Read a Pacific Northwest, liberal perspective on world, national, and local politics. From majestic Redmond, Washington - the Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog.

Friday, March 02, 2007

Zarelli's petulance

The editors at The Columbian smack Joe Zarelli around over simple majority:
Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, had said earlier he would support a simple majority bill if it embraced a November-only provision, which requires such elections to be held only in that month, to maximize voter input. That's been our editorial stance.

And that concession was granted by Democrats, but then Zarelli voted against the bill. Huh? "Even though we're the minority party, Republicans have some say on this, but (Senate Majority Leader) Lisa Brown misstepped when she tried to rush this to a vote without speaking with Republican leaders," Zarelli said when contacted by telephone Thursday. "There's a process that should be followed, and courtesy matters."

Zarelli said he was also bothered by reports that the House might strip the November-only provision out of the bill. When asked if he should be reversing his stances based on what he suspects might happen in a chamber to which he was not elected, Zarelli repeated his devotion to "the process."

The Ridgefield senator is right about one thing: "People outside Olympia don't really understand the politics involved in something like this. Give us a chance to get it done. Ultimately, I'm confident the bill will get out of here with approval." Somehow, the words "dragged, kicking and screaming" come to mind.
The editors made sure to take some digs at Democrats, too, including Lisa Brown and Ken Jacobsen, presumably as defense against the one millionth conservative letter to the editor repeating Sean Hannity talking points and accusing them of being liberal (I think it's some kind of weird S & M thing with The Columbian. "Thank you wingnut reader, may I have another?")

The Columbian is about as solidly pro-business, old school Republican as they can get but in conservative cloud cuckoo land that's liberal. Probably because they dare to say things like "we need to educate our children" instead of singing the tired wingnut refrain about "wastefraudandabuse," which nobody even knows what it means any more. Well, it means a program that I don't personally benefit from, so therefore it's nefarious in purpose and practice.

At any rate, it was puzzling what Zarelli's motivation was to go back on his word, and since it appears to be basically petulance, then he should apologize to the kids in his district. It's a case of typical Republican baloney: sit there and demand that kids pass their asinine standardized tests, all the time trying to destroy the WEA, and then when it comes time to step up to the plate they can't get over their ideological sickness.

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