Offering daily news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Wednesday, August 24th, 2016

Angle Lake Link will open to the public on Saturday, September 24th, 2016

Sound Transit’s newest Link light rail extension will open on Saturday, September 24th, just thirty-one days from now, CEO Peter Rogoff and Board Chair Dow Constantine announced at a press conference this morning.

“Opening the Angle Lake Station marks another milestone in building a vibrant, regional light rail system,” said Constantine. “Trains running every six minutes will give thousands of riders fast, reliable service to jobs, schools, and Huskies, Seahawks, Sounders and Mariners games.”

The Angle Lake Station is located at South 200th Street and 28th Avenue, a little more than one and a half miles south of the SeaTac/Airport Station. It is an elevated station, gracefully looming above the intersection. From the station platform, riders will be treated to excellent views of Mount Rainier on clear days.

Angle Lake Station from South 200th Street

Sound Transit’s Angle Lake Link Light Rail Station as seen from South 200th Street (Photo: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

What’s particularly notable about the station is that it has been designed as a park and ride, with a massive 1,050 stall parking garage and an additional seventy spaces in a surface lot. There’s also dedicated space for vanpools to park and bicycle lockers for bicyclists, plus a passenger pickup and dropoff area.

The SeaTac/Airport Station, which has been the southern terminus of the line since December of 2009, when Airport Link opened, does not have the capacity for vans, cars, or bikes that Angle Lake will offer. It will be interesting to see if Sound Transit’s critics will give it any credit for having accelerated development and construction of a new southern terminus for Link that has ample parking and bicycle storage.

For people living in the area, the Angle Lake Station will provide a convenient connection to many destinations: Safeco Field, CenturyLink Field, Husky Stadium, the UW Medical Center, Westlake Center, the International District, Columbia City, bars and nightclubs on Capitol Hill, and countless other places within walking distance of the other stations served by Central Link.

Anticipated travel times, courtesy of Sound Transit:

  • To SeaTac Airport: Four minutes
  • To Westlake Center: Forty-one minutes
  • To UW Station at Husky Stadium: Forty-eight minutes

By 2018, the station is forecast to have 5,400 boardings every weekday.

The artwork at the station is fabulous. The theme for the art is elements in motion, and one of the centerpieces is Laura Haddad’s “Cloud”.

“The sculpture, installed on the elevated platform straddling South 200th Street, consists of 6,000 hanging disks that change appearance in response to fluctuations in light, weather, or at the approach of a train,” noted Sound Transit’s press team in a news release sent to NPI and other media outlets.

Angle Lake Link cost $383 million to build. The project, part of the Sound Transit 2 package approved in 2008, is $40 million under budget and scheduled to open four years earlier than planned — a remarkable accomplishment, aided by federal funding secured by Washington’s senior United States Senator, Patty Murray.

(Those with long memories will recall that a light rail station in this area was promised as part of the Sound Move plan in 1996. That original plan had to scrapped because it was unrealistic. However, Sound Transit has most certainly kept its promise to get the station built as part of ST2.)

Sound Transit’s recent track record (no pun intended) shows it is capable of delivering high quality transit expansion projects on time or ahead of schedule and under budget. The agency is giving voters the opportunity this autumn to choose whether to expand Link further north, south, and east with Sound Transit 3, an ambitious package that would also add more express bus and commuter rail service. NPI strongly supports Sound Transit 3 and urges a “yes” vote.

We’ve published a number of high quality snaps showing today’s press event and the new station to NPI’s In Brief. Take a look and enjoy the pictures.

After Angle Lake Link opens, it will many years before we are able to celebrate another light rail station opening, as U District, Roosevelt, and Northgate aren’t due to be completed until 2021. So, railfans, be sure to show up to enjoy the festivities as new light rail service comes online next month!

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 2:24 PM | Leave a comment | Email to a friend
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2016

Hey Link riders: Cellular service is rolling out to Sound Transit’s underground facilities

Tired of losing cellular service when you descend into an underground Link light rail station? Then rejoice, for Sound Transit has announced that customers on all four of America’s major wireless providers (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile) will soon be able to get a signal in its underground facilities, which include the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, Beacon Hill tunnel, and University Link tunnels.

Said the agency in a news release:

Sound Transit has partnered with wireless infrastructure provider Mobilitie to design and install a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) network that will allow transit riders to use their cell phones while traveling underground. The DAS network, which has been under construction since earlier this year, is beginning a phased rollout this week. By late September, the Mobilitie network will provide wireless cellphone coverage to the tunnel between University of Washington and Westlake in Downtown Seattle, followed later this fall to the tunnels in Downtown Seattle and to Beacon Hill in 2017.

T-Mobile customers will be the first to get service in the U-Link tunnels (starting this week), followed by customers of Verizon and AT&T in September. Sprint will follow along sometime after that, Sound Transit says.

Because the DAS network installed by Mobiltie is so new, connectivity ought to be decent, though it remains to be seen how the network holds up when there’s a lot of demand. The company’s “high-density wireless infrastructure is designed to enable rich, interactive mobile experiences, including real-time video streaming, 5G, and other mobile applications,” Sound Transit says.

That suggests that riders who want to watch YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, or other video sites on their smartphone, tablet, or notebook will be able to do so.

Public Wi-Fi is currently available at the DSTT’s four stations (International District, Pioneer Square, University District, Westlake) but cellular service is spotty or nonexistent in the transit tunnels, hampering riders’ ability to make plans with friends and family, or simply get some work done.

That’s all about to change now.

The availability of cellular service in the tunnels will also mean that phone conversations can be held underground. Hopefully, Sound Transit will double down on posting riding etiquette reminders to encourage riders to refrain from having loud phone conversations on trains, buses, and station platforms.

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 3:50 PM | Leave a comment | Email to a friend
Monday, August 22nd, 2016

Why say NO to I-732? It’s about justice — environmental and social justice

Editor’s Note: The team at NPI is pleased to welcome Robin Barnes to the Cascadia Advocate. Robin holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She currently works on international non-profit projects that promote gender equity, human development, and environmental justice. In this special guest post, she explains why voters should reject CarbonWA’s I-732.

The warming effects of Earth’s atmosphere were first discovered in the year 1820 by Joseph Fourier. It was well understood and quantified by Svante Arrhenious at the turn of the twentieth century. It is scientifically well established that our planet has a fever, and there is no dispute about its cause. Our world’s climate has been damaged by burning fossil fuels on a massive scale, which has significantly increased the amount of pollution in our atmosphere. To address this environmental crisis, we need to change our behavior — and we know this.

While the science is indisputable, humanity can’t seem to agree on solutions to protect ourselves and the Earth, the only inhabitable planet we’ve got.

Proponents of Initiative 732, which will appear on Washington State’s November ballot, say Washington’s response to the crisis should be to start levying a carbon tax on emissions of air pollutants like carbon dioxide and methane — and use the revenue from that tax to lower other regressive taxes.

But this approach is fatally flawed. Here’s why.

Let’s begin by establishing the following root principle: A carbon tax, by itself, does not curb consumption of fossil fuels, the main driver of air pollution. People changing their behavior to avoid paying the tax is what lowers emissions. A carbon tax can reduce emissions if and only if it will tax people who are able to mitigate their consumption of fossil fuels, thereby avoiding the tax.

If the purpose of a carbon tax is to lower emissions, imposing it on people or entities who lack the means to aggressively reduce their emissions is simply ineffective. Imposing this tax on people who are not in an economic position to lower their carbon consumption is misdirected and unjust.

Corollary: If a carbon tax actually lowers emissions, it will lower its own revenue generating power as well. A carbon tax that effectively lowers emissions will minimize or eliminate itself by design – if emissions fall, so does revenue. As people avoid paying the tax, the revenue from the carbon tax diminishes. That is, unless the tax is set to be revenue neutral. If it succeeds in lowering carbon emissions, we will have to continuously raise the carbon tax rate to make up for revenue loss.

What does I-732 do?

  • It significantly lowers the Business and Occupation (B&O) Tax, and replaces it with a carbon tax of $25 per ton minimum, increasing up to $100 per ton max in four years to maintain revenue neutrality;
  • It lowers the retail sales tax by 1%;
  • It funds the Working Families Rebate (an attempt to create a state-level earned income tax credit) so qualifying families see their obligations reduced. This is $1500 per family annually for up to 400,000 families.

Proponents of I-732 are marketing the initiative as a highly progressive change to our tax code, primarily because it funds the Working Families Tax Rebate and gives earned income credit to qualifying low income families. This is a nice feature, but what does this tax swap do to families that cannot qualify for earned income credit?

I-732 redistributes B&O tax obligations to all Washington State residents by imposing a carbon tax. Shifting tax obligations from businesses and transferring them to low and middle income families is not a progressive tax maneuver. It is true that businesses will pay a carbon tax, as well, but that is also a regressive choice.

Businesses and citizens who have the means to aggressively able to lower their carbon emissions are the ones who will pay the least tax.

Who are those people? They are the wealthy who can afford to solarize, replace their windows, insulate their walls, and buy efficient appliances and electric cars. Those who cannot choose to make these changes are trapped paying an ever-increasing tax. And they continue to pay that tax, even though they cannot contribute to lowering emissions in a significant way.

There is nothing in I-732 that helps low and middle income families improve their energy efficiency or decrease their dependence on fossil fuels.

What’s more, Washington State’s “big polluters” are mostly energy sector companies. What does it mean to impose a carbon tax on a company that runs on, or sells, fossil fuels? We know that sometimes, big corporations make empty threats about passing costs onto their customers. But I-732’s own proponents have acknowledged that Washington families will be directly impacted.

What does I-732 look like from a 20,000 foot view? Well, after two years of phasing in, it starts at $25 per ton and can grow to $100 per ton. As acknowledged by proponents, this is 25 cents per gallon at the pump that can grow to $1 per gallon, plus the relevant taxes on utilities. Details about the tax rate vary from household to household, depending on the fuel mix that it uses.

CarbonWA claims that at around 25 cents per ton, electricity will be taxed around 1 cent per kwh, and natural gas at around 13 cents per therm.

That is a modest 8% to 10% increase at my house. When the rate increases by a factor of four, though, it’s blistering. And because it is tied to non-discretionary public sector budgets, it will never go away.

CarbonWA claims that a 1% sales tax decrease will offset this tax for most families. That might be true for wealthy households that have a lot of discretionary income. Low and middle income households spend much more money on food, transportation, housing, and utilities as a percentage of their budget – all expenses that are not subject to sales tax. The corresponding decrease in the sales tax wouldn’t amount to much more than a hundred bucks a year.

A family of four in Woodinville that makes $50,000 to $60,000 per year can deduct $813 in state sales tax on their federal income tax return. The 1% state sales tax reduction for this taxpayer amounts to about $125 annually. CarbonWA tells us that this offsets this family’s carbon tax expenditures.

Suppose that this is true for the average household at the introductory rate. If the initiative expects to lower emissions of CO2, methane, and other air pollutants at all, that rate will have to increase sharply. At a rate of $100 per ton, that offset is not even close. And consider that I-732 pays up to $1,500 per year into the Working Families Tax Rebate to offset the carbon tax for one low income household.

This raises the question: is I-732 actually about lowering emissions? Can we expect carbon emissions to drop and painlessly maintain revenue neutrality over time? Who is it painless for? Or is the goal of the initiative to replace a statewide production tax with a consumption tax?

Proponents of I-732 like to point to British Columbia’s experience, citing our northern neighbor as a role model. But as Jens Wieting of the Sierra Club of B.C. pointed out in a post for The Huffington Post last year, the province is no climate action leader. It has a carbon tax, but its emissions are going up, not down!

If you live in British Columbia you might think that our province is a climate champion, because you heard it from our government.

Last month, for example, the provincial government sent out a bold press release touting B.C. as a world leader in climate action. The release highlighted B.C.’s carbon tax and the accomplishment of “meeting our 2012 GHG reduction target.”

However, just a few days later, the Canadian government released its latest greenhouse gas emissions data showing that B.C.’s emissions actually increased by 2.4 per cent in 2013 (to 63 million tons of greenhouse gases, from 61.5 in 2012. This is a big deal, because the threat of global warming has reached a point at which we cannot afford our annual emissions to continue to increase.

What about environmental and social justice? Many people get by on fixed or limited incomes. They are not in a position to lower their emissions much.

Geographically speaking, Central and Eastern Washingtonians could be more affected by I-732 than their fellow citizens on the western side of the Cascades because their climate features more extreme temperatures (colder winters mean higher heating bills, hotter summers necessitate air conditioning for comfort) and their transportation expenses can be higher due to living further away from places of business like the grocery store or doctor’s office.

If the revenue from I-732 were going to investments that would speed our transition to a clean energy economy, that’d be one thing.

But that’s not the case. Proponents of I-732 deliberately created a proposal that wouldn’t result in any funding for environmentally friendly infrastructure, whether that be light rail, weatherized schools, or anything else.

Walk through a neighborhood in any city, and start making a mental inventory of the infrastructure changes that need to take place in order to substantially reduce the air pollution that is damaging our climate. It is daunting – especially in neighborhoods where low and middle income people live. Upgrading the infrastructure is often cost prohibitive.

What would an environmentally just pollution tax look like? Ideally, it would be tied to projects that lower pollution. It would tax only people and entities that have the means to lower their emissions in a meaningful way. It would be able to manage a reduction in revenue (as carbon dioxide and methane emissions fell) without having to raise rates to maintain revenue neutrality.

We do need to put a price on pollution. But the revenue we raise should go to priorities like solarizing neighborhoods, making renewable energy more accessible to low and middle income families, providing zero emissions infrastructure to city governments, and so forth. If we institute a pollution tax, then we have to make sure the people paying the tax can reduce their dependence on fossil fuels, or that the projects we embark upon enable them to do so.

I-732 does none of these things. It proposes to change the tax code in a vastly complicated way – and one that benefits wealthier people and wealthier businesses over time. It taxes people who are not in a position to change their emissions, and that will do nothing to address our pollution problem.

To recap:

  • I-732 is a regressive tax shift from businesses to families and individuals. Wealthier families will be in a position to avoid the tax, while middle and low income families will not. They’ll be trapped, because I-732 doesn’t put the revenue it raises to work for the public goods needed to allow us to lower our emissions on a massive scale, nor will its offsets be enough to allow most Washingtonians to lighten their environmental footprint on their own.
  • There is no reason to believe that I-732 will reduce emissions significantly over time. Because its leverage is exerted on people who do not have the means to change their behavior, there is a hard limit to its effect.

We can put a price on pollution in a way that is both fair and effective at lowering emissions. To do that, though, we must first vote NO on I-732 this November.

# Permalink :: Posted by Robin Barnes: 12:10 PM | Comments (4) | Email to a friend
Friday, August 19th, 2016

Three of Tim Eyman’s wealthiest benefactors are hosting a fundraiser for Donald Trump

Faye Garneau, one of Seattle’s richest denizens and a major donor to disgraced initiative profiteer Tim Eyman, says she’s planning on participating in a fundraiser for Donald Trump in Seattle, even though the mogul is running an un-American presidential campaign and tanking in the polls.

“He’s honest, he’s talking bluntly. He’s not really a true politician in some respects,” Garneau told The Seattle Times’ Jim Brunner.

Garneau must be living in some alternate universe if she actually believes that. Donald Trump is perhaps the most dishonest person ever to be nominated by a major party for the office of President of the United States. Trump lies with impunity; much of what he says is rated False by independent fact checkers.

Only last week Trump doubled down on his assertion that President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton “founded ISIS” — an utterly preposterous fabrication.

But perhaps Garneau is attracted to con men. After all, she’s supported Tim Eyman and given him money for years, and there’s arguably none better in this state at parting rich fools from their money than Eyman. Eyman has been enriching himself at the expense of his donors for years. It is now a proven fact that Eyman has been double-dipping on his campaigns — paying himself a salary and accepting kickbacks from his buddies Roy Ruffno and Eddie Agazarm, who run his signature drives.

Most of the other hosts of the fundraiser also have an association with Eyman:

[Garneau] joins several previously named Trump hosts, including billionaire money manager Ken Fisher and real-estate developer Clyde Holland, both big GOP donors from the Vancouver area. The location of the fundraiser has not been disclosed.

Hosts also include state Republican Party Chairman Susan Hutchison, Clyde Hill developer Hossein Khorram and Brina Sanft, volunteer chair for Trump’s campaign in King County.

State Sens. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, and Brian Dansel, R-Republic, who have been working as paid staff for the Trump campaign, also are hosts.

The extremely wealthy Fisher and Holland were the two men who put up most of the money for Eyman’s hostage-taking I-1366 in 2015.

I-1366 would have wiped out $8 billion in funding for public services over six years unless the Legislature had agreed to sabotage Washington’s cherished tradition of legislative majority rule. I-1366 was unanimously declared unconstitutional by the Washington State Supreme Court in May.

Benton and Ericksen are among Eyman’s chief pals in the Senate. (Eyman is also very close to Pam Roach, R-31st District). Benton carries Eyman’s water in committee hearings and on the Senate floor, and can be seen conversing with Eyman on the Capitol Campus during session.

Ericksen often appears at Eyman press conferences to watch from doorways, and subs for Eyman on the campaign trail when Eyman doesn’t want to be the face of his own initiative campaign, or when Eyman isn’t available. In debates, he’s been known to fiercely defend the giant oil companies that operate in his district, like BP.

Ericksen, along with Spokane County’s Michael Baumgartner, helped engineer an endorsement of I-1366 by the Washington State Republican Party last year.

WSRP Chair Susan Hutchison, who seven years ago ran for King County Executive and publicly came out against Eyman’s 2009 initiative, has hitched her wagon to Trump, repeatedly insisting that The Donald will make Washington State competitive in November, a fantasy that nobody else seems to share — not even the party’s gubernatorial candidate Bill Bryant, who had been trying for months not to antagonize Trump supporters, but now says he won’t vote for Trump.

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 12:24 PM | Leave a comment | Email to a friend
Wednesday, August 17th, 2016

Poll Watch: Latest survey by Stuart Elway finds CarbonWA’s I-732 is in huge trouble

CarbonWA’s poorly conceived I-732 is under water and faring worse than the other five initiatives certified to Washington’s ballot this year, according to a new survey released this morning by longtime pollster Stuart Elway.

I-732 would institute a pollution tax and use the proceeds to lower other taxes. Its promoters say it’s revenue neutral, but the state Office of Financial Management and the Department of Revenue don’t agree.

The Alliance for Jobs & Clean Energy last year tested the I-732 ballot title and found it started out at just 39%. Subsequent polling by NPI found I-732 at 52% in June of 2016 (which is better, but still precarious for a campaign out of the gate).

Now Elway, who was in the field from August 9th-13th, has found the following:

CarbonWA’s Initiative 732

  • For: 34%
  • Against: 37%
  • Undecided: 30%

I-732 does best with Seattle voters (51% support) and Democratic voters (45%) — note the softness of those figures. It does the worst with Republicans (54%), which validates the Alliance’s criticism — which we agree with — that attempting to craft an initiative to appeal to Republican/conservative voters was a folly.

Integrity Washington’s I-1464 also clocks in with just 34% support; however, its opposition only registers at 23%. CarbonWA’s I-732 is the only initiative in Elway’s survey with a higher percentage of voters in the “against” column than the “for” column. It is the first thing voters will see on their ballots statewide.

It should be noted that Elway’s survey is of registered voters, not likely voters:

500 registered voters, selected at random from registered voter lists in Washington state, were interviewed August 9-13 2016 by live, professional interviewers. 36% of the interviews were conducted on cell phones. The margin of sampling error is ±4.5% at the 95% level of confidence. This means, in theory, had this same survey been conducted 100 times, the results would be within ±4.5% of the results reported here at least 95 times.

However, 70% of respondents had voted two or more times in the past four elections, which suggests that most respondents in the poll will end up being voters in the November 2016 general election. The remaining 30% of the sample only voted once in the past four elections, or not at all.

CarbonWA doesn’t have the money to go up on television or radio, or to do much of any advertising at all. It seems their plan is to rely on word of mouth, earned media, and grassroots organizing to win. If their ballot title was strong, their idea sound, and the progressive movement united behind them, that might be enough, in a presidential year, to sweep to victory. However, none of those things are true.

If the polling has consistently shown anything, it’s that Republican and conservative voters are hostile to I-732. A few token endorsements from the likes of Republicans Mark Miloscia and Bill Finkbeiner isn’t going to change that.

CarbonWA has repeatedly alienated progressives — the very people who most want to address the damage to the climate — while failing to attract conservatives to its cause. Its I-732 was conceived out of the belief that a “revenue neutral” tax swap would engender broad bipartisan support. That’s not happening. The evidence suggests that the other side’s voters are going to give I-732 a big thumbs down. And progressive voters are likely to be split. That’s a recipe for defeat.

Last December, CarbonWA’s leadership contemplated not turning in all of their signatures, and working with the Alliance instead on an alternative plan. They ultimately turned in their signatures and declared they were in it to win it.

But it looks like they’re going to lose.

Meanwhile, Democrats are seeking to recapture the state Senate while holding the House. They need to pick up two Senate seats without losing any.

If they’re successful, that could set the stage for a 2017 session in which Governor Inslee’s cap and trade proposal might actually get a vote.

Voting in the November general election will begin in two months.

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 11:00 AM | Leave a comment | Email to a friend
Monday, August 15th, 2016

Washington’s voter turnout has been declining under Kim Wyman, data shows

For the past three and a half years, Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman has served as the lone Republican in the state’s executive department, having taken over for Sam Reed following the 2012 presidential election.

In that time, Washington has experienced an extremely worrying decline in voter participation, culminating in last year’s worst-ever general election turnout.

Wyman has repeatedly claimed that turnout isn’t something she has any control over, saying her job is to administer elections, not get people to vote in them.

Wyman’s 2016 Democratic challenger Tina Podlodowski sees it differently. She thinks the job is much more than that. “We need a voting system that gives everyone equal access to our right to vote! As Chief Voting Officer, Tina will restore Washington as a national leader in democracy,” her campaign website says.

Podlodowski is an enthusiastic backer of the Washington Voting Rights Act, supports Oregon-style automatic voter registration, and wants to figure out how to provide prepaid postage so that voters don’t need stamps to return their ballots. She’s been campaigning on expanding participation and lowering barriers to voting.

Reading Wyman’s website, you wouldn’t know that Washington has a voter turnout problem, because Wyman doesn’t acknowledge one exists. On her website, she has an “Accomplishments” page, where her campaign says:

Washington State leads the nation in voter registration and elections innovation. I am proud to have worked in elections for the past 23 years, overseeing over 100 elections at the county and state level. Washington consistently ranks amongst the top states for voter turnout, ballot accessibility, and voter outreach and information.

Wyman goes on to outline her priorities for the next four years:

While we’ve accomplished much in the Secretary of State’s Office, we have more to do. Starting next year, I will work to reform our Presidential Primary with an earlier date and the return of the unaffiliated ballot option for voters. I want to finish the elections technology modernization project that we began with all 39 counties two years ago to update our voter registration systems. I also want to protect our state’s rich history by co-locating our State Library, State Archives and Records Center into a single location to improve public access and efficiency. This is what Washingtonians expect and deserve.

Notice what’s missing? Increasing voter turnout!

Podlodowski has tried to hold Wyman accountable by pointing out that voter turnout has been in decline during Wyman’s tenure in office.

Podlodowski’s campaign produced a chart to illustrate this point, but unfortunately the chart didn’t include annotations or put the data in context, which left her open to charges of misrepresentation.

On Friday, Wyman sent out a fundraising appeal to her supporters with the subject line “Truth Matters”, in which she attacked Podlodowski as “not qualified” to serve as Secretary of State. The email, signed by Wyman, read in part:

I am grateful to The Tacoma News Tribune and The Olympian for correcting the misinformation and false statistics that my opponent, Tina Podlodowski, has been circulating.

They point out that Podlodowski’s claim that voter turnout has fallen dramatically is laughably wrong, because it confuses different kinds of elections, and ignores nationwide trends that have been occurring for decades. Another reporter called Podlodowski’s tactics “pretty deceptive” – more evidence that Podlodowski is simply too partisan and unqualified to run our election system.

Take a moment to appreciate the irony here. Kim Wyman, herself a partisan candidate for a partisan statewide office, says her opponent Tina Podlodowski is “simply too partisan and unqualified” to take over for her… all while refusing to acknowledge that voter turnout is down and that action is sorely needed to reverse this dangerous trend. Gee, that seems… pretty deceptive.

Let’s take a look at the data that Wyman conveniently doesn’t bother to share on her website or in campaign materials.

Here is a chart showing voter turnout going all the way back to the 1930s, when voter registration began. That’s context for you!

Washington Voter Turnout, 1936-2015

As we can see, there are mountains and valleys in the chart. The mountains correspond to presidential years, when there is higher interest and higher turnout. The valleys initially correspond to midterm years, up until the 1970s, when Washington began holding general elections in odd-numbered years. Past the 1970s, the valleys correspond to odd-numbered years.

Under Wyman, Washington has experienced consecutive low turnout elections. Every year is different, so it’s tricky to make apples-to-apples comparisons, but we can see there’s a trend going on, and it’s not a good one.

Let’s start with 2013, Wyman’s first year as Secretary of State. 2013 was an odd-numbered local election year that followed a presidential year. The last such similar election was in 2009, which took place after the state’s shift to vote-by-mail was largely complete. In 2013, as in 2009, there was a competitive Seattle mayoral election and multiple statewide initiatives on the ballot to draw voters.

But, as you can see, there was a drop in turnout in 2013 vs. 2009.

  • 2009 Top Two turnout, statewide: 31.04%
  • 2013 Top Two turnout, statewide: 25.99% (-5.05)
  • 2009 general turnout, statewide: 50.89%
  • 2013 general turnout, statewide: 45.27% (-5.62)

For 2013, Wyman and her team predicted that Top Two turnout would be 30%, and that general turnout would be 51%. Both estimates were off.

Secretary of State Kim Wyman is forecasting 51 percent voter participation, about average for an [odd]-year election. That would be nearly double the August primary turnout of 26 percent, but well below the 81 percent last year for a ballot that included the White House race, governor and three other wide-open statewide elective offices, gay marriage and marijuana legalization, all 10 congressional seats and most of the Legislature, and judicial races.

— Blog post by Wyman’s communications director David Ammons, October 15th, 2013

And here’s the Top Two prediction:

State Elections Division officials predict that Primary voter turnout will be about 30 percent, which is in the same range as the 2011 Primary (29.54 percent) and 2009 Primary (31.04 percent).

— Wyman media advisory from July 18th, 2013

The situation got even worse in 2014, a midterm year. There was a dramatic decline in turnout compared against the previous midterm cycle, in 2014.

  • 2010 Top Two turnout, statewide: 40.97%
  • 2014 Top Two turnout, statewide: 31.15% (-9.82)
  • 2010 general turnout, statewide: 71.24%
  • 2014 general turnout, statewide: 54.16% (-17.08)

Now, in 2014, Washington had no U.S. Senate race, so part of the decline can be attributed to that. But Wyman had actually factored that into her erroneous forecast. She was expecting turnout to be higher — much higher:

Secretary of State Kim Wyman is forecasting a 62 percent voter participation for the mid-term election, or roughly double the turnout in this year’s primary. The 62 percent figure is lower than the turnout for the two previous midterm elections (71 percent in 2010 and 65 percent in 2006), primarily because this year we have no U.S. Senate race to spur public attention and media coverage/advertising. In both 2010 and 2006, a Senate race was on the ballot. The turnout in 2002, the last midterm election without a Senate race, was 56.4 percent.

— Blog post by Wyman’s communications director David Ammons, September 19th, 2014

The Top Two forecast was also off:

Secretary of State Wyman predicts that [Top Two] voter turnout will be about 40 percent, which is in the same range as the 2010 [Top Two] (41 percent) and 2006 Primary (38.8 percent).

— Wyman media advisory from July 15th, 2014 (email)

Turnout in the Top Two ended up a measly 31%. In the general, it was just 54%.

The downward spiral proceeded to continue into 2015. Compared to 2011, the last odd-numbered local election year preceding presidential year, turnout was again way down. The 2011 ballot had three statewide initiatives and two constitutional amendments; the 2015 ballot had two initiatives and four Eyman “advisory votes”.

  • 2011 Top Two turnout, statewide: 29.54%
  • 2015 Top Two turnout, statewide: 24.37% (-5.17)
  • 2011 general turnout, statewide: 52.95%
  • 2015 general turnout, statewide: 38.45% (-14.5)

Last year’s 38.45% turnout set a new record as the worst general election turnout in state history. Fewer than two in five voters voted.

Was Wyman expecting turnout to be historically bad? The worst ever? Nope:

The state Elections Division has forecast a 46 percent ballot return in this vote-by-mail state. That is a little better than the 2013 participation rate and a bit lower than previous [odd]-year elections when ballot propositions and hot races seemed to spur stronger interest.

“This is the voter’s moment,” said state Elections Director Lori Augino. “Most ballots should arrive by the weekend and election administrators are eager to get a healthy response.”

— Wyman media advisory from October 14th, 2015 (email)

Wyman’s team got closer to the mark with the 2015 Top Two, forecasting 26% turnout. Actual turnout was 24.37% — less than a quarter of voters voted.

Local races dominate this [odd]-year election. This year’s [Top Two] features more than 220 local contests (and 767 candidates), including nine Seattle City Council seats featuring 47 candidates.

Secretary of State Kim Wyman, Washington’s chief elections official, predicts a 26 percent [Top Two] turnout.

— Wyman media advisory from July 15th, 2015 (email)

How about this year’s presidential primary? Did we buck the trend with that election? Nope — we were down compared to 2008, the last open seat year and the last year a presidential primary was held. The ’08 election took place in February, but the circumstances were similar — the Republican contest ended before we could get our election going, while two Democratic candidates soldiered on.

  • 2008 presidential primary: 41.88%
  • 2016 presidential primary: 34.78% (-7.1)

The 2016 Top Two election has yet to be certified, but the counting is pretty much over, and we’re not going to do better than 2012:

  • 2012 Top Two turnout: 38.48%
  • 2016 Top Two turnout, so far: 34.82% (-3.66)

In the runup to the current Top Two election, Wyman shied away from making a prediction, instead issuing a vague statement hoping for “strong” turnout:

Secretary of State Kim Wyman urges a strong turnout for the [Top Two election]. The last comparable elections, in 2012 and 2008, had a turnout that averaged 41 percent, with a General Election average of double that, 82 percent.

“This Primary is an important opportunity for the voters to express themselves on the leaders who will guide the state and our communities in the coming years,” she said. “I know people are really engaged in this highly unusual election year, and I’m hoping they will use their ballots as a means of expression.”

— Wyman media advisory from July 11th, 2016

We’re not going to get anywhere close to 41% turnout in this year’s Top Two.

Speaking of predictions… Wyman may not have gone out on a limb with a prediction for this election, but last autumn, she was visiting media outlets around the state, cheerfully predicting high 2016 turnout “across the board”:

The state’s chief elections officer and her staff have been busy behind the scenes, preparing the stage for voters in what promises to be an interesting and contentious 2016 campaign, nationally and locally.

Historically, turnout is high when an open-seat U.S. presidency is up for grabs. In Washington, a probable two-horse race between the Democratic incumbent, Gov. Jay Inslee, and Republican challenger Bill Bryant, should stoke a strong statewide vote.

“We’re going to see a huge year across the board,” said Wyman, on a visit to the Reporter office in Kent last week. “We expect a record-breaking turnout, which is exciting.”

So far, turnout has been lower than in past cycles — not record breaking.

The trend is clear: Washington State’s voter turnout is going down. In election after election, we’re seeing a smaller percentage of voters participate compared to the equivalent election from four years prior.

Did Kim Wyman create this problem? No, but it’s fair to say she isn’t responding to counteract it — and an aggressive response is what is needed.

Wyman and her people have certainly seen this data — they know fewer voters are voting. But Wyman’s reaction has been essentially to shrug. And her 2016 campaign doesn’t even want to admit there’s a problem. That’s not leadership.

Sadly, no one in Wyman’s party seems interested in holding her accountable, even though the party’s strategists have asserted that a failure of Republican voters to turn out in 2012 cost Rob McKenna the governor’s mansion.

(As reporters know, Bill Bryant’s campaign has harping on this point nonstop for months, and Randy Pepple has been grousing about it for the last three years.)

Want more evidence that Wyman’s not delivering for Washingtonians? The Pew Charitable Trusts maintains a project called the Elections Performance Index. The purpose of this project is help elected officials like Wyman and the people who work for her in the Elections Divisions do the following:

  • Evaluate elections based on data, not anecdote.
  • Compare the performance of elections across states and time.
  • Identify potential problem areas that need to be addressed.
  • Measure the impact of changes in policy or practice.
  • Highlight trends that otherwise might not be identified.
  • Use data to demonstrate the need for resources to state and local policymakers.
  • Educate voters about election administration.

How did Pew put it together? Answer:

Pew partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to bring together an advisory group of state and local election officials and academics from the country’s top institutions to guide development of the index. The advisory group held a series of meetings beginning in July 2010 to select the best ideas from indices in other public policy areas, identify and validate existing data sources, and determine the most useful ways to group available data.

The index tracks 17 distinct indicators of election performance, which were selected from more than 40 prospective measures based on their completeness, consistency, reliability, and validity.

So, how does Washington stack up against the other states and the District of Columbia? Well, as recently as 2012, we ranked twelfth, but since Kim Wyman took over, we’ve ingloriously dropped to twentieth place. (In 2008, Washington ranked eighth; we dropped to twelfth place in 2010.)

Oregon, meanwhile, has been heading in a positive direction. From 2012 to 2014, under Kate Brown (who is now Governor of the Beaver State), Oregon moved from twenty-third place to tenth, while we slid backwards. Washington now ranks below Ohio, Illinois, and Nebraska. (Idaho, Washington’s other neighbor, remained a cellar dweller, dropping from forty-sixth to forty-eighth, as did California, the nation’s largest state, which went from forty-ninth to fiftieth).

The conclusion the data in this post supports is a sobering one, to be sure. Tina Podlodowski’s chart may not have made the point well, but we think Podlodowski is absolutely correct when she asserts that voter turnout is down and that Kim Wyman’s response to this awful trend has been inadequate and unacceptable.

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 10:34 PM | Leave a comment | Email to a friend
Monday, August 8th, 2016

Kristine Reeves takes thirteen vote lead over Teri Hickel in 30th District House race

Democratic challenger Kristine Reeves has regained a narrow lead over Republican incumbent Teri Hickel in the contest for 30th LD State Representative, Position 2, as of the completion of the fourth tabulation of ballots since Election Night.

On Friday, Hickel had a lead of just two votes, with a total of 9,009 votes to Reeves’ 9,007. Reeves had been ahead in the initial two counts on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, but was overtaken by Hickel in the Thursday count.

Hickel’s seventy-one vote lead lasted all of twenty-four hours, and now it’s completely gone, with Reeves having won back a small lead of her own.

Who wins is inconsequential for the purposes of qualification for the November ballot, because the Top Two is an election that produces two winners — and Reeves and Hickel were the only people who filed to run House, Position 2 in the 30th. They’ve both been guaranteed a spot on the November ballot since the close of Filing Week back in May. And they are so close together in this beauty contest that the race can be called a textbook case of a dead heat.

Regardless, there is a symbolic victory to be won here. Whoever emerges as the candidate with the most votes at the end of counting will be able to declare on the campaign trail from now until November 8th that they received the most votes in the first round. Symbolic victories are useful for energizing supporters and donors.

Democrats and Republicans are watching the contest between Reeves and Hickel closely (along with the contest between Democratic challenger Mike Pellicciotti and Republican incumbent Linda Kochmar for the other House position) because it’s in the 30th that control of the House of Representatives could well be decided.

 

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 5:48 PM | Comments (1) | Email to a friend
Thursday, August 4th, 2016

Thursday afternoon update: Counting continues in Top Two election

As the votes in Washington’s 2016 Top Two election continue to be counted, here is the latest tabulations in several of the closest races.

All data is from the Secretary of State and county elections officials.

Lt. Governor

  • Cyrus Habib (D) – 20.78%
  • Marty McClendon (R) – 19.81%

1st Legislative District, Senate

  • Mindie Wirth (R) -39.89%
  • Guy Palumbo (D) – 30.62%
  • Luis Moscoso (D) – 29.5%

5th Legislative District, Senate

  • Mark Mullet (D) – 50.74%
  • Chad Magendanz (R) – 49.26%

17th Legislative District, Senate

  • Tim Probst (D) – 49.94%
  • Linda Wilson (R) – 50.06%

30th Legislative District, House Position 1

  • Linda Kochmar (R) – 48.18%
  • Mike Pellicciotti (D) – 51.82%

30th Legislative District, House Position 2

  • Teri Kickle (R) – 50.22%
  • Kristine Reeves (D) – 49.78%

41st Legislative District, Senate

  • Lisa Wellman (D) – 48.13%
  • Steve Litzow (R) – 48.23%
# Permalink :: Posted by Zach Haver: 7:28 PM | Comments (1) | Email to a friend
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016

Top Two results show Washington Democrats are poised to win both houses of Legislature

You might not know it from reading mass media coverage of Washington’s Top Two election, but the biggest story of tonight is that Democrats appear poised to win both houses of the Legislature this autumn, expanding their House majority and recapturing the Senate majority with a compelling slate of candidates.

Some background: At present, Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities in the Washington State House. They have fifty seats (the minimum needed for a working majority); the Republicans have forty-eight. In the Senate, meanwhile, Democrats are currently in the minority, with twenty-three seats, and need to take at least two seats away from the Republicans get to a working majority.

But if tonight’s initial results are any indication, the party is poised to accomplish both objectives in the coming months. Let’s take a look at the matchups in the swing districts, where legislative majorities are won and lost.

5th District, King County

Senate: One of this year’s marquee contests for Senate will take place in the 5th, pitting incumbent Democrat Mark Mullet against Republican Chad Magendanz. Both have served the district in the Legislature for years on opposite sides of the dome. Given that Magendanz has faced the voters more recently, and given that the 5th has a long history of supporting Republicans, you might think Magendanz would have an advantage, especially in a low-turnout election like this one. But remarkably, Mullet is ahead of Magendanz, which bodes well for Democrats.

  • Democratic incumbent Mark Mullet: 50.15%
  • Republican challenger Chad Magendanz: 49.85%

House, Position 2: The seat Magendanz vacated to challenge Mullet is up for grabs, and Democrats will be looking to take it with Darcy Burner, who beat out Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson for second place. Together, Burner and Larson are winning around 53% of the vote, keeping Republican Paul Graves under fifty percent. If Burner can fire up the base and bring enough independent/biconceptual voters along to support her candidacy, she could become the first Democratic candidate in state history to win a House seat in the 5th this November.

  • Democratic open seat contender Darcy Burner: 36.14%
  • Democratic open seat contender Matt Larson (eliminated): 16.69%
  • Republican open seat contender Paul Graves: 47.17%

House, Position 1: The Democratic Party’s candidate against Jay Rodne, Jason Ritchie, has a steeper hill to climb this autumn. He’s got around 44% of the vote in early returns against Rodne. There is no third candidate to be eliminated in this election, so this is essentially a straw poll preview of November. Ritchie is the first Democratic challenger Rodne has had to get within ten points of him.

  • Republican incumbent Jay Rodne: 55.79%
  • Democratic challenger Jason Ritchie: 44.21%

41st District, King County

Senate: It took a long time for Democrats to find a worthy challenger to Steve Litzow, a smooth-talking Republican narrowly elected in 2010. But in experienced business executive Lisa Wellman, they seem to have found the perfect challenger. In the span of a few weeks, Wellman has put together a strong campaign and rallied Democrats across the district. She’s running neck and neck with Litzow.

  • Republican incumbent Steve Litzow: 48.72%
  • Democratic challenger Lisa Wellman: 47.69%
  • Libertarian challenger Bryan Simonson (eliminated): 3.59%

Democrats already control both House seats in the 41st and ought not to have any trouble reelecting Judy Clibborn and Tana Senn.

30th District, King County (with a tiny slice of Pierce County)

House, Position 1: Democrats recruited a stellar candidate to take on incumbent Republican Linda Kochmar this year: Assistant Attorney General Mike Pellicciotti. Pellicciotti is showing everyone tonight why he’s a formidable candidate. In a straw poll matchup against Kochmar, with no third candidate on the ballot to be eliminated, Pellicciotti is winning.

  • Republican incumbent Linda Kochmar: 48.23%
  • Democratic challenger Mike Pellicciotti: 51.77%

House Position 2: Pellicciotti’s fellow challenger Kristine Reeves is also ahead of the Republican incumbent she’s running against — Teri Hickel. Hickel was elected to the House just last year, defeating Carol Gregory, who was appointed to fill a vacancy left by the death of Roger Freeman. Republicans were giddy a year ago when Hickel knocked out Gregory, but they can’t be feeling giddy about this result.

  • Republican incumbent Teri Hickel: 49.77%
  • Democratic challenger Kristine Reeves: 50.23%

The 30th is a Democratic district that Republicans have made inroads in due to complacent campaigning by Democrats. If these seats flip, as they appear likely to, House Democrats are pretty much assured of having a majority for 2017-2018.

17th District, Clark County

Senate: Democrats haven’t forgotten losing to Tim Eyman cohort Don Benton (Donald Trump’s biggest in-state booster) four years ago, by the narrowest of margins. Democrats forced Benton into retirement when they recruited Tim Probst to seek a rematch with Benton for Senate. Benton’s seatmate Lynda Wilson, who serves in the state House, filed to take his place, but early returns show Probst ahead of Wilson, which bodes very well for November.

  • Democratic open seat contender Tim Probst: 50.67%
  • Republican open seat contender Lynda Wilson: 49.33%

28th District, Pierce County

Senate: Democrats believe they have a shot at knocking out Republican incumbent Steve O’Ban with Marisa Peloquin, a former 82nd Airborne Company Commander. Peloquin is one of the party’s top recruits of the cycle, and has inspired and impressed Democratic activists by responding aggressively to Republican attacks against her. She’s not that far away from O’Ban in early results.

  • Republican incumbent Steve O’Ban: 53.91%
  • Democratic challenger Marisa Peloquin: 46.09%

House, Position 1: Two Democrats filed to challenge Republican incumbent Dick Muri: Mari Leavitt and Anne Setsuko Giroux. Leavitt, as expected, will go on to November against Muri. Together with Giroux, she’s currently holding Muri to 53% in the Top Two. This is a contest Democrats may want to invest in to broaden the playing field, to borrow a sports metaphor.

  • Republican incumbent Dick Muri: 53.25%
  • Democratic challenger Mari Leavitt: 38.92%
  • Democratic challenger: 7.84%

House, Position 2: Democrats’ top defend this cycle is arguably Chris Kilduff. Kilduff was able to win two years ago in a tough cycle for Democrats, so the party feels good about her reelection prospects. And tonight, Kilduff is showing she’s in good shape, with an outright majority of the vote against three opponents.

  • Democratic incumbent Chris Kilduff: 50.81%
  • Republican challenger Paul Wagemann: 27.46%
  • Republican challenger Michael Winkler: 18.61%
  • Libertarian challenger Brandon Lyons: 3.12%

26th District, Pierce and Kitsap County

House, Position 1: One of the Democratic Party’s biggest recruiting coups of the cycle came late, when the party persuaded Larry Seaquist to abandon his campaign for OSPI and instead run to return to the state House of Representatives. This decision looks like it could pay off handsomely, for Seaquist is running almost even with Republican incumbent Jesse Young, who’s seriously under water.

  • Republican incumbent Jesse Young: 37.74%
  • Democratic challenger Larry Seaquist: 36.95%
  • Democratic challenger Alec Matias: 13.64%
  • Republican challenger Bill Scheidler: 11.67%

House, Position 2: Michelle Caldier, who defeated Seaquist in the midterms, is seeking reelection, and Democrats are taking her on with Randy Spitzer. Caldier’s initial numbers are reasonably strong and she’ll be tough to defeat, but Spitzer is a decent candidate who’s still got a shot, especially if he works hard to close the gap.

  • Republican incumbent Michelle Caldier: 56.26%
  • Democratic challenger Randy Spitzer: 43.74%

Other districts

Democrats are expecting to hold House and Senate seats in the 1st, 19th, 24th, and 44th Districts despite retirements there.

In the 1st, for Senate, Guy Palumbo and Luis Moscoso are battling for second place, splitting the Democratic vote (whoever emerges victorious will be favored to win in November). For House, Position 1, Democrat Shelley Kloba has a comfortable lead over everyone else for second place. She’ll also be favored to win in November.

In the 19th, incumbent Democrat JD Rossetti is being hotly trailed by Democratic challenger Teresa Purcell for House, Position 1. Whoever gets second place will square off against Republican Jim Walsh.

There’s less drama in the 24th, the district that spans most of the Olympic Peninsula, where Steve Tharinger is crushing his Republican opponent for Senate, seeking to take over for Jim Hargrove. Democrat Mike Chapman ought to be able to hold on to Tharinger’s House seat, keeping the district 100% Democratic.

The Senate contest in the 10th District (Island County/North Sound) is worth keeping an eye on. Democrats Angie Homola and Nick Petrish are collectively holding incumbent Republican Barbara Bailey to just 51.44%. Homola, a former Island County Commissioner, will be moving on against Bailey. Can Democrats make this contest competitive? We’ll soon find out.

Meanwhile, in the 45th, incumbent Democrat Roger Goodman has 62% of the vote in early returns. Republicans thought they had a strong challenger for him in Sammamish City Councilmember Ramiro Valderrama, but Valderrama is faring even worse than Goodman’s past opponents. Republicans can forget about defeating Goodman — he’s in strong position for reelection.

To recap: Democrats showed tonight they’re poised to pick up seats in both the House and Senate while defending what they have.

If Democrats can defend Mark Mullet and get Lisa Wellman and Tim Probst elected, they should have a bare majority in the Senate going into 2017. The electorate in the coming general election will be larger and more progressive than the electorate in this Top Two election, which is bad news for Republicans. If Democrats campaign effectively, they ought to be able to gain ground across the board.

Ten years ago, during the 2006, Democrats had a very good year, clobbering Republicans in legislative races in swing district after swing district. They assembled supermajorities in both houses. It’s unlikely Democrats can repeat that feat this year, but solid gains that lead to control of both houses are very possible.

2006 was a banner cycle, but the party has been losing legislative seats or treading water every year since. The Senate majority disappeared nearly four years ago when Democrats In Name Only Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon conspired with Republicans to seize power and take over the Senate. The House majority, meanwhile, was whittled down to one seat and is barely intact.

Democrats see 2016 as the year to arrest and reverse this long, painful trend of legislative losses. Tonight’s results show that the party is within striking distance of winning working majorities on both sides of the dome this fall. Much work will be required for the party to be successful, but the stage has been set for victory.

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 10:32 PM | Comments (1) | Email to a friend
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016

Hilary Franz ahead of four other Democrats in contest for Commissioner of Public Lands

Futurewise Executive Director Hilary Franz appears to have earned a spot on the November general election ballot as the Democrat with the most support for Commissioner of Public Lands. She’s currently ahead of four other Democratic candidates — King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, former Spokane Mayor Mary Verner, Karen Porterfield, and John Stillings.

Republican Steve McLaughlin is in first place with 39% of the vote, having not had any other Republicans to split the vote with.

How they fared: Candidates competing for Commissioner of Public Lands

  1. Steve McLaughlin, Republican: 39.12%, 293,190 votes
  2. Hilary Franz, Democrat: 20.83%, 156,112 votes
  3. Dave Upthegrove, Democrat: 13.53%, 101,396 votes
  4. Mary Verner, Democrat: 12.85%; 96,345 votes
  5. Karen Porterfield, Democrat: 5.13%; 38,472 votes
  6. Steven Nielson: 4.68%; 35,096 votes
  7. John Stillings, Democrat: 3.85%; 28,878 votes

Upthegrove and Verner are well behind Franz, so it’s unlikely they have a chance of becoming competitive for second place. Franz enjoyed the support of a number of local Democratic and progressive organizations that bestowed a sole endorsement on her, which undoubtedly helped her candidacy.

In the general election, she will have no Democratic rivals, so she should be able to consolidate the Democratic vote behind her candidacy. Democrats captured the office of Commissioner of Public Lands eight years ago with Peter Goldmark, who defeated entrenched Republican incumbent Doug Sutherland.

At summer parades, Franz and her dedicated supporters have been marching to the catchy chant of “Hilary Franz for Public Lands!”

A graduate of Smith College and Northeastern University Law School, Franz served for three years as a Bainbridge Island city councilmember.

As her biography notes, she has extensive relevant board service:

She sat on the Puget Sound Regional Council Growth Management Board, the Puget Sound Regional Council Economic Development District Board, the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council, and the Puget Sound Transportation Futures Task Force. She was appointed by Governor Gregoire to Washington State’s Climate Action Team IWG on the State Environmental Policy Act. She has served on numerous boards, including Conservation Northwest, the Washington Environmental Council, the Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and Friends of the Farms.

Franz was able to edge out Upthegrove by winning a plurality of the vote in King County (32.58%) and also besting her Democratic rivals in Pierce County and Snohomish County, which together are the state’s largest counties.

Upthegrove is ahead of Franz in Thurston County, while Verner is unsurprisingly ahead of Franz in Spokane County, where she’s from. Whatcom, Whitman, and Yakima favored Franz over the other Democrats, as did Clark.

POSTSCRIPT: Upthegrove has gracefully conceded.

Just got off the phone with Hilary Franz to congratulate her on advancing to the general election along with the Republican in the Lands Commissioner race. If she runs the agency with even half the passion and energy that she brought to her campaign, the state will be in great hands. Let’s all now help make sure she makes it all the way in November. I get to take a vacation and return to a job I love. Thank you to everyone who supported me!

Hilary’s response:

Dave — it was an honor to run with you. You are a class act. We raised critical awareness in this campaign of the importance of this office and the issues we face regarding addressing climate change and ensuring a healthy environment and strong local economies for present and future generations. Thank you for who you are and what you stand for and how you have worked tirelessly for the people of Washington state.

A classy way for both leading Democratic candidates to end this contest.

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 9:28 PM | Leave a comment | Email to a friend
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016

VICTORY! Delaware Supreme Court declares state’s death penalty law unconstitutional

A significant victory for human rights has been won today:

The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled the state’s death penalty law is unconstitutional – and the only chance at fixing it is to punt the issue to the already-divided General Assembly.

The top court released its ruling Tuesday that said Delaware’s current capital punishment statute violates the U.S. Constitution by giving judges, and not juries, the final say to impose a death sentence.

The opinion is available online here (PDF).

The Court’s ruling will have the effect of preventing any more people from being sentenced to death in Delaware, the nation’s first state.

The right wing will undoubtedly try to get this ruling overturned, but that will be difficult for them, because a majority in Delaware’s state Senate support abolition — as does Governor Jack Markell, who had praise for today’s decision.

“I applaud the Supreme Court’s finding that the state’s death penalty law is unconstitutional,” Markell said in a statement.

“As I have come to see after careful consideration, the use of capital punishment is an instrument of imperfect justice that doesn’t make us any safer.”

“We have been watching legal developments and supporting organizing efforts in Delaware and are so pleased to add another state to the death-penalty-free column,” said Zach Everson in a statement to supporters of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP).

“Momentum continues to build against the death penalty, and Delaware today has joined a growing majority on the right side of history,” said James Clark, senior death penalty campaigner at Amnesty International USA.

“Today more than half of U.S. states do not carry out executions. Those few that continue must end this failed system and abolish this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment once and for all.”

We commend Delaware’s Supreme Court for its decision today.

Every time a state does away with the barbaric practice of executions, our country stands taller. We cannot be a human rights champion around the world when we are putting people to death here at home. Regrettably, the laws of the Pacific Northwest still allow people to be put to death. In Washington, in Oregon, in Idaho, we need to change our laws so that abolition becomes a reality. If Nebraska can do it, if New Mexico can do it, if Delaware can do it, then we can do it, too.

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 4:52 PM | Leave a comment | Email to a friend
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016

Washingtonians: Vote, vote, vote, vote!

Readers, a reminder that today is the last day of the August 2016 Top Two Election, the elimination round of our dysfunctional two-part general election system.

Ballots must be postmarked or returned by a drop box by 8 PM tonight, or they won’t count. Be sure yours is in, and then remind friends and family to vote, too. Chances are, many of them haven’t. Don’t assume – ask!

Participation so far in this election has been abysmal, with turnout well below twenty percent statewide, and even worse than that in many counties.

Here’s the current county-by-county turnout:

Ballot Return Statistics

As of Monday, 8/1 at 5:00PM

CountyVotersReturnedPercentage
TOTAL4,092,951699,46317.1%
ADAMS6,3911,14617.9%
ASOTIN13,6383,34724.5%
BENTON102,37322,10521.6%
CHELAN41,4879,53323.0%
CLALLAM48,9578,87418.1%
CLARK259,99244,40517.1%
COLUMBIA2,62377329.5%
COWLITZ60,75011,75419.3%
DOUGLAS19,8344,69323.7%
FERRY4,5071,02622.8%
FRANKLIN31,8665,21416.4%
GARFIELD1,52736223.7%
GRANT37,5897,32819.5%
GRAYS HARBOR39,51310,14625.7%
ISLAND52,34514,04926.8%
JEFFERSON23,4836,55827.9%
KING1,239,529169,34713.7%
KITSAP158,80531,84020.0%
KITTITAS23,0444,72820.5%
KLICKITAT13,4662,70420.1%
LEWIS44,41610,26123.1%
LINCOLN6,8441,72125.1%
MASON36,3929,55826.3%
OKANOGAN21,7825,17823.8%
PACIFIC13,6024,01529.5%
PEND OREILLE8,5612,18125.5%
PIERCE460,44478,10217.0%
SAN JUAN12,3493,17625.7%
SKAGIT71,57714,62420.4%
SKAMANIA7,0191,49921.4%
SNOHOMISH436,02660,63713.9%
SPOKANE296,08357,92319.6%
STEVENS28,9095,08417.6%
THURSTON167,75127,88216.6%
WAHKIAKUM3,01446815.5%
WALLA WALLA32,2647,92524.6%
WHATCOM133,36428,26321.2%
WHITMAN21,0353,08514.7%
YAKIMA109,80017,94916.3%
TOTAL4,092,951699,46317.1%

King County posted an update after close of business last night, and its returns improved to 18%. King County Elections has received 223,629 ballots, with 209,933 ready for counting. 1,240,245 ballots were mailed to voters for this election.

Secretary of State Kim Wyman originally forecast turnout of forty percent in this election. Based on where things stand today, it’s highly unlikely we’ll get there.

For last year’s Top Two, her office projected turnout of twenty-six percent. Even that low number ended up being optimistic — final turnout was a measly 24.37%, with less than a quarter of registered voters turning out.

The team at NPI urges you to be a voter and get your ballot in. If you would like to use a drop box to return your ballot, here is a list of locations for major counties:

Need help voting? NPI doesn’t endorse or rate candidates for office, but the Progressive Voter’s Guide is available if you want to learn more about who’s on your ballot. You can also use the official voter’s pamphlet published by your county.

If you consider yourself a Democratic activist or align with the Democratic Party, then you should consider utilizing the party’s Endorsements Finder.

Starting tonight, after 8 PM, we will be offering live coverage of election results here on the Cascadia Advocate. Most counties will only report one batch of results tonight, and not update again till tomorrow afternoon.

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 10:06 AM | Leave a comment | Email to a friend
Saturday, July 30th, 2016

Sound Transit Board errs by putting attention seeker Tim Eyman on ST3 con committee

On Thursday, as the Democratic National Convention was entering its final hours in Philadelphia, the Sound Transit Board of Directors met at Seattle’s Union Station to take public testimony and work on a number of items of business. Among these was Motion No. M2016-79, concerning the creation of committees to write voter’s pamphlet statements for and against 2016 Sound Transit Proposition 1 (Sound Transit 3), which will appear on this November’s ballot.

RCW 29A.32.280 requires that any legislative authority submitting a ballot measure for the people for their consideration also appoint two committees of not more than three individuals to write arguments for and against the measure. These arguments then appear in the voter’s pamphlet statement mailed to qualified voters through the United States Postal Service and published online.

Initiative profiteer Tim Eyman, who doesn’t have an initiative of his own on the ballot to sell to the voters this year and is the target of multiple ongoing investigations by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office, announced earlier this month he was lobbying the Sound Transit Board for one of the spots on the Snohomish County con committee. (There are also pro and con committees for King and Pierce, ST’s other constituent counties.)

Two hours into Thursday’s meeting, Sound Transit’s Board inexplicably and indefensibly voted to grant Eyman’s request, not only putting him on the con committee for the statement that will appear in the Snohomish County voter’s pamphlet, but the King and Pierce ones as well.

The motion to appoint Eyman to all three con committees was presented by Fred Butler on behalf of King County Executive and Sound Transit Board Chair Dow Constantine, who, like me, was in Philadelphia at the DNC.

The only boardmember opposed was King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, who prudently pointed out Eyman is under investigation for serious violations of Washington’s public disclosure law, and arguing that such a person should not be given the responsibility of writing a voter’s pamphlet statement.

After Upthegrove registered his objection, acting Chair Pat McCarthy asked if there was further discussion or debate — but there was none, save for a brief statement by Councilmember Claudia Balducci noting that state law requires Sound Transit’s board to make the appointments. The vote was taken and the motion approved, with Upthegrove the only boardmember thoughtfully voting no.

This appalling decision reeks of bad politics, and deserves to be loudly condemned. The Sound Transit Board knowingly gave the job of presenting arguments against its worthy proposal for light rail, bus, and commuter rail expansion to a disgraced, dishonest con man who habitually lies and may soon be held in contempt of court for impeding an official investigation into campaign finance violations he committed.

The backroom calculus here seems to be that it will be a good thing for Sound Transit if Eyman’s name appears below the arguments against ST3 in the voter’s pamphlet because he is widely disliked, particularly in urban Washington.

That would certainly explain how Eyman ended up on all three of the county con committees for Regional Proposition 1 (Sound Transit 3) — even though he was only asking to be on the one for Snohomish County.

The campaign organization that has formed to oppose Sound Transit 3 is understandably furious. “This is so cynical. This is an attempt to poison the issue,” Chuck Collins told the Seattle Times’ Mike Lindblom. “Tim is radioactive in central Puget Sound, King County. And they know this.”

In a weak attempt to justify Eyman’s inclusion, Sound Transit boardmember Fred Butler noted the Board had received eighteen messages from Eyman followers lobbying for his appointment. What Butler failed to mention was that the Board also received messages from me and several other people asking them not to appoint Eyman. This was my message on behalf of the NPI team:

Date: Wednesday, July 13th, 2016
From: NPI Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve
To: Sound Transit Board of Directors
RE: Please don’t give Tim Eyman any role in drafting con arguments for ST3

Sound Transit Boardmembers:

My team and I respectfully request that you NOT give Tim Eyman any role in presenting arguments for or against Regional Proposition #1 (ST3). Tim Eyman is a serial public disclosure law violator who has a long documented history of lying with impunity to the public and the press. We at the Northwest Progressive Institute have fought his destructive initiatives and toxic politics for over fourteen years. We regularly debunk the misinformation he presents.

With no initiative of his own to sell this year, it appears Eyman has nothing better to do with his time than attack Sound Transit and promote candidates he thinks will take their cues from him in the Legislature.

We need a thoughtful, civil conversation around the merits of ST3 — or lack thereof, in the opposition’s view. I have no doubt we can find far more sincere and knowledgeable people in Snohomish County opposed to ST3 not named Tim Eyman to put together con arguments for the voter’s pamphlet. Thank you all for your service to our region and your unanimous vote to put ST3 on the ballot. Now is our time!

A few days after I sent this message, the opposition campaign presented a slate of individuals to ST’s board to write the con arguments. In a letter dated July 18th, the campaign suggested Chuck Collins, Gary Nelson, and my friend Senator Maralyn Chase be appointed to author the arguments against in King and Snohomish counties. Collins and Nelson were chosen, but Chase was left off in favor of Eyman.

Councilmember Claudia Balducci, meanwhile, tried to justify this decision by claiming the board would have left itself open to criticism if it hadn’t picked Eyman:

Transit-board member Claudia Balducci of Bellevue, also a Metropolitan King County Council member, said that snubbing Eyman would trigger “parallel criticism” of the board, from his supporters.

“Of all the applicants, he is by far the longest-tenured and highest-profile transit opponent,” Balducci said, noting two slots per county still went to what she calls the self-identified Smarter Transit group.

“If you don’t put him on, it’s just going to prove you’re afraid of a real opponent,” she said.

Wrong. Passing over Tim Eyman would not have been a snub, because Tim Eyman is a dishonest snake oil salesman. He is completely, totally undeserving of any position of public responsibility. No one should trust him and no one should be put into a position where they have to work with him (as Collins and Nelson have been).

The last thing Sound Transit’s Board should be worried about is coming under fire from Eyman’s backers. Eyman and his cohorts absolutely loathe Sound Transit, and nothing Balducci or her colleagues do is going to change that.

I cannot recall a time when Tim Eyman had anything good to say about Sound Transit. Its staff and its board have worked incredibly hard for years to make ST a well-run agency that is admired around the country. Sound Transit now has a track record of delivering projects on time or ahead of schedule, and under budget.

None of this matters to Eyman. In fact, Eyman resents Sound Transit’s successes. He despises the agency just as much as he ever did. His followers feel the same way.

Eyman regularly uses his email list as a weapon and a means of harassment, urging his followers to send nastygrams to people who stand in the way of his agenda. Past targets have included Democratic state legislators, Supreme Court justices, Republicans officeholders who disregarded Eyman’s wishes, and yours truly.

Eyman’s list isn’t all that big, but he’s usually able to get at least a couple dozen people to generate nastygrams, simply by sitting down at his computer a couple of times a week and sending out mid-morning missives. Sound Transit’s Board just validated this email harassment tactic by giving Eyman what he wanted and citing the eighteen messages Eyman got his followers to send as a justification.

Thursday’s action by Sound Transit’s Board, which we strongly disagree with, should reinforce how important the work of NPI’s Permanent Defense project is.

Since February of 2002, Permanent Defense has provided a year-round first response to Eyman’s incredibly destructive initiatives. Through PD, we reframe the debate and debunk Eyman’s lies and misinformation. And we confront Eyman’s enablers, whoever they might be. Eyman owes much of his relevance to his wealthy benefactors and the media, but Democratic elected leaders have been complicit in elevating Eyman, too, notably former Governors Gary Locke and Chris Gregoire.

In many ways, Tim Eyman is like Donald Trump. They’re both attention-seekers — it’s been said the most dangerous place in Washington is between Tim Eyman and a television camera. They are both gifted snake oil salesmen. They both have a knack for exploiting people. They even share a name — Tim’s middle name is Donald. And both have been able to manipulate the media in order to expand their influence.

In a matter of weeks, perhaps days, attorneys representing the people of Washington State will be in court asking judges to hold Tim Eyman in contempt. It is our hope that judges will sign off on Attorney General Ferguson’s request for fines of $2,000 a day and authorize his investigators to obtain the documents they need to uncover the truth from the IRS and the banks Eyman does business with.

Given that Tim Eyman is off the ballot and about to face the music, it’s no wonder he is desperately seeking attention and relevance. By giving it to him, the Sound Transit Board simultaneously harmed its own credibility, alienated its own supporters, and gave the ST3 opposition campaign a fresh bone to pick at.

The only winner of this outcome is Tim Eyman — and that is a real shame.

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 3:08 PM | Leave a comment | Email to a friend
Wednesday, July 27th, 2016

Attorney General Bob Ferguson requests that Tim Eyman be held in contempt of court

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced today he is asking courts in Snohomish and Thurston counties to hold initiative profiteer Tim Eyman and his associates in contempt of court for failing to fully comply with lawfully-issued civil orders seeking documents that would shed light on potential violations of Washington’s public disclosure law.

“Despite a subpoena and a court order, Tim Eyman continues to impede this investigation,” Ferguson said in a statement. “That’s unacceptable.”

To put an end to Eyman’s stonewalling, Ferguson says he’ll ask courts to authorize his office to obtain the tax returns, bank statements, and other documents he has requested directly from the federal government and the banks Eyman does business with. Ferguson is also asking for a penalty of $2,000 a day to be assessed against Eyman for failure to produce the documents sought in his investigation.

More specifically, Ferguson is asking for the following:

  • A penalty from each respondent of $2,000 for each day they remain in contempt of court;
  • An order authorizing the state to issue civil orders to the respondents’ third-party banks to directly obtain the records sought from respondents;
  • An order directing respondents to execute releases authorizing the state to obtain federal tax return information; and
  • An order awarding the state further costs and reasonable attorney’s fees incurred in connection with bringing this contempt motion.

Ferguson’s motion will be heard in the near future, his office says.

This development is the latest proof that Tim Eyman considers himself to be above the law. He was uncooperative when the Public Disclosure Commission was spending three years looking into the allegations that led to this investigation, uncooperative still when the Attorney General took over the case last autumn, and still uncooperative even after multiple courts issued orders compelling Eyman to turn over the materials sought by Ferguson.

Why is Eyman exposing himself to serious liability by continuing to stonewall? We can only surmise that it is because Eyman is deeply afraid of what the evidence will show once Ferguson’s investigators have the opportunity to examine it.

Eyman’s behavior is the behavior of a man who is desperately trying to keep information a secret — presumably because it lead to his ultimate downfall.

We will have more on this story as it develops.

# Permalink :: Posted by Andrew: 1:30 PM | Leave a comment | Email to a friend

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