Though already posted elsewhere (see the Oregonian and <a href="NW Republican), we can't let this go here either.
A longish video at more than 16 minutes, but not a moment too long. And you never thought the legislature was entertaining . . .
Posts published in June 2007
Micron technology |
Possibly nowhere else in the Northwest would a quarterly stock report for a single corporation carry such significance, or be (legitimate) cause for so many major news stories. Even when the corporation isn't talking to the main news outlet in the area.
So it is with Micron Technology and Boise; the firm is headquartered at Boise and employs somewhere around 10,000 people in the area (with the employment of many more connected to those thousands). A drop in prices for computer memory left Micron with a $225 million loss in the last quarter, a loss evidently considered serious enough to require a substantive response to Wall Street. CEO Steve Appleton responded, in a lesser way by stepping down from the corporate presidency (a lesser position, and ultimately probably an unimportant move) and in a bigger way by promising serious employment cutbacks.
The Associated Press reported that "Micron did not say how many of its 22,000 workers will be laid off, but reductions will likely affect Idaho employees as the company moves production closer to customers in Asia, where it does more than 70 percent of its business. Spokesman Dan Francisco said some of the job cuts will affect Micron facilities near Boise . . ."
Pay attention to the phrase "moves production closer to constomers in Asia"; it seems likely to become a phrase familiar to Boiseans in the months and years ahead. Another instance, from a stock analyst report after the quarterly announcement: "Recent checks indicate that Micron Technology has achieved a significant rebound in Asia with its new DRAM 78nm process."
Did you know that Skipper's seafood restaurants are northwest-based - in SeaTac (previously Edmonds)? (Admittedly, we didn't.) Or that it filed for bankruptcy protection last December?
Apparently, a number of the people who work there didn't know, and consequently have been taking by surprise with the news: Many of the chain's outlets will be closed and others sold, in many cases within a day or two, as a result of bankruptcy action.
Skipper's has (according to its web site) 70 outlets, including 30 in Washington, 13 in Oregon and eight in Idaho; the site also reports operations in Alaska, Montana and Utah. Wikipedia says that the action number is 58, and bankruptcy filings in December indicated 59.
Always liked their chowder . . .
Mike Crapo |
We will say up top that singling out Idaho Senator Mike Crapo on the question of earmark information release, as the Anderson Cooper show did last night on CNN, isn't fair, on two grounds. One is that the bulk of U.S. senators of both parties take the same position - or at least hold the same bottom line - as Crapo does. The other reason is that Crapo picked up the notoriety because his press secretary was trying to helpful and explanatory, which shouldn't have earned a ding.
The larger point the program was making, though, is another matter, largely undiminished after we went through it this morning with Susan Wheeler, the press secretary. Let's run through this, and see whether most of the Senate (not Crapo alone) are right or wrong.
"Earmarks" are budget items specified for a particular purpose. A county, for example, might seek an earmark for federal funding for a park, or maybe a state seeks one for a health building. Or whatever. Certainly, private parties are interested in earmarks too.
For our purposes here, you can fit the earmarking process into three parts. There's the request from someone in-state to a member of Congress that their request be included for federal funding. The second stage comes as members of Congress and their staffs sift through these requests, and propose some of them to an appropriations committee or subcommittee for action. The third stage is the formal, public action by the committee to approve some of those requests (extending, of course, into further floor and committee action on the way to ultimate bill signing).
The third part of the earmarking process, at the committee level and beyond, is public, and there's no dispute about it. The first part of the process, which involves constituent communications (a category that also includes such things as constituent negotiations over Social Security payments), is commonly taken as a confidential communication, and there's not much dispute about that either (though we'll partially asterisk that and return to it below). The dispute concerns the second area - the work that the member of Congress and staff do before the committee acts on the proposal: Most senators, including Crapo, say information about what earmarks they propose to the committees should not be released to the public.
What gets left out of the process is any information about earmarks proposed but rejected by the committee, and about which senators proposed any of the earmarks at all.
The Oregon Legislature's main web page says that regular sessions usually last about six months. The last few years, that's been a little embarassingly optimistic for sessions running from January into August. This year, remarkably, it was an over-long estimate - this session, adjourned shortly after noon today, ran not a lot more than five months. As widely noted, this was the shortest regular session in a dozen years.
We should note here as well the other departures mentioned at the Statehouse this week. In addition to Senate Majority Leader Kate Brown, about whom we've blogged earlier, Blue Oregon cited three more indicated from today's floor sessions: Senator Avel Gordly (currently an independent from Portland) and Representatives Karen Minnis (R-Wood Village, a former House speaker) and Donna Nelson (R-McMinnville, one of the chamber's most colorful characters) also indicated they were opting out.
(Politically? Gordly's seat likely will revert to a Democrat; Minnis' may well go Democratic; Nelson's probably but not definitely will stay Republican.)
And Senator Vicki Walker, D-Eugene, is apparently the first in the race for secretary of state in 2008. (Running in mid-term, she would retain her Senate seat if unsuccessful.)
A side note: Don't be surprised if the next couple of weeks doesn't unplug a bunch of announcements on hold while the session lasted.
In most sports, a team can lose by default - by failing to show up to play when appearance was expected. Same thing can happen in court cases. But wouldn't you know there's a gray area involved?
Consider this - three decisions on the matter today from the Washington Supreme Court.
One day in November 1998, a car owned by Bonnie Burris but driven by her son Jeffrey Barth rear-ended the car driven by Sherri Morin, who later reported medical costs as a result. Insurers were contacted and some money exchanged, but after a year with no settlement Morin hired an attorney to case the case to court, where it was filed in June 2001.
When that happened, Burris, the car owner, was personally served notice, and Barth, who couldn't be found, was given notice "by publication," an ad in the newspaper. Neither of them responded formally to the court, however, and in December 2002 a trial court gave Morin a default judgement against the other two. Many months later, in February 2004, Barth and Burris filed papers asking that default decision be set aside, since they had "informally appeared" at various points. As the Supreme Court wrote, "The trial court agreed and vacated the default judgment. Morin appealed. The Court of Appeals, Division One, concluded that in light of the prelitigation contact between Farmers and Morin, including the payment for property damage, the trial court had not abused its discretion in setting aside default judgment on the ground of an informal appearance."
The Supreme Court disagreed.
An indicator of the times, via the Spokesman-Review's Huckleberries blog: "Coeur d'Alene faced another loss this month. Its only full-service gas station closed. Many people with a wide assortment of impairments cannot perform those seemingly simple duties offered by a full-service gas station attendant. Each withdrawal of such a service takes a new toll on people who are already challenged by daily living."
It's a useful point. (Dave Oliveria adds, "It would be nice if a gas station offered curb service at certain times of the week. And mebbe profitable.")
And maybe useful too as a comeback from Oregonians who put up with snickering from their neighbors about the illegality of self-serve gas: At least service, oftimes mechanical as well as for fuel, is still available.
Oregon statehouse |
What you think of the actions of the soon-to-be history 2007 Oregon Legislature will vary according to perspective. What's becoming clearer, almost indisputable, is that it was highly productive - the most productive session in Oregon in many years, somewhere in the ballpark of the unusually strong 2005 Washington session.
In both cases that was allowed for by the arrival of unified (one-party) government, both chambers and the governor's office. Unified control doesn't always equate to productivity, but it did in both of these cases. And in Oregon's case, this really ought to be noted, since the top criticism of legislators in Oregon for this decade and more has been that they're the gang that could get nothing done. (Probably an over-stated complaint, but one with some validity.)
The Oregonian has up, online, a summary of the session's doings. Among the items noted there: A rainy day fund, massive increases in public school funding, major increases for higher education and a string of new capital (building) expenses, an increase (by 100) in the number of state troopers on the roads, a batch of consumer bills, a slash at junk food in schools, major cutbacks on indoor smoking, domestic partnerships for gays and seniors and a cigarette tax/child health ballot issue. They didn't even get to the item we think could be the most significant of all, a first step toward universal health coverage, or to the batch of environmental legislation passed (the failure of the Metolius River bill notwithstanding). And you could easily add more items of significance to the list.
You can take some of this in various ways. Critics (not all of them Republicans) took due note of the high level of spending in this session; warnings, for example, that ongoing state spending will almost inevitably crash into the next economic downturn are well founded. (The rainy day fund was a sound move but unlikely to fully plug the dike.) Depending on your perspective, you may see the actions as good or bad.
What you can't, any longer, is diss the Oregon Legislature as inconsequential.
Greeting Gonzales in Boise/Idaho Democratic Party |
The thinking must have been something like this: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, embattled on all quarters, needs a respite. Fine. Have him talk about something popular, like local anti-gang efforts. In some place deep red, like, say, Idaho. Safe.
The prep overlooked that Boise isn't quite as red, anymore, as much of the rest of the state. As Gonzales headed to a news conference at the Boise Community Center, protesters - blasting him on his torture advocacy and related matters - made themselves plenty visible. What had been planned as an outdoor press conference, in sight of the general public, was moved indoors, out of general sight. And the press conference reportedly lasted maybe five minutes.
No place to hide.