Real numbers
We'll not take particular exception to the promotional efforts of lottery officials who have been pumping up this week's $340 million Powerball win by someone - tuns out to be a man in Medford - in hopes of expanding interest in the games.
The news media have no excuse, however - with the award for worst unpaid lottery ad of the week going to the Tuesday morning Idaho Statesman, which devoted half its page one newshole to hyping the game.
The dishonest part of this, from the perspective of news organizations at least, is that the winner will not get $340 million - not even close. At least the Oregonian, in today's edition, made note of that. In a page one chart, it pointed out that the real winnings (after taxes) amount to $110.1 million, the amount the recipient either would get in lump sum or would be invested and doled out over 30 years.
That's still not dog food, of course. But let's have some honesty around here
One more thing: This winner has decided to remain secluded instead of basking in the media spotlight. Good for him.
Family and beyond
The political story of this cycle in Washington was written this week not in any newspaper but in a blog,
in Horse's Ass, about King County executive contender David Irons, a Republican seeking to unseat Democrat Ron Sims. It is a story that grows out of the candidate's personal life - almost though not quite as person as the reportage of the Spokane Spokesman-Review on Mayor James West. West is now saying he plans to sue the Spokesman for invasion of privacy.
There's been some talk about legal liability in the comments section at Horse's Ass too, but the Irons story is rather different: Provided in whole by members of the candidate's family, including his mother and father, who say they will vote against him next month.
That much had gone public already in
a column by Joni Balter of the Seattle
Times, but none of the details - what underlay the family rift - did. That's what David Goldstein, proprietor of Horse's Ass, addressed in his long, and remarkable, October 20 post.
The story it tells is ome of an ugly little family quarrel with roots in the relationships between the members. It became bitter enough that, according to Irons' mother's account, the future executive candidate hit her and knocked to her to the floor, then ripped a phone from the wall when she said she would call 9-1-1 (which, apparently, she never did). Irons has denied the incident, and one of his siblings backs him.
Goldstein acknowledges the he said-she said element to the story. But wherever the fire may be burning, there's smoke aplenty. That has created an uneasy situation for some King Republicans who spent years during the Clinton 90s talking about the importance of character, and how private behavoir can say much about public actions. This family story, which on Friday went onto substantial radio broadcast (including conservative programs) and into the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, is throwing a new twist into the Sims-Irons race.
Some comparisons
Headline in the Idaho Statesman that the state tourism office is unlikely to pick up:
"Mongolia and Idaho: Worlds apart, but similarities abound."
Brandi
Hardly ever hurts a politician to run against the local newspaper, especially when it comes to self-promotion. Tim Eyman learned that ages ago in Washington, and – we’d be surprised if it weren’t true - alongside some pleasure in broad-based media support of his new government audits initiative (and we here like it too) seems to be some low-level unease about having been accepted (temporarily) into the club that always rejected him.
Brandi SwindellA different variation of the theme comes in Boise, where the improbable city council candidacy of Brandi Swindell, against council incumbent Maryanne Jordan, has picked up some new juice in the wake of criticism from Idaho Statesman columnist Dan Popkey. She, or whoever is advising her, has taken neat advantage of a column which nailed some substantial criticisms and pointed in the general direction of several others. The most significant: Unprecedented specific alliance between the Idaho Republican Party and several very conservative religious groups.
Campaign season mostly has been quiet in Boise, with just six candidates for three council seats, one of the lightest rosters recently. On the surface, campaign activity seems light as well; on a run around the city scouting for yard signs, we found exactly one, for council challenger Tim Tibbs. (We’re told there are more, mainly for Tibbs, elsewhere too, but the number clearly is smaller than normal.) And yet there are subtle signs of considerable organizational activity out there, some for Tibbs but apparently even more for Swindell. Mostly it’s been a quiet campaign, usually a political contradiction.
Unless it’s a stealth campaign, which would make sense. The strategy apparent behind the Swindell candidacy seems to be a difficult and subtle one, to get her known and make her a viable community figure while pointing energetically away from relevant information about who and what this prospective leader is, and who her constituency is.
The earliest public mention of Swindell’s candidacy – though not yet by name – we can find came on September 26 in
this statement: “A conservative candidate, who supports the values of the Keep the Commandments Coalition, will file on Thursday to challenge Maryanne Jordan for her seat on the Boise City Council. We'll release the candidate's name in an email update to you on Thursday afternoon.” That candidate was Swindell, co-director of the Coalition with the man who posted the announcement, the Reverend Bryan Fischer. This organization, and maybe allied groups, is the specific source of the candidacy.
That would hardly make it unusual among interest groups, and its action in putting forth a candidacy of its own is not wrong or unethical. But its lack of success in ousting Mayor David Bieter last year suggests it is not a political winner in Boise. Swindell, in other words, needed to be promoted as something other than the only thing she ever had been publicly in Boise: An advocate for locating a Ten Commandments monument in a park.
Getting away from that while still running a winning campaign, however, is an iffy proposition. After her announcement, Fischer wrote, “Brandi's position, of course, on defending the Judeo-Christian tradition and its role in public life is clear. The one thing you will be able to count on with Brandi is that her positions will be clear, be values- and principles- based, and that she will stand unapologetically for what she believes is best and right for the city of Boise.”
The issues page on her web site covers seven separate subjects, from the city library ballot issue to police patrols, but the only issue statement of the bunch that doesn’t sound generic, and the only one that takes any issue with incumbent Jordan, has to do with the Ten Commandments. And none of the other issues on the page have much of anything to do specifically with the “Judeo-Christian tradition”, nor is that phrase or anything like it present – and even the Commandments issue is presented as concern over council attitude toward the public rather than as a cultural or religious issue. To read her web site, you’d never guess than her entre and sole involvement in public matters had to do with a very conservative religious drive and organization.
You’d never guess much else about her, either.
She mentions her enjoyment of outdoor recreation and her membership in Vineyard Christian Fellowship, and her – considerable – number of appearance on national television. But it says nothing about whatever education she has had; high school and college if any went unremarked. It says nothing about any sortof civic involvement outside the religious sphere, even a neighborhood volunteer effort. If she has a clearly-defined profession or occupation, she doesn’t mention it either - with one possibly peripheral exception. She refers to what sounds like, and may be, a job position as “national director” with a group called Generation Life. It seems an odd connection.
Generation Life describes itself as “a youth movement of students, activists, teachers, professionals, and artists committed to ending the horror of abortion, proclaiming the message of sexual purity to their peers, and ushering in Biblical revolution to the next generation. Its source, fuel and fire is the same as that of all creation - the one and only Triune God … God is calling Generation Life to confront pop culture, the media, public institutions, elected officials, and the entire ‘culture of death’ with the pro-life and chastity message.” That matches with the Ten Commandments all right, but where are the Brandi candidate messages on these topics? One other problem: The group’s web site lists four staff people in its Philadelphia staff, but no Brandi, and none in Idaho.
She is quoted in a number of the group’s news released expressing various opinions, however.
There was this, for example, after the death of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist: “As a member of the post Roe generation, I know what it is like to be open prey in my mother's womb.” That presumably suggests her memory at least must be extraordinary. And
a short biography at a site for the book “Don’t Miss Your Boat” says this: “Brandi Swindell is considered one the foremost leaders in the pro-life movement today as the co-founder and National Director of Generation Life. An active twenty-seven-year-old, she leads and organizes many pro-life projects across the nation, including successful demonstrations at the Salt Lake Olympics and the White House.” And this: “Brandi’s goal is to represent the ‘new face’ of pro-life America.” Not much about land use and police patrols or Idaho there, much to the surprise of people who wander on to her campaign web site.
The Popkey column was mainly not about any of this. Its central focus was another peculiarity, that of the state Republican Party breaking with long-standing practice and giving active, physical support to a candidate for a non-partisan position. Of course, Republicans and Democrats both have long been involved individually in races for offices for cities and courts, but the party structures themselves have stayed apart, a cry far from the state office help being provided by state Republican Chair Kirk Sullivan. It might make more sense if Swindell had a deep record of involvement and activism as a Republican, but she’s never been a candidate for office before, and never been a player in Idaho Republican politics (though presumably that’s changing now). Popkey’s comment: “I'm baffled Sullivan picked Swindell for this leap into non-partisan elections. Jim Tibbs might make sense, but not an extremist who opposes condom use and has zero experience with the collaborative skills it takes to make a city work.”
Popkey went on: “Image is everything. Good looks got her TV time on O'Reilly; she made headlines protesting condom handouts at the Salt Lake Olympics; her rap sheet includes protests over abortion, the Ten Commandments and stem-cell research.” He also made some comments about the glamour-style photos on
her web site (and yes, that is an accurate description of the style, as you can tell if you follow the link). Those lines triggered the criticism, as delighted conservatives piled on about Popkey’s sexism. That, of a sudden, has become the campaign issue in the Boise campaign: Vote for Brandi so you can sock it to the Statesman. It was terrific political jujitsu.
Doesn’t invalidate Popkey’s point, though. Image does go a long way in our modern culture, and that is why increasingly pretty faces are front news programs and public-visibility campaigns. If deep experience and involvement in these kind of social issues (in Boise at least) were the criteria for television interviews, Fischer would have been giving them.
But that would have given the game away. Can’t have that, at least not until Swindell is safely ensconced on the council – and the Idaho Republican Party is tightly tagged with whatever she says and does. And who will be the long-term gainers out of that?
public expenditures
The value push for thorough performance audits in Washington state could easily gain additional steam, and spread elsewhere, if specifically coupled to questionable spending by governments. It is on this side of the equation, rather than on the tax side alone, that anti-tax activists should be pushing. Most everyone would agree that governments should spend no more money than is needed to do a job that deemed necessary; apply proper scrutiny to one, and the other takes care of itself.
With that in mind, your tax dollars at work:
The Seattle Weekly reported in last week's (October 12-18) edition about Seattle's enforcement of its new strip club ordinance. The ordinance is intended to restrict activities in the clubs by, for example, reqauiring brighter lighting and a four-foot distance between dancers and customers, which means a ban on lap lancing.
The Weekly got hold of some of the law enforcement memos on investigation and enforcement procedures. One comments, "I would usually have two dances to see the subject was willing to do illegal acts for money." Another long-time detective noted, "I have participated in covert inspections for approximately five years and have bought over 300 dances." The Weekly estimated that works out to about $12,000.
Your taxpayer dollars at work.
Assessing Brame
The next job in the Dave Brame investigation and reconciliation is in the area of writing about it, comprehensively. Not so much for the lurid details – those are present, of course, and will make for one spectacular true crime book – but for the analysis, a really serious look at how this awful thing happened.
The awfulness of it, of course, extended beyond the two people, the perpetrator and victim – former police Chief David Brame, who shot to death first his wife in a shopping center parking lot, and then himself – and their families, through the whole larger community of Tacoma. In the months that followed the whole city was rattled, its leading mover and shaker (City Manager Ray Corpuz) resigned under a cloud, much of the ambitious progress of the last few years seeming to grind to a halt.
How, why, did all of it happen? Excepting David Brame, we’re not talking about really bad cases, but about failings in the system. That at least seems to be the core conclusion from Friday’s
massive information dump, 20,000 pages worth, that according to the Tacoma
News Tribune “outline scores of allegations against employees and include reams of legal analysis, much of it hinging on the subtlest nuances of city personnel policies.” The paper deserves kudos for pushing for public access to the records, which taken together appear to paid a richly detailed picture of a city and social setting for tragedy.
It is in thinking carefully about those details that solutions and better approaches may arise.
Offensive, already
Good Lord. If this is the inoffensive stuff, then James West’s chances of avoiding recall are far beyond the pale if the rest of his laptop computer records go public.
He and his lawyers probably didn’t realize exactly what he was giving up when he agreed to
the release of one CD’s worth of material form his city-owned computer. The laptop computer was supposed to be used in the main for city business, but West has acknowledged a great amount of personal stuff – some of it related to his personal life, looking for gay sex partners - is on it. His lawyers have even acknowledged some of that material is “highly offensive”; that is their main argument against its release. Anyone interested in Spokane’s city government could more easily conclude that this is why it should be released. And most likely, a court soon will order that it will be.
But what’s already out there, released by West, is bad enough: Subtle and nearly hidden java files containing records of sexual trolling on travels around the country, and much more. Even this limited release pumped new energy into the roar for West’s recall. The election has been set for December 6.
Quite a few Spokanites may sympathize with the statement by City Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers, a frequent critic of West who has called for his resignation:
"Anyone in most jobs who used their business computer for such conduct would be fired immediately ... I've had people from Chevron, Hollister-Stier and other places tell me they would have been fired in a heartbeat if they did this on their computers at work. No exceptions, no excuses, period."
West on Friday
issued his statement on why he should not be recalled, ending with: “True, I have made errors in my private life, I apologized for those errors, and I've asked forgiveness.”
As matters sit, the more likely response from Spokane voters will be, no exceptions, no excuses, period.
Perspective, finally
Of course it’s going back to court, to the Oregon Supreme Court, and the sooner they get to the work of doing their own evaluation of Measure 37, the better. Oregon should not be left hanging for long; there is no reason to hang this at the Court of Appeals. And it will exercise its own opinion; Oregon’s justices are not shy about reversing judges down below.
All the same, after Marion County Judge Mary James’ bombshell in
Hector MacPherson v. Department of Administrative Services – the Measure 37 constitutionality case – hit, the initial reaction seemed to be one of going back to the drawing board. Comment quotes in the Oregonian’s Saturday editions, and elsewhere, seemed to reflect a sense by Measure 37’s advocates that the measure most likely is doomed, and they will have to go back to work. In recap: Measure 37 allows property owners who contend the value of their property has been limited by land use rules imposed since its acquisition to require local governments either to waive the rules for their property, or to pay them for the loss in value. Hundreds of Measure 37 cases have gone forward in Oregon since the measure’s passage, by a big majority, last year.
Our take is that probably Measure 37 is doomed, that the Supreme Court likely will uphold. That is because James’s ruling was both broad, rejecting the measure’s advocates arguments on a range of important points, and central – suggesting that the Oregon (and even federal, in one case) constitution simply doesn’t allow for this sort of law. If she is right, the 2006 version of Measure 37 (which seems likely to materialize) will have to come at the subject from a whole different angle.
The whole decision (a copy is
available here) is worth reading and absorbing. In places, it makes points that should have been highlighted in last year’s campaign, and maybe will get more attention now. Here are two of the most significant:
Impact on neighbors. In opposing the constitutional challenge, the defenders of the measure said the plaintiffs had no standing for a challenge, because they could show no direct effect of the measure on them. This is critical: In the political battle over the measure, almost all the individual attention has gone to those who feel Measure 37 would help them realize the full value of their property.
But James said the plaintiffs do have standing and that they not only would be but are affected. One example (among many) she cited:
“David T. Adams, an individual plaintiff, owns property near property owned by a Measure 37 claimant, Charles Hoff. Hoff has received relief in the form of the non-application of Statewide Planning Goal 3 to his property and thus, permission to subdivide his property. Hoff has taken steps to subdivide his land, by clear-cutting and bulldozing the land, which sits at the top of the Wilson Creek Watershed in Clackamas County. The activity destroyed a wildlife corridor and adversely affects the watershed. Adams’ property will also be affected by a second claim, filed by an owner within one-half mile of Adams’ property. Both of these properties are outside of the Urban Growth Boundary. The amount and quality of water available to Adams will decrease with the addition of wells and septic systems on the Hoff property and, if permitted, on the other claimant’s property, since the City of West Linn will not provide services to any new subdivisions outside the Urban Growth Boundary and the water table is already overtaxed. Adams purchased his property in reliance on the fact that, because of zoning restrictions, no additional wells would be drilled. The roads, which are at over- overcapacity, will see increased traffic, causing disruption and delays, as well as increased noise, capacity, pollution, risk of accidents, and the potential that emergency services will be delayed. The educational system will be further strained, which will result in the shifting of tax monies from other programs to schools, or to increased taxes. If the second Measure 37 claimant receives compensation instead of non-application of the land use regulations, that money will be drawn from tax revenues paid by Adams that would otherwise be used to provide services that would benefit him (Adams March 7, 2005 Aff, and Depo, pp 19-21, 35-41).”
James piles on instance after instance like this, and at the end any argument that these people are not affected fails the ridiculous test. It also suggests, logically, that more people are likely to be negatively than positively affected in many important Measure 37 cases.
No leasing of power. One of the problems most central to Measure 37 is the idea that public policy can be carried out only if people who are impinged by it are paid off – or, alternative, that people who don’t like a law can simply insist it doesn’t apply to them unless they’re paid off. That sounds like an ugly construction, but it is exactly what Measure 37 contemplates – for some people, that is, though not for others (that being another important issue).
James notes that the power of government to legislate in the public “welfare, health and safety” is undisputed. She notes: “The question raised by Measure 37 is whether the legislature (or here, the people acting through the initiative process) may impose limits on the legislative body’s ability to use this power to regulate. There is no provision in the Oregon Constitution that would permit such a limitation, and the Supreme Court has noted that a legislative body may not limit or contract away its authority to exercise this power.” Then she puts a perfectly fine point on it:
“Measure 37 does not purport to restrict the power of government to enforce current land use regulations or the power of legislative bodies to enact new ones. There is no question that the land use regulations themselves are valid, and no claim that the regulations rise to the level of a taking, which would require compensation. Instead, Measure 37 requires the government to pay if it wants to enforce valid, previously enacted, land use regulations, i.e., it must pay to govern. This the legislative body cannot do, and the possibility that a later legislature could decide to repeal that condition on enforcement does not make it permissible. Such a limit on the power to regulate is a limit on the plenary power. If such a law were permissible, any party affected, in any way, by a regulation could seek to enact a law similar to Measure 37 that would require the entity that attempts to enforce the regulation to either pay the costs of complying with the regulation, or not to enforce the regulation. For example, by future regulation, public entities could be forced to choose between enforcing Department of Environmental Quality regulations or paying citizens whose cars do not meet emissions requirements for the cost to repair their cars, between enforcing school attendance policies and paying parents for the costs of clothing, food, and other privately borne costs associated with sending their children to school. These potential outcomes make clear that a government cannot be forced to choose between exercising its plenary power to regulate for public welfare, heath or safety, or paying private parties to comply with the law.”
This kind of perspective would have been of enormous value had it appeared a year ago – before the vote.
Gestures
The year’s big statewide effort by Idaho Property Tax Reform Inc. is, if nothing else, of a piece with the prevailing trend of so much of Idaho politics: Its proposal has to do almost entirely with yelling and flailing, and hardly a thing to do with problem solving.
And that is why it probably will generate enough petition signatures to win ballot status, and once there probably will pass, thereby creating a legislative junkyard ready for cleanup by the 2007 Idaho Legislature. Shrug. We’ve been there before.
This approach is so distinctly of modern Idaho politics not, however, because of its subject matter – property taxes – but because of its approach. The cause for action is entirely understandable. Property taxes have been rising, in part because of property values, in part because of exemptions and other considerations which have diminished business contributions to the property tax base, partly because of increasing local government budgets, notably in the school districts but also elsewhere. These conditions, and smaller factors (the cost of heavy growth in some areas, for example) all can be addressed by practical legislation, and probably should be. Yes, some people are being priced out of their homes; yes, something should be done about it.
And solutions could be had, even if not easily, though much in Idaho politics militates against. The recent history of the legislature’s
interim committee on property taxes shows as much; while some lawmakers on it tried to find answers and meet constituent concerns, they have run into brick walls, and the few proposals they have agreed on would bring only limited relief.
But why get into the intricacies of problem-solving – and it is intricate and unglamorous work – if roiling a storm of emotion is the extent of your real interest? Thus the IPTR initiative,
headed for petition sheets near you within days, and seeks in essence (the measure runs scores of pages) to cap property taxes around one percent – an idea tried and failed in years past. History says that even if passed it won’t work, but history is not alone. Attorney General Lawrence Wasden also maintains it is unconstitutional on a variety of grounds, and his case is solid. The signing of all of those petition sheets will not lower anyone’s property taxes, though it will probably make some of the signers feel good for having taken a swing of the sledgehammer.
Idahoans have been told for years, by almost everyone they elect, that government is the problem, not the solution – and implicitly, that anything governmental is inherently problematic and without solution. A working majority of Idahoans have internalized that proposition, likely enough to make the IPTR’s latest a political winner.
Won't test
It was an interesting idea, but it was doomed not to turn real.
The proposal by Southwest Airlines, joined later by Alaska Airlines, to shift Seattle operations from SeaTac to Boeing Field did its job, though, making the point that SeaTac is over-expensive and badly in need of management review. If you can pencil a rational case for building your own new airport as preferable to buying a slot in an existing one in the same area, then something is wrong at that airport. And from Southwest’s point of view, the case could be reasonably made.
That it won’t happen lies in the difficulty in making the case on the public level – the cost of roads, dealing with noise and traffic control and much more. That is where King County Executive Ron Sims, who entertained the idea for some weeks,
wound up rejecting it as too costly for taxpayers. (Nice timing in the campaign season for such a determination, don’t you think? Sims is no fool.)
But Southwest and Alaska probably knew all that from the beginning, and their easygoing response to Sims’ thumbs-down suggests they were expecting it. But they got what they wanted: Headlines spotlighting the situation at SeaTac.
Sides
The Boise city council contest seems low key and it may stay so, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t opposing forces, or active agendas. Some of them may be less than obvious – even unclear to the interested parties themselves.
Consider this September 20 online message from the Reverend Bryan Fischer to members and allies of the conservative/religious Keep the Commandments Coalition: “As I mentioned last week, the KCC intends to produce voter information literature that will give Boise citizens the information they need to make an informed choice on November 8. We hope to distribute this literature door to door in key areas of Boise, and to mail the literature to everyone who signed our Ten Commandments petition … Together, I believe we have the capacity to see that councilmen who represent our views are placed in office.” And you thought the point of the petition was the long-shot effort to recall Mayor David Bieter?
Then this: “We are confident that we will soon be able to inform you of a candidate who will provide a clear alternative to Ms. [Maryanne] Jordan.” Jordan was one of the incumbents in the middle of the Ten Commandments battle. A few days later, a candidate did step forward: Brandi Swindell, another co-director along with Fischer of the Keep the Commandments Coalition. Her newly-filed campaign finance fits the emerging pattern. All of her $851 of itemized contributions are from one person, Glen Liberty, who is also her campaign treasurer; Fischer describes him to fellow religious activists as “Our resident mapmeister.”
Fischer also writes approvingly of another council challenger, Jim Tibbs, a retired police officer challenging Council incumbent Jerome Mapp: He “has made his position clear.” Tibbs, however, appears to have a broad based campaign; he’s been in the race longer than Swindell but his $17,859 raised so far still looks impressive. More significant, he has collected contributions from all over the political spectrum, even from former Democratic and Republican legislators. So where exactly will he come down on some of the more controversial issues? For the moment, for many, he seems a blank slate. Mark Seeley, who’s opposing Council member Vern Bisterfeldt, seems even more so.
The contest is open for definition.
Up and down at the same time
One of the best step-back-and-consider-the-strangeness regional pieces of recent months is the overview of the Portland economy in the current
Willamette Week, which considers the prevailing oddities and resolves some of them.
Portland’s unemployment is up; but so are jobs. A wide range of businesses talk about downturns and outsourcing, but real estate has been roaring and storefronts certainly aren’t emptying. It’s a city with many signs of prosperity alongside many signs of serious trouble.
Not all of this is settled in the article. A focus in the middle on workers who commute to places like San Jose while living in Portland in off-hours can’t possibly account for more than a sliver of what’s going on (interesting development though it is).
One piece of political fallout from all of this, though, suggests why the piece is worth a close read:
“All over America, people are sorting themselves into ever more ideologically and socially homogeneous communities. ‘It's getting easier and easier to closet yourself with people who are more like you than ever before,’ says [Portland State University urban studies researcher Ethan] Seltzer. ‘And that's kind of spooky.’
“The process is at work here. The only meaningful divides inside city limits are between moderate Democrats, liberal Democrats and people who think Democrats are fascists. It's getting harder for people without college degrees-and the higher incomes they typically bring-to afford living here. The number of kids in public schools is plummeting. Will we become a childless adult Disneyland of left-wing pod-people? The many Oregonians, inside the city and out, who already consider Portland a people's republic would not be surprised.”
Another piece of the puzzle.
