Washblog

From Unite4Justice:

"Our state legislature is considering a gang bill,  HB 2712, that could be devastating to communities of color, especially youth of color, if it passes. In this 3-part video, Priest Amen of POCAAN and James Bible of the NAACP summarize the bill and their objections to it. Please consider lending your support by opposing this bill. Here are action steps we urge you to take:

1. Send out email encouraging your people to watch this video and learn about HB 2712.
2. Call the WA State Legislative Hotline 800-562-6000 to voice your opposition to HB 2712, the gang bill.
3. Please come to the Public Hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 3:30 in Olympia at the Capital Building. A strong turnout is very important - voices concerned about racial profiling and the over-incarceration of people of color need to be heard. Going to the Public Hearing from Seattle? Join our Caravan, leaving Starbucks at 23rd and Jackson at 12 noon."

Major victory today!  At least for people who want reduce the influence of special interest money in political campaigns. It's one that Washington Public Campaigns has been fighting for these past 2 years.

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Photo: Governor Gregoire meets with South King County supporters at  the Federal Way Senior Center, 1/30/08. Photo by William Taylor.

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See the DailyKos diary here: Yes Washington Can.

Good for her, endorsing Barack Obama. Good for us! And I'm appreciating how she's been reaching out to the public.

 

Today we drove to Naselle for the Democratic Caucus for our three Pacific County communities of Naselle, Nemah and Bay Center. I had been keeping quiet about the caucuses after Lietta indicated earlier in the week that she'd be interested in going.

I thought that I had better things to do with my time and as one who had unofficially renounced membership in the party, I didn't want to go.

But Lietta did and since the flyer said folks could come as observers I went with her.

With the race heading to this states caucuses next Sat. at a tie, Washington State is an important state and here come the candidates.

On January 25 the Washington State House passed EHB 1551, a bill to allow local governments to enact public financing of local elections. The bill now moves to the Senate.

This bill is a step forward in removing the corrupting influence of money on lawmakers. View it as an experiment. If public financing works locally, it can be enacted state-wide and eventually nationwide.

Like all issues, there are some complexities.

Rob Holland Chairs the 37th District Democrats, located in Southeast and Central Seattle and parts of Renton and Tukwila. The 37th has among the highest concentrations of Democratic voters in the state. And it's also considered a target for GOP vote suppression. So get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts here are key to electing Democrats statewide. Rob has built on the work of previous Chair Gwen Wrench in bringing new members and energy to the district organization. His approach is informed by a professional background in strategic marketing, wide involvement in community organizations, and a belief in the importance of local relationship building. It's paying off with a growing and more active membership. Last October, he received the prestigious Warren G. Magnuson Rising Star award from the state Democratic Party for his work in the 37th.

There's a certain historical poetry to Rob's political presence here. His great uncle Sam Smith was a 5-term state Representative in the 37th who then went on to be the first African American Seattle City Councilmember.

Local democratic organizations like the 37th offer grassroots counterbalance to corporate interests that fund elections and demand their just due. While the party mainstream pulls to the right, the members of these local organizations provide political pressure at the other end of the spectrum, demanding that the party and elected officials remain true to Democratic values. The progressivism in the Democratic party platform is no mystery. Members of these local organizations write them. Strong district organizations have more power to bring forward candidates who represent progressive values, to get them elected, and to hold them accountable. Leadership like Rob's is politically empowering for local communities and for the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.

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Above, Rob Holland (foreground) talks with  37th District member. Washington State Democratic Party Chair, Dwight Pelz is in the background. Photos in this story were taken at 37th District Democrats holiday party. Click on images for larger size or here for slideshow.

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"I didn't talk to my dad for 8 years.  And I just started talking to him last year.  And then he moved." (Anthony Scott, 11 years old, testifying on 1/24/08 before the Washington State House Committee on Human Services in favor of HB 2688.)

"We have an over-crowding situation in our prisons here in Washington State as well as around the country ... not because of the absence of a vigorous transfer program (but) because we hyper-criminalize certain types of behavior. Most notably, we over-criminalize punishment for drugs.... Right now, there are commercial entities that build prisons on "spec", speculating that there will be enough demand with the current drug policies to make these prisons profitable. What I'm saying to you is that this prisoner transfer program literally reduces incarcerated people, well-behaved incarcerated people, to units of barter, units of money. It's a commercial enterprise." (Le Roi Brashears, Washington Association of Churches Religious Coalition for the Common Good, testifying on 1/24/08 before the Washington State House Committee on Human Services in favor of HB 2688).

The use of prison in Washington was quite stable from 1930 to 1980.  On any given day during this 50-year period, roughly two persons were incarcerated in a state prison out of every 1,000 people in Washington between the ages of 18 and 49.2... Today, Washington's prison incarceration rate stands at about 6 adults incarcerated per 1,000 -- nearly three times the rate 30 years ago. Assuming no changes to existing laws or additional laws, the CFC currently sees incarceration rates growing roughly another 10 percent by 2019. (Options to Stabilize Prison Populations in Washington, WA State Institute for Public Policy, 2006.)

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Photo above: Nicole Brummitt and Anthony Scott outside the John L. O'Brien building in the state capital after testifying before the Washington State House Committee on Human Services in favor of HB 2688, Constraining the department of corrections' authority to transfer offenders out of state.

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I've never before seen a bill that had more sponsors than it needed votes to pass into law.  But that's the case with both the House and Senate versions of "Enacting the local farms-healthy kids and communities act" (SB 6483 and HB 2798.) In a recent Seattle Times article Representative Pettigrew, the prime sponsor in the House, was quoted as commenting on the lack of opposition: "very scary".

This legislation is the kind of win-win economic stimulus proposal that I had hoped to see on the national level in response to recent economic woes.  Approximately $4 million in 2007-09 and then $5 to $7 million each for the next two biennia would be invested in facilitating the purchase of Washington-grown food by state schools, agencies and institutions of higher education. Benefits listed in the bill: children's health and school performance; stewardship of working agricultural lands; direct and spin-off jobs in farming, processing, tourism, and support industries; energy conservation; greenhouse gas reductions; increased food security. There is also the matter of the "local multiplier effect". According to findings from the recent Local Food Economy Study by Sustainable Seattle, "locally directed spending by consumers more than doubles the number of dollars circulating among businesses in the community.  This means that a shift of 20% of our food dollars into locally directed spending would result in a nearly half billion dollar annual income increase in King County alone and twice that in the Central Puget Sound region."

This subject gets ink on many blog sites often down in the comments and frequently dealing with a single issue regarding policy or the candidates themselves. I make no bones about who I am supporting and some may say I should stay focused on the caucuses and presidential politics. Over on HorsesAss, I got into a bit of a scuffle with a fellow who has been chomping on the Governors butt for a few years now and then the debate turned interesting.

As I say below, this job is not about who can sell the most old cars. Nope, there is more to it than that.

There's an important bill (HB 1750) in the WA State House to adopt the interstate agreement for the election of the president of the United States by national popular vote:

apps.leg.wa.gov...

Earlier this week, the Port of Seattle released a comprehensive Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory for SeaTac Airport for 2006.  The report is dated October, 2007.

A press release issued this Monday by Christopher Cain of Port Observer stated that "The report shows that at least 22% of total GHG emissions for all of King County come from a single source, SeaTac airport." On Tuesday, Debi Wagner, a citizen expert on aviation emissions, responded to the release of the inventory with a presentation to the Port Commissioners: The ABC's of Solving Airport Congestion.

Very few airports, nationally, have conducted inventories of greehouse gas emissions for their operations, and the methodologies for quantifying releases from airports are in their infancy. This report makes Seattle a leader in developing and applying these methodologies -- and in establishing a benchmark that can be used for action to reduce emissions. It is an important step. The report also offers comprehensive background on the history and methodologies of the measurement of airport greenhouse emissions in the United States.

Senator Keiser opened yesterday's Health & Long-Term Care committee session with the observation that it was a "big day". This was the start of hearings considering, for the first time in many years, major structural reform of the state's health care system. Four Senate bills were under discussion, representing what I understood as 4 of the 5 major proposals now being considered. My husband and I signed in as supporting the most comprehensive of the four, Senator Keiser's and Kohl-Welles' Washington Health Partnership bill. See below the fold for more information on these five proposals.

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UPCOMING

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1. WA Senate Healthcare Reform Web Dialogue, 1/22 and 1/23: http://www.webdialogue.net/wasen/healthcare. This page links to comprehensive info on health care reform in WA.
2. Annual public meeting, Physicians for a National Health Program, Western WA: Effects of Uninsurance on our Communities (Sunday, February 10, 7pm, Kane Hall, University of Washington, free admission.) PNHP advocates for a single-payer national healthcare system and moving toward a national universal health care coverage with a state-by-state approach.

WA Rep Maralyn Chase,(D) Shoreline, Washington has written a bill to impeach for the Washington State House.

Hearing before the WA State Senate Committee for SJM 8016 is scheduled for tomorrow, Jan. 17th, 3:30 p.m., in Rm. 2, The Cherberg Bldg. on the State Capital Campus, Olympia.

Read more about how you can participate here.

Btw David Postman at Seattle Times has a brief article: Sen. Eric Oemig, D-Kirkland, introduced Senate Joint Memorial 8016 on Jan 14, 2008 (two days ago).

  Oh, and U.S. Rep Robert Wexler(D) FLA, yesterday, as a Member of the Judiciary Committee, is asking to immediately began impeachment hearings - read more here.

The story below the fold is a guest post from Al-Kareem Shadeed, who is serving Life without Parole under Washington's 3-Strikes law for two robberies and an attempted robbery that he committed in his teens and early 20s. Al-Kareem's offenses were serious but they were not, by any stretch of the imagination, "worst of the worst" crimes. They involved no weapons and no injuries. Using his own description of his third Strike, I think I'm safe in characterizing them as attempts to "bully" strangers on the street into giving him money to feed his drug and alcohol addiction. Al-Kareem, as a drug-addicted teen, needed treatment and help that he did not get. Both he and the people he victimized would be better off today if he had received that help. We all would. It is a crime that he is imprisoned for life for these low-level offenses.