I was going to mention this in this morning’s open thread, but there was no way to do it in a sentence without it sounding like I was goofing on Joni Balter (although, obviously, I have in the past and may again depending on what she writes). I think it’s absolutely the right move for Balter to leave the ed page and go back to news. I don’t have any recollection of her as a reporter, but people I know, even people who are skeptical of her as an editorial writer tell me she was good at it. So we’ll see based on what she writes. If it’s solid reporting, great. If it’s nonsense dressed up as reporting, well that’s too bad.

But regardless of how Balter turns out, The Seattle Times should focus more on reporting than on editorials. It’s their bread and butter and they don’t have as much competition. While some blogs that aren’t affiliated with newspapers have reporting, a good deal of the reporting in this town comes from The Seattle Times. I hope this signals something more than just one move.

Lisa Brown isn’t running for reelection (h/t).

I have decided not to seek re-election to the 3rd district Senate seat this fall. Returning home two weeks ago, I began taking stock of my twenty years in the Legislature, reflecting on what I have been able to achieve with the help of colleagues and supporters. I decided that, though it is still immensely gratifying to serve Spokane and the state of Washington in this capacity, I am ready for new challenges.

I don’t know why anyone would want to be a legislator in this climate, so I can’t blame her. But it is a loss.

- Politicizing national security

- The Squaxin Island Tribe released thousands of juvenile coho into the Deschutes River to see where they go. “In order to find out where the good coho habitat is in the Deschutes, we need to put some coho in the river,” said Scott Stetlzner, salmon biologist for the tribe.

- I decided to keep blogging here and to give myself permission to step away when I feel the need.

- How much of their own bullshit do right wingers believe?

- It gets tougher and tougher to watch football the more stuff like this happens.

- I said yesterday that I prefer the stadiums downtown. But if that’s found to be problematic for the Port, then Rainier Valley would be fine (h/t)

- You have terrible taste

- I don’t see anything going wrong with this plan.

For a variety of reasons I prefer having the stadiums in walking distance of downtown than I would having them further out. It’s great to be able to amble home after a game or take my bike back to my apartment without breaking a sweat. Still there’s something nice about riding the light rail when the team is in town.

While I wasn’t going to the Sounders game, I happened to be riding into town from Columbia City at 6:30. The train wasn’t jam packed, but the seats were taken and people were standing. People in Sounders gear talking to strangers about the game and the season. There’s a sense of community that you don’t get fighting traffic and trying to find parking.

This David Brooks piece is mostly just an excuse for him to make his hillllllllllarious plumber joke.* But then he realized that he only wrote enough to fill a third of the column and had to fill it with nonsense. I wasn’t going to mention it, but since it’s going around various other blogs, I thought I’d mention it too.

So far this year, both President Obama and Mitt Romney seem more passionate about denying the other side victory than about any plank in their own agendas. Both campaigns have developed contempt for their opponent, justifying their belief that everything, then, is permitted.

In both campaigns, you can see the war-room mentality developing early.

He gives one example of each campaign caring more about denying the other candidate victory than about their own agenda. See of you find the falseness in this equivalence:

In November, the Romney campaign ran a blatantly dishonest ad in which President Obama purportedly admits that if the election is fought on the economy, he will lose. The quote was a distortion, but the effectiveness of the ad was in showing Republican professionals and primary voters that Romney was going to play by gangland rules, that he was tough enough and dishonest enough to do so, too.

Last week, the Obama campaign ran a cheap-shot ad on the death of Osama bin Laden. Part of the ad was Bill Clinton effectively talking about the decision to kill the terrorist. But, in the middle, the Obama people threw in a low-minded attack on Romney. The slam made Clinton look small, it made Obama look small, it turned a moment of genuine accomplishment into a political ploy, but it did follow the rules of gangland: At every second, attack; at every opportunity, drive a shiv between the ribs.

Romney quoting Obama quoting McCain’s adviser 4 years ago, but passing it off as Obama saying it now on the one side. An Obama campaign video talking about the Bin Laden raid and noting that Romney wouldn’t have done it based on things he said in the campaign in context on the other. Really, if those are your extremes, let me suggest one side is worse than the other.

When Newt Gingrich first hinted at running for President in 2010, I knew it would be fun. Alas, fun has run its course.

Now, after a week of “pre-suspensions,” Newt has gone and quit us. And now that Newt has quit, he leaves behind a set of winners and losers:

• Loser: Newt’s creditors, who will likely be bilked out of millions.
• Loser: Newt’s “Think Tanks” and Not-Lobbying Organizations that have been driven to bankruptcy.
• Loser: Callista Gingirch, who has lost her one and only opportunity to be upgraded from “Third Lady”…
• Loser: Newt’s publisher, who must now put black dots on the remaining inventory of his books before tossing them into the bargain bin. Although, in balance, they probably had an EXCELLENT run of it so far, with a massive donor-sponsored book tour, complete with Guvment-provided security, and MSM-subsidized publicity.
• Loser: The people of Puerto Rico who aspire to Statehood
• Loser: The people of Moon Colony one who long for Statehood
• Winner: Mitt Romney, who can finally do that pivoty, etch-a-sketchy thing.

Leave your list of winners and losers in the comment thread….

Over at Sound Politics, that still exists, Ron Hebron is mad at Dan Savage for saying the part of the bible that says you should kill gay people is bullshit like the part that says you should stone non-virgin women on their wedding night.

Addressing a national conference of high-school journalists, Savage was calling the Bible bull**** repeatedly. Students started to leave. So he called them pansyasses. When the adult presenter calls 17-year-old students names isn’t that bullying?

He apologized for the pansyasses thing, as well he should. But he didn’t say the entire Bible was bullshit, just the bullshit parts. Also, why bowdlerize bullshit but not pansyass?

The Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association paid Savage to address the students. Didn’t they know what they were getting? We did.

Who the fuck is “we” here? Does Hebron think he’s the Queen of England? But the larger point is that people who use the Bible to justify hatred should be called out. And if the National Scholastic Press Association wants to have him say that, that’s fine. But even if you’re a Christian, it’s worth hearing.

… keep in mind that while a few pissed off people with a penchant for breaking shit are completely irresistible for TeeVee news, so are prostitutes and strippers…

Prostitutes and Strippers Oh My!

KOMO just reported someone was arrested for not giving up their flag pole.

It’s May Day today, and that calls for a celebration. So you can go all Frenchy-foreigny and imbibe in the pagan fertility celebration or get out your inner-Communist and celebrate International Workers’ Day. (Oh…and if you’re an anarchists, go fuck yourself.)

Either way, when you get done mating/marching, please join us for an evening of political conversation over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally. We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm, but a few folks show up earlier for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? There are DLs meeting all around Washington state, including in the Tri-Cities tonight, the Tacoma chapter on Thursday, and South Bellevue, Olympia, and Yakima next Monday.

With 233 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s a chapter close by.

- Occupy Seattle’s May Day schedule.

- I hadn’t heard of Startup Weekend GOV but the winners look like they’re creating some innovative things.

- Shaun and Erica have more on McMorris Rogers.

- Texas’ anti-Planned Parenthood law is unconstitutional.

- I’m not sure if it’s an honor or a dishonor that Twilight wasn’t filmed in Washington.

- Chicago Sun-Times Columnist Joe Cowley Rides A Plane, Degrades Women Everywhere

I’m not sure where my notes are, so this isn’t going to be a very good piece. I’m sorry.

Over the weekend the Democrats held their Legislative District and County Caucuses. Because I’m a glutton for punishment — and because I believe in the process, also um, for this post — I went to both of mine. It’s not nearly as noteworthy 4 years ago, when there was still a primary going on and the Clinton people were still trying to keep their delegates and the Obama people were trying to finish things off. But we got to make the platform a little more liberal than the proposals, so that’s good. Also, I’m a delegate to the Legislative District and State levels, so yay for that.

Day one was the legislative district. Shock of shocks: we were almost all for Obama. There were people who wanted to nominate Russ Feingold, Elizabeth Warren, Jim McDermott, and Max Cleland. At one person each, they fell well short of the 15% necessary to get a delegate to the next level (we had well over 100 people).

People were given a chance to reconsider their candidates, while we went on to the legislative district platform. We’re for marriage equality and against the war in Afghanistan.

Then picking delegates. The men and the women were picked separately, so there would be an equal number (23, I believe) of each. We gave 30 second speeches on why we should go on and what our issues are. There isn’t too much you can say in that time. I mentioned writing for this and previous blogs and that I grew up as a Democrat. I guess it was good enough, since I made it to the next rounds, although a majority of people did, so it’s not that much of an accomplishment.

Interspersed throughout the process were speeches. All of the candidates for the LD or their spokespeople. Jim McDermott came in fairly late (I think he said it was the 6th district he was at that day). He said he thinks health care is going to be upheld in the Supreme Court 6-3 and that a Democratic Congress and reelecting Obama will make sure the details work for regular people. He also thanked the person who nominated him for president, but said he wouldn’t accept it. He was the only standing ovation of the day. So that was Saturday.

Sunday, I went to the King County convention. No delegates were selected, just the platform. I mostly sat in the back with my father who was a delegate from another district. First off, there were quite a few speeches. Jay Inslee gave a barn burner. Jim McDermott gave basically the same speech (that he also gave at my Dad’s LD) minus thanking the person who nominated him for president. Darcy Burner had Marilyn Chase (whose district I don’t think overlaps the new 1st, but I’m not sure) speak on her behalf because she’d eaten seafood despite being allergic the night before, but I don’t remember anything about it. Ruderman and Suzan DelBene each gave I’m electable speeches. There are too many people running for judge.

The King County platform is pretty good. People had a tough time understanding there were only deletions and not amendments. I left about 5:30 (my ride was leaving), when we were about 2/3 of the way through the platform. I’m not sure it was the most productive weekend I’ve ever had, but I’m glad I went.

Location – North Seattle
   Senate: David Frockt (D), 2012 (special election)
   House 1: Gerry Pollet (D)
   House 2: Phyllis Gutierrez-Kenney (D), retiring

Under the 2001 Legislative District map, the northern border of the 46th was the entire northern city line (Sound to Lake) of Seattle. It was one of three LDs completely contained within the city, joining the 36th and the 43rd. Unlike those other Seattle-only LDs, which were also entirely within the 7th Congressional District, a small portion of the 46th was in the 2001 version of the 1st CD. The 2001 borders of the 46th LD, at a 1:60,000 scale, are shown below:

For reference, the 2001 boundaries of LDs are the pink/purple region. Major bodies of water are blue, major roads (state or federal highways, for the most part) are red lines, counties are named in ALL-CAPS ITALICS and delineated with heavy black lines, precincts are lighter black lines, and cities are displayed as blue “dot in square” symbols and name labels. These color conventions will be used throughout this series, and additional conventions will be described as we display them on maps.

The 2001 version of the 46th LD, then, consisted of northern and northeastern Seattle. In the new 2011 map, the 46th breaks out of Seattle, generally moving to the northeast of its previous location. It loses its former western portion to the 36th and 32nd Districts; the latter LD regains some of the Seattle precincts it had had in 1991. The 46th’s border with the 43rd is slightly changed, and it takes its new non-Seattle section largely from the old 32nd. In the following map of the new 46th, the LD is shaded in green. This map also shows the boundaries of the 2011 Congressional Districts, marked in thick dashed blue lines and labeled as “WA-x“.

Note also that all maps in this post cover exactly the same area, at the same scale (1:60,000 for the 46th LD). The only differences are in the “layers” placed on the map.

As in the 2001 map, the 46th is mostly in the 7th CD, with a portion in the 1st (though of course it’s a very different CD than the old 1st Congressional District). The 46th now extends up and around the northern end of Lake Washington. The King-Snohomish county boundary now defines the northern border of the LD and the southern border of the 2nd CD. None of the new 46th Legislative District is in the new 2nd Congressional District.

Now that we’ve seen the old and new borders of the 46th, let’s superimpose them on one another. That will more clearly display where and how the boundaries of the LD have changed. In the map below, the colors of the earlier maps are retained where there is no overlap. Territory that is no longer in the 46th Legislative District remains pink/purple, and areas newly encompassed by the 46th remain green. Areas within both the 2001 and 2011 versions of the LD are displayed as a brown region.

So how will these changes affect this year’s elections in the 46th? Let’s make it clear from the start — there’s no chance whatsoever that a Republican will win any of the LD’s seats in the Legislature. Lake Forest Park and Kenmore are just as Democratic as Broadview and the northwest corner of Seattle. Although two of the three seats have incumbents, neither Frockt nor Pollet was elected to his current position. Frockt did stand for election to the House 1 seat before being elevated to the Senate after Scott White’s untimely death, but Pollet is in the House based only on the votes of PCOs (in the old 46th). The principal factor to be considered by the candidates, then, is making themselves known to their new non-Seattle constituents. I would suggest that those candidates whose political bases are rooted primarily in the 46th District Democrats organization might be at something of a disadvantage against those who are better know “publicly”.

In the race for the open House 2 seat, the action will likely unfold in both the primary and the general election. It’s possible, however, that the crowd of Democratic candidates might divide the primary vote so evenly that the Republican (yes, there is one) could sneak into one of the two November slots. That would make it less bloody in the general, as the surviving Dem would be a sure thing if facing a Republican, but I doubt that any of the Democrats are working under that assumption.

What might have been a wildcard thrown into the mix — a candidate living in the new non-Seattle portion of the 46th — appears to have been circumvented. The Lake Forest Park home of Representative Ruth Kagi (D-32) was redistricted into the 46th, but she has already stated that she will move into the reconfigured 32nd LD and run for re-election there.

While the filing deadline is still almost three weeks in the future, Senator Frockt is currently running unopposed. Representative Pollet has drawn one Democratic opponent thus far, though the choice of which seat a candidate might run for is still fluid. Also, there’s nominally still time for a non-Seattle candidate to throw his/her hat in the ring, though it doesn’t seem likely.

Open seats in Legislative Districts almost always draw large packs of aspiring candidates. Significant alterations in district boundaries, as in the 46th (and the 11th, but not 36th), add even more spice to the competition.

- Yes, it’s an event where vile war criminals like Henry Kissinger are feted and celebrated, but you know where else vile war criminals like Henry Kissinger are celebrated? Literally everywhere they go. The Correspondents’ Dinner is just an awkward roast preceded and followed by depressing parties.

- Screwed straight

- Well, it’s nice to see a few people in the beltway calling them out. But it’s been true for decades that the GOP is the problem.

- The Real McKenna.

- Maple Leaf is getting itself a brand-new art walk

- I denied involvement, so the whistleblower must be lying!

The last contest was won by Geoduck. It was Spokane Falls Community College.

This week’s contest is related to something in the news from April, good luck!

1 Samuel 5:6
But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon those of Ashdod, and He destroyed them and smote them with hemorrhoids.

Discuss.

Sam Seder: Teleprompter obsessed Marco Rubio FUCKS UP.

Stephen: The bridge between liberals and conservatives.

Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican—Maine edition.

Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani: a match made in heaven.

Romney versus Reality: Student loan edition.

The Partisans: Obama’s campaign still trying to find a slogan.

Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

Sam Seder: Romney’s foreign policy adviser talks Obama and…Czechoslovakia???

Buzz 60: White House Correspondents Dinner and Bin Laden Death.

Young Turks: Tony Perkins (Family Research Council) is a Birther?!?

Jay Inslee goes on the radio and drinks:

Mark Fiore: Cyber-Snuggly.

Stephen on Obama’s slow-jammed news.

Thom: The best Democracy money can buy.

The candidates test some slogans.

Young Turks: Gov. Phil Bryant (R-MS) says Dems want to kill children.

Liberal Viewer: Analysis of Arizona anti-immigration law.

Sam Seder: The biggest beneficiaries of our corrupt politics.

Alyona: What would Jesus cut?

Ad: Empower, Act, Organize.

WA Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark answers some questions.

Jon on Mitt’s Reboot.

More Skirmishes in the GOP War on Women™:

• Maddow: The Republican i>War on Women™
• Young Turks: Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) defunds rape crisis centers
• Sam Seder: What if it extended beyond the War on Women?
• Maddow: Rape and incest survivors find no quarter in VA.
• Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) defunds rape victims.
• Ann Telnaes: GOP and the Violence Against Women Act
• Maddow: GOP cuts funding for female reproductive health and denies War on Women™

Young Turks: What will Romney and Republicans run on in 2012 now that bin Laden is dead?

Jon on the Secret Service prostitution scandal.

Alyona: The Walmart bribery scandal.

Attacking Obama as a celebrity.

Buzz 60: Romney wins five and Obama slow jams with Fallon.

ONN: Obama approval down afterphotos surface of him eating big sandwich all alone.

Marco Rubio has the perfect VP moment.

Mitt in the tank for Big Oil.

Newsy: Student loan interest rate cuts causes controversy.

Kimmel with another episode of Unnecessary Censorship.

Bill Clinton on being “The Decider”:

Thom: More Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Who is Mitt Romney listening to?

Pap: The Anti-Government crowd is trying to dismantle public schools.

Alyona: The Walmart bribery scandal.

White House: West Wing Week.

Ann Telnaes: The Elephant in the room.

Young Turks: ALEC and for-profit colleges.

Alyona: Welcome to the Drone Age.

Jon on N.C. issues.

Sam Seder: Don’t let Obama take our guns!

Liberal Viewer: FOX News fraud on voter fraud and voter ID.

Romney versus Reality: Global Edition.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

What the hell, Cathy McMorris Rodgers?

The bad news is that Republicans in the House, led by Washington State Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA, 5) are pushing an alternative proposal—which McMorris Rodgers, incredibly, said will protect “the true victims of domestic violence and sexual assault”—that does not provide any of the Senate version’s protections for Native American women, gay women, rural women, and some illegal immigrants. (The latter provision is aimed largely at protecting so-called child and mail-order brides brought into the country illegally and under false pretenses.)

McMorris Rodgers’ statement is worth repeating. “House Republicans are committed to protecting the true victims of domestic violence and sexual assault,” she said. “True” victims—those worthy of protection—in other words, do not include Native American women, women who live in remote rural areas, children and women sold into sex slavery, or lesbians.

Over the last few months, I’ve written at length — some might say ad nauseum — about Washington’s redistricting process based on the 2010 Census:

• A report on minority-majority Congressional Districts and why it’s absurd to try to construct one here. (The Redistricting Commission didn’t listen to me.)
• On the mechanics and mathematics of Congressional reapportionment and how Washington earned its 10th Congressional District.
• A “breaking” story just before the release of the nearly-final CD maps.

A few days after the last of those, upon further review of the newly-drawn map, I wrote a more reflective piece on the outcome of Congressional redistricting in Washington. My conclusion: Skeletor won the battle with Tim Ceis, and it wasn’t even close. For reasons that escape me, I posted that piece only on Peace Tree Farm, resulting in even fewer readers than my wonkery draws here on HA. That was dumb of me, wasn’t it?

Nearly everything in the above-referenced posts concerned Congressional redistricting. Which makes sense, I suppose. Changing the number of districts is always exciting, though of course it’s even more exciting (and much, much bloodier) in states that lose Congressional Districts. You can check with Dennis Kucinich on that. For the record, Washington has never experienced CD subtraction.

But redistricting affects far more than Congress. Many other jurisdictional boundaries have to be changed to account for changing demographics, from school board districts to County Council and beyond. If Seattle elected City Council by district (as it should, IMHO), those borders would have to be redrawn too. With one exception, those lower-level maps are drawn by lower-level governments.

The exception, of course, is the map of Legislative Districts, also drawn by the Redistricting Commission. While the number of LDs in Washington is constitutionally set at 49, their boundaries must be redrawn to take into account population trends over the 10 years since the last Census. LDs that had nearly identical populations in 2000 are no longer equal, and the Commission is mandated to reconstruct the legislative map to reflect those demographic trends.

The Commission had to account for more than just the statewide 14.1% increase. Had every LD added 16,948 residents (average LD population was 120,288 after the 2000 Census and would be 137,236 under this redistricting), we could have kept the old boundaries. But of course, that isn’t what happened. The population of the old 2nd LD increased by 43,337 (36.0%), while the 28th actually lost 754 residents (-0.6%).

I won’t go into the extended process by which the Commission eventually settled on the new map, except to note that it took them until 10:35pm (85 minutes before their deadline) on January 1, 2012 to convey their agreed-upon map to the Legislature. Instead, I thought it might be interesting to examine the changes in LD boundaries. Data geek, and map geek, that I am, I’ve done exactly that — creating maps showing each LD’s old boundaries, its new boundaries, and the two superimposed on each other.

The results of (some of?) my handiwork will appear here on HA soon. The questions I pose to myself — and to my colleagues here, and to the readers of HA — are:

1. Do I report on the LDs one-by-one or in groups?
2. Can I report on every single one of the 49 LDs without boring y’all to death?
3. How ever we decide to do the reports, in what order should they be revealed?

I’ll answer a couple of those questions, at least to start, by writing individually on the Seattle-area LDs with open seats. I plan to begin with the 46th, followed by the 36th and the 11th. Why the 46th? Simple — it has cooler maps than the others. It’s the wow!! factor…

So, if you haven’t nodded off in boredom are drooling in breathless anticipation, stay tuned.

I realize this is a few days old now, but Rob McKenna, backed into a corner with his not an answer answer, on the Reproductive Parity Act, finally decided he has an opinion on it after all. Fortunately pro-choice groups see right through it.

McKenna falsely claimed today that the Reproductive Parity Act will “put federal funding of women’s health care at risk” by addressing the Weldon Amendment. However, if he read the current legislation he would see that the Weldon Amendment was raised during the legislative session and is fully addressed in the bill as it stands. Under the Weldon Amendment, states may not “discriminate” against providers who do not offer abortion services.

The Reproductive Parity Act has been drafted specifically to protect insurance carriers in the state of Washington against discrimination and will keep our state compliant with the federal requirements of the Weldon Amendment. Every carrier currently selling in Washington covers abortion, and they have no objection to the RPA. Washington has an existing conscience clause for new providers wishing to be admitted into the state that do not want to include abortion in any of their health plans.

In fact, pro-choice leaders Jay Inslee, then a Congressman in the 1st, and Congressmen Jim McDermott (D-7) and Adam Smith (D-9) already sent this letter that you can download here to President Obama addressing the Weldon Amendment and supporting access to women’s health care coverage and the Reproductive Parity Act (HB 2330).

While so much of the nation is going backwards (h/t to Geov) on these issues, it’s good that Washington has the chance to go in the right direction.

It seems recently the comments in non-open threads have been pretty derailed pretty quickly. And so I’d just like to remind people that there is a comment policy that bans, among other things, “deliberately off-topic comments (except in “open threads”), as well as pointless comments on these comments.” And since that time there has been a greater effort to put up open threads. We have at least 3 open threads a week (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday) and the Drinking Liberally and Friday Night Multimedia threads. There’s usually one near the top, so please use them.