Friday, July 15, 2005

"Strategery" -- think war not battle

On the Pajama Jihad blog, Nathan Azinger, a young, bright and engaging Pierce County Republican (which is why I read his stuff), suggested that - contrary to conventional wisdom - of the two Democrat 26th District State Representatives, Pat Lantz, the (very) senior of the two is actually the more vulnerable. That freshman State Representative Derek Kilmer (D - Gig Harbor), in Nathan's eyes, is less vulnerable is because Derek voted very close to his district beliefs during some key votes during his first session. And, according to Nathan's experience, Derek answers his mail better than 26th District Senator Bob Oke (R - Port Orchard). While the latter is comparing apples to oranges, Bob Oke is doing yeoman's work in the Senate - his perceived mail responsiveness notwithstanding. He devotes lots of floor time (and votes) while in pain from chemotherapy. That is public service way beyond the call of duty.

I agree with Nathan that Pat Lantz is actually the more vulnerable in 2006. She is carrying around too much ultra-liberal baggage from her years in the House and from this year's votes especially. More importantly, she is Chair of the House Judiciary Committee and is the PRIME reason we have not taken even a single step in getting real lawsuit abuse reform in this state. (Well, she is a trial lawyer and gets a lot of Trial Lawyers' Association campaign money, but I am sure that it is merely coincidence.) More pertinent, she won her seat against newcomer Republican Matt Rice in 2004 by only 361 votes (0.5%) mostly from Kitsap. And the Libertarian candidate got 1,792 votes. Where would those votes have gone had there been no Libertarian? And in a Presidential year, the Kitsap side of the 26th District produces 2000 more votes than the Pierce side...and Kitsap votes more Democrat and Pierce more Republican. In the off year elections like 2006, the reverse is true. So if we work at it, Pat Lantz' House seat will be a Republican pick up in 2006. Bye-bye law suit abuse.

What about Derek? Derek is an attractive, likable, bright young legislator that the Democrats were lucky to recruit. His fiscal instincts are much more conservative that the Democrat party generally, but his social agenda is more liberal than the district. As much as Republicans may agree with his NO vote on the 9.5 cent gas tax and on overturning I-601 spending limits, it is the first vote of the session that makes the difference. That vote? Who will be Speaker of the House. Recall from your high school civics class: the Speaker is the linchpin of the House. It is the Speaker who chooses the Committee Chairs and it is the Committee Chairs who determine, alone, what bills are heard and which are allowed to be voted on. And even when a bill passes out of a committee, it is the Speaker alone who determines what bills will reach the floor for a vote and in what order. (No, you say. It is the Rules Committee who decides. Well, yes and no. Yes, they do choose what bills are "pulled" to the floor, but, no, it is the Speaker alone who decides what bills they can even look at to "pull").

Just as important, Democrat Legislators are given a "pass" (allowed to vote the district not the party line) if there are otherwise enough Democrat votes to get a piece of legislation passed. This year, for example, Derek, Dawn Morrell (D-25, Puyallup), and Tami Green (D-28, Lakewood) were allowed to vote against the gas tax and dumping I-601 because there were enough votes in the Democrat caucus to pass those two bills and the Democrat leadership knew that if any of those legislators voted against their district they would be in trouble. But this only works when the Democrats have a large majority. We need to replace Derek, however nice a guy he is, because his first vote, for Speaker, is VERY Seattle liberal and way out of step with the 26th District.

Now is the time to think about the war, to think about an overall game plan to gain the majority in the Washington State House of Representatives - and who we have to do it. Now is not the time to worry about the tactics of the battle like where to put signs and what bills we need to support. We need to find great candidates to face Derek and Pat (Beckie Kranz and Matt Rice come to mind).

Are there any other credible candidates out there?

My $00.02 offered with perfect 20/20 hindsight.

Deryl

Sunday, July 10, 2005

It seems that some of our local elected Republicans have stepped over Republican Party lines and are getting a lot of hate and discontent from the party faithful. I decided to look deeper. Here are the issues:

Item A: Councilmember Dick Muri is calling for the county to go to all mail-in balloting, and,

Item B: The Republican majority on the County Council is restricting free speech during County Council meetings.

Item A: Some facts and Research. Dick proposed that the county go to all "mail-in" balloting because conventional wisdom says it costs less -- a lot less. Now that sounds pretty Republican to me. Anything that means paying less taxes and getting the same service is a Republican value. Besides, for last 4-5 years over 75% of the Pierce County ballots have been mail-in anyway, so it's not a great leap of faith to add the last little bit. Unfortunately, voter trust of the election system is at an all time low. Going to an all mail-in system without clear oversight of who is counting the ballots sounds ominous and without a clear rationale to change, Dick is risking the wrath of the party faithful AND the voters in general. So what to do? Actually, Dick and the Council did what they should do. They appointed a free (a nice Republican word) Citizens Advisory Panel to research the issue and give advice. They did and found that the conventional wisdom is bogus. Mail-in balloting cost about the same as all-poll voting or a mixture of systems. So with Dick's rationale out the window and the political problem of voter trust at an all time low, the Citizens Advisory Panel advised "no change".

Item A: Political Analysis. Dick was right to bring up the subject, but his political timing was incredibly clumsy. On the other hand, how was he to know about King County's cheatin' heart? How was he to know that the idiots up north, sorry, the ethically-challenged, "professional" card counters working for Ron Sim's election department, could create votes and ignore others with impunity? Does this remind you of Stalin's "It is not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes". Dick's good intentions (the road to hell are paved with such) are played against the resulting Republican fury and Dick came out second. Does Dick deserve hate and discontent? Does he deserve to be called RINO? Nope. He asked the right question for the right reason at the wrong time. He deserves a "tsk tsk" for a politically inept move. Dick got the answer he needed. So let's back off and move on.

Item B: Some facts and Research. The Pierce County Council broadcasts its weekly meeting live on a county-wide cable channel. The broadcast is stem to stern without interruption unless the council goes into recess. The agenda is full of ordinances, resolutions and County Executive appointments confirmations. And after the council and staff have asked questions and discussed an agenda item, all interested citizens are invited to speak on camera for up to three minutes to convince the council that the ordinance or resolution in question is brilliance or folly. That includes our being able to comment on camera on every amendment or change as it is being proposed. More pertinent, at the end of every meeting the public is invited to speak on any county issue past, present or future for up to three minutes. It's all pretty cool, if not boring. A little over a year ago, the then County Council Chair, a likeable but soon to retire Democrat named Harold Moss, and the Democrat majority got tired of the personal attacks they were getting especially during the meeting's final three minutes public session -- mostly from the same folks every week. So the Democrats voted to turn off the camera during these three minute closing speeches. Both the Republican Party and the TNT noted this free speech restriction, but also noted the free speech versus civil discourse dilemma. There are some restrictions on free speech: you can't give aid and comfort to an enemy (hear that Jane Fonda?), you can't swear in public, you can't libel, and you can't yell fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire. Republicans vowed to change this restriction if they were able to get into the majority. And majority they got with the 2004 election of State Representative Roger Bush to the council. So a few weeks ago the council took up the issue and the majority Republicans decided to turn the cameras back on during the final meeting segment and let the free speech chips fall where they may -- with one exception. The said that speakers could not swear nor use their on-camera time to personally attack a council member. At first blush that sounds pretty reasonable. But now the ACLU and the TNT (and lots of Republicans -- see Marsha Richard's 8 July blog in Sound Politics) are after the Republican majority for restricting a citizen's right to question and point out rotten politicians. In their argument, free speech is an unrestricted right without responsibility and civil discourse is not mentioned. So what to do?

Item B: Political Analysis. When the majority Republicans voted to restart the camera, but added the personal attack restriction the Democrats on the council didn't participate. So the Republicans look like the bad guys for adding a restriction. We got trapped. No one ever said our opponents (not enemies) were stupid. The ACLU and TNT do not mention that this whole issue is Republicans correcting a Democrat overstep. But, my surprise level is low. I would not expect the TNT or ACLU to come after a Democrat majority for their restrictions. My advice now is to back off the issue. A Republican majority member should "move to reconsider" the previous resolution and then all should vote to turn the camera back on WITHOUT RESTRICTION. (Now usually a motion to "reconsider" takes a two thirds majority. So it will take a few Democrat votes to get it passed and remove restrictions. If the "D"s don't give us the votes, then the tables are reversed and they are the bad guys.) The council will just have to endure the occasional overzealous and passionate citizen. Welcome to democracy in action for which they get $80,000+ per year. Do these Republican Council members deserve our hate and discontent? Are they RINO's? No. But they sure got flummoxed by a shrewd Democrat maneuver which was aided and abetted by the ACLU and TNT. Get smarter guys -- fix it and let's move on. We have roads to build, criminals to jail and taxes to reduce,... and miles to go before we sleep and miles to go before we sleep. (Apologies to Robert Frost).

My $00.02 offered with perfect 20/20 hindsight.

Deryl