Washblog

Washington's not the only state in the sights of the radical right this year.  ALG's very busy nationwide with its well-funded national agenda.  Here's a complaint from the Oklahoma Education Association that ALG gave $350,000 "to drastically reduce Oklahoma's state government."    Here's a complaint by American Library Association that ALG is working to restrict government spending " in ways that have proved damaging to library and other public services".

Americans for Limited Government: Affiiliations
Who funds these guys?  Gosh!  Well, I can't find it in a hour of searching on the Internet.   Here's what I've tried:

• Federal Election Commission doesn't list em, not that I can find, anyway.
• Washington's Public Disclosure Commission lists the $50,000 donation, but the link on ALG's name doesn't open for me.
• IRS lists them, but gives no information besides their town, no tax exempt code, nothing.
• Sourcewatch,   Public Citizen, and  Open Secrets don't list them.  Neither does Wikipedia.  Neither does the Better Business Bureau that serves their area.
• Essential Okie says they're affiliated with Americans for Tax Reform.
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, tells us this group shares the same policy goals as Cato Institute and Americans for Tax Reform.

Pretty darn shadowy for a group that declares no hidden agenda.   Well, we know where the funding for their friends, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) comes from, Norquist & Co.  ATR apparently was a conduit for laundering Preston Gates funds in the illegal Abramoff Native American scheme .  The ATR offices were the weekly meeting place for Tom DeLay's K Street Project. Cozy.  

Why is Washington State Farm Bureau (WSFB) teaming up with these shadowy radical groups that are reaching out from the national - and transnational - level to interfere in our state's laws?   Why is a farm group supporting the very thing that's making our farmland disappear?  And why are the farmers not up in arms over this?  

First, it's worth noting that some Washington farmers are publicly opposing I-933.   This PI article quotes one of them (and also uncritically repeats the Farm Bureau's misrepresentation  on non-farmer Bruce Ritter.)

Second, it's worth noting that individual Washington farmers have personal reasons to support this initiative.  They see other property owners around them getting rich from development but they are prohibited from developing their own. That wouldn't be a problem if farming hadn't lost so much of its profitability. While production costs for farming have been rising, the farmers' share of the "food dollar" has been ever-shrinking.  Here,  here, and here are estimates of just how much this dollar share has diminished.

It's understandable that many people who own farmland would want to sell out to developers. I-933 would help these individuals and if it passes and they get their money, I wish them well. But the results for the public will be heartbreaking. Unless Washington can pay many millions of dollars to protect private properties - land all around the state in urban as well as rural areas will get littered with inappropriate development.   Wetlands and streams on private property will lose their protections.  It'll be a land gang-rape.   There are better -- and less expensive -- ways to help farmers. WSFB support for this monstrosity is a betrayal of American farming and of the public good.

Mr. Dan Wood Strikes Twice
I-933 is not the first Developer's Loophole Initiative in Washington State. Dan Wood, Director of Government Relations for WSFB and I-933's sponsor, was also the sponsor in 1995 for I-164, a very similar initiative.

Mr. Wood, according to old press accounts, is a former miniature-golf manager. Somehow, by the early 1990s, he found his way into the position of Executive Director and lobbyist for The Umbrella Group, an anti-environment Wise Use organization funded by WSFB, the Building Industry Association of Washington State, the Hecla Mining Company, Washington Contract Loggers Association, and the Atlantic Richfield Company.

I-164 was a little different from our current initiative.   It was filed because an earlier attempt to get enough signatures for an initiative to the people failed.   So Wood and his Wise Use cronies raised over $250,000 to bring an initiative to the legislature.  It worked.  I-164 passed. But the voters, bless their hearts, armed with information that I-164 could cost them over $1 billion,  came back and repealed I-164 through Referendum 48.
Reference: Combating Developer-Led Attacks on Smart Growth and Environmental Protection... Lessons From Oregon, Arizona and Washington, Community Rights Counsel.

What a history!  The voters reject it.   The right-wing funders pay legislators to pass it.  The voters overturn it again.  Then, 10 years later, the same guy, Dan Wood, comes back with funding by out-of-state radical right wingers and files it again. Gosh, this sounds like the stadium business.

Evidently, Washington State's Farm Bureau has been taken over by forces inimical to the interests of its members.  This time, the BIAW and the other developer and mining interests have not joined in as backers of the Developer's Loophole Initiative.  Polling has shown them that they'll lose if voters really know who is behind their plans.

Fooling the voters

If I-933 passes, it's going to be hard times for Washington's communities, farms, and environment.   In Oregon, where the very similar Measure 37 recently passed, over 3,000 claims against State and Local jurisdictions have been filed - affecting 65,000 acres.  Here's what 1,000 Friends of Oregon says just about one county:

"By May 2005, only five months after the passage of Measure 37, the steadily growing mass of claims in Yamhill County topped the 10,000 acre mark.  Totaling more than 16 square miles, about 75% of the affected land is zoned for farm or forest use, and most is prime farmland.  That's more land than the county - the heart of state's internationally known wine industry - has lost to development in several decades."

It seems to me that defeat of I-933 has got to be a priority for us here in Washington. This is a nationally-coordinated attack on the government of Washington State by the reckless Right. What do you think, dear hearts?