, even if it properly materialized.

[Alcon]

Weirdly active news day for the last few.

Guess what the Pierce County Assessor's Office failed to do last year with half of their assessed properties?

Assess them.

That's a pretty high bar for screw-up for Dale Washam to reach, in fairness.

Maybe you'll know, Meeker:  Is this one of those done-but-not-talked-about corner-cutting things?  Seems like a pretty obvious violation of state law to me.

[Alcon]

Well, the gay-marriage-in-name-only thing is obviously going to pass.  It has 57 sponsors in the State House.

Sponsoring Republicans are Maureen Walsh (R-College Place) and Norm Johnson (R-Yakima).  So, 2/3 of the 14th (Yakima)'s GOP delegation supports this.  Very strange (apparently the local GOP isn't happy with either.)

Non-sponsoring Democrats are Frank Chopp (D-Seattle), Laura Grant-Herriot (D-Walla Walla), Tami Green (D-Lakewood), Troy Kelley (D-Lakewoody Tacoma), Mark Miloscia (D-Federal Way) and Tim Probst (D-Vancouver).  Obviously, Chopp will vote "yes."  Not sure about Grant-Herriot or Probst.  Miloscia is on the record as opposing.

Any idea about Green or Kelley, Meeker?  Is the 28th really this hostile to gay rights?  I mean, Seaquist sponsored the thing.

[Alcon]

These are the only interesting elections-related bills that are still alive:

- A bill to eliminate special elections in March and only allow previously failed tax levies and new bond issues in May

What's the justification for that?

- A bill to stop sending ballots to inactive voters

To save money, or is this one of those "this will reform the election system even if we're not sure why" deals?

- A bill that would make it illegal to lie about your opponent

Should I be as skeptical as I am, or is this some sort of loophole?

- A bill that slightly modifies where certain candidates can file for office and abolishes the filling fee for PCO's

Sweet.  I'm totally filing for PCO next time.  I mean, why not.

[Alcon]

It'll save money, but it also just sort of makes sense. You have to be really, really inactive to be labeled an inactive voter. It doesn't happen by mistake.

As far as I know, only USPS returning mail makes a voter inactive.  Not voting doesn't make you inactive, to my knowledge.  One of my neighbors has been registered since the '70s or something, and has never voted.  He's still active.

The big downside is probably people who have their mailing and residence addresses switched on registration.  Whitman County did that to bgwah.  But now that there are no polling places, I guess that doesn't matter much.  With VBM, they're not going to get it anyway, if they've moved or have a wrong address.  So the only voters who will be "missed" are those that temporarily relocate.

Honestly, I didn't realize we did send ballots to inactive voters...so no qualms.

The $1 filling fee was really that much of a deterrent?

Do you know how many Jack in the Box tacos I could get for that $1?

TWO AND A QUARTER!

Are you asking me to put democracy before tacos?

[Alcon]

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/politicsnorthwest/index.html#039070

sigh...

I mean, I understand that transportation infrastructure has to make concessions to current lifestyle.  But, every single freaking time in this state?

Thanks to people like John Bailo, natch:

Density breeds crime, pollution and low quality of life...always.  Once fresh Seattle neighborhoods that used to be like small towns have been hellified into urban concrete walled nightmares.  The "ligth rail" behemoth of Nichles, Sims and Gregoire will spread decay outward towards Redmond.  The only hope is to leave.

(One big sic.)

[Alcon]

My favorite part is this one:

John Fox, of the Seattle Displacement Coalition, said that mandated density could leave already congested Capitol Hill, the University District, Roosevelt, Northgate and other neighborhoods around Sound Transit stations denser than any area north of San Francisco.

What kind of weird complaint is that.  First, it's wrong.  Vancouver has much denser neighborhoods.  So, basically, the complaint is that Seattle would be the densest city between San Francisco and Vancouver.  OH GOD NO, ANYTHING BUT THAT

I'm sorry, I had to treat your amusing post like it was serious so I could complain more

[Alcon]

Aaaaand opportunistic feeding frenzy starts...NOW!



Stay classy, newspaper business

[Alcon]

haha, and dan savage is running for seattle mayor.  Oh boy.

Jarrett is a fascinating candidate who I do not think should be underballed.  What he lacks in charisma, he makes up for in being nearly perfect on paper.  Let's see which way "former Republican" plays in suburban City of Seattle.

[Alcon]

Marilyn Strickland just announced for Tacoma mayor.  I'm not even sure if she'll end up facing substantial opposition.  The only other announced candidate is architect Jim Merritt, a local do-gooder who I doubt has enough political cache, compared to Strickland.

[Alcon]

Issues? What are those? This is Tacoma Democratic politics: egos, money and unions!

I think that's Strickland's greatest risk.  She's never gotten "in" with the unions in town, from what I gather.  That having been said, attacking her on that won't be easy.  She's probably acceptable on all union issues.  If she had an Achilles' heel, it would be some grassroots "the teachers don't like her!" campaign.  That works great in Tacoma, appealing both to union people and North Tacoma bleeding-hearts.

Still, seems unlikely, and unless the race gets mean in an unpredictable way, I think she's probably in.

This is predictable, but as bad as expected: King County has a $50 million deficit.  (That's actually not as bad as a lot of urban counties.)

[Alcon]

Washington?

I forgot I posted that at 3:50 am.  Classic Lunar.

I'm happy that your crap state has apparently removed its fat self from our time zone

[Alcon]

warning: Drunk posting!

Didn't notice this before but there's an odd amendment attached to the all-mail voting bill.

Right now precincts can be no larger than 900 poll voters. The bill changes that requirement to no larger than 2000 active voters. Then, should a precinct grow to more than 2000 active voters at some point in between precinct redistricting, the county central committee of each major political party may, if they so choose, order that there be four PCO positions for that precinct. So <2000 active voters, 1 PCO. >2000 active voters, 4 PCO's.

Why? I have no idea.

...poll voters?  Isn't that requirement kind of moot, now that they've forced a Pierce County conversion?  I'm assuming this, since PierceCo (and a few other counties) have way more than 900 RVs per precinct.

A 900 RV/precinct limit would be really nice, the 2000 limit is too Oregonian and I resent it, but even King County has some precincts nearing that size (one outside of Redmond, last time I checked)

Post-script: This is what I do when I'm drunk, what the hell?

[Alcon]

I agree, actually.  We haven't had a real statewide effort to legalize gay marriage formally.  In CA, Prop. 8's numbers steadily declined before leveling off.  I'd give an outright vote on gay marriage about 50/50 odds of passing WA.  I'd give a re-affirmation vote 2-to-1 odds.

Other interesting notes from the same polling round.

Sims approval ratings as KC Exec:

Approve 35%
Disapprove 51%

Greg Nickels approval:

Approve 39%
Disapprove 49%

Odd:  By a 59-30 margin, voters in Seattle say life is getting worse.  King County-wide, this number is 71-18.  Sucks to be in the suburbs, or weird sampling?

[Alcon]

I have never understood why Democrats suck in the 15th LD so much.  Klickitat and Skamania are ancestrally Democratic and are coming back to the fold.  It's increasingly Hispanic (Obama broke 50% in the Yakima County portion).  The white voters are working-class, and although they're quite conservative, Dukakis ran pretty well in some of these areas.

Maybe they shouldn't be winning at the LD level, but they should at least be able to field candidates that don't get their asses beaten.  Or am I crazy?

[Alcon]

There's no bench.

And by "there's no bench"...does that possibly mean that there's a theoretical bench, but they're mostly mayors with inconveniently Hispanic surnames? 

I don't really understand where the GOP's bench comes from either; it's a weird district with no political center.  Then again, where are the Democrats going to go.  Mayor of White Salmon?  Yech, I see their problem.

[Alcon]

http://horsesass.org/?p=14562

Wow... Geoff Simpson is awesome.

No, Geoff Simpson is just a loudmouth jerk who happens to be correct, and know how to copy-paste.  Google pretty much any portion of his response.

Nonetheless, it does take cojones.  I'll give him that.

[Alcon]

I don't exactly know Puyallup that well, but I see no real patterns here.



There were some pretty strong victories (>60) but it all seems pretty randomish.  Maybe you see something else, Meeker?

[Alcon]

The State House just passed the National Popular Vote Compact 52-42 (it previously passed the Senate 28-21). It appears to have been amended in the House though, so back to the Senate it goes.

House crossover
Dems voting "no": Reuven Carlyle (D-Seattle), Laura Grant-Herriot (D-Walla Walla), Zak Hudgins (D-Tukwila), Ross Hunter (D-Medina), Tina Orwall (D-Normandy Park), Jamie Pedersen (D-Seattle), Sharon Tamiko Santos (D-Vashon Island) and Alex Wood (D-Spokane).

Pubbies voting "yes": None.

Pretty impressive that the Democrats can bleed lots of urban-core reps (I wonder why?) and still carry a vote by 10.

Can't find the House version.  The companion bill doesn't list a vote?

[Alcon]

Gay Marriage Except in Name is headed for Gregoire's signature.  The only Democrat to vote against it was Mark Miloscia (D-Federal Way).  The Republican co-sponsors, Maureen Walsh (R-College Place) and Norm Johnson (R-Yakima), both voted yes.  The Moderate Heroes apparently all fell in line on this'n, although I don't know who the two absent were.  Maybe Grant-Herriot decided to take a long lunch.

An announcement for a supposedly massive signature drive to land a repeal on the November ballot is expected tomorrow.  Assuming the drive isn't massively overstated, I look forward to the referendum going down in flames in November.

[Alcon]

Three-cent sales tax increase is down 51-41 in preliminary polling, which wasn't as bad as I expected but is still bad -- especially considering healthcare was specifically mentioned in the question.

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=8fc5c7d9-733b-410b-b762-79792b147e63

An earlier poll found a more extreme undercurrent of tax hostility:

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=192b5d4e-ed0b-43ee-96d8-8a40dec2df39

By a 74-20 margin, voters said that balancing the budget by increasing taxes was a bad idea.

The second poll is a bit weird.  Saving 10,000 college spots makes 29% of Washingtonians LESS likely to vote for such an increase, and only 27% more likely; but preventing larger class sizes and teacher lay-offs encourages people to vote yes 34-25.  Polls, whatever.

Still, proposals like this tend to degrade, not improve in the polls, and ten points down is a bad place to start.