Sine or die?
The Seattle Times presents a round-up of major legislative action this session, including this somewhat amusing snippet:
With the admission that it's very difficult to include everything one wishes in stories, it's a little odd that the Homeowner's BIll of Rights being blocked by House leadership wasn't mentioned in The Times piece. It certainly generated a lot of ink and pixels at the time; for example see Slog's first post about it.
David Postman, also of The Seattle Times, has been blogging from Olympia this weekend. In this post yesterday evening about attempts to hammer out an agreement on funding the family leave bill, it appears that last minute frustrations might be running a little high.
Postman had an interesting post last week about Chopp and his critics, which led to a very civil response posted by Josh Feit at Slog. Worth checking out if you didn't catch them last week.
At the end of the day folks will most likely come to the conclusion that since Democrats delivered on so many needed things, especially education, overall things are in pretty good shape.
In a way, the tensions between Democrats in the Legislature broadly mirror those in the national party. We're not very far removed in time from the days of DLC dominance, and that tired thinking still tends to surface and is expressed in phrases like "centrist" and "moderate." The conventional thinking is that if we "overreach" then the GOP will attack us and voters will punish us. And as late as 2004 that might have been true.
Things have changed now. Tri-angulation is dead. On the national stage, Jim Webb and Jon Tester, newly elected US Senators from Virginia and Montana, respectively, have shown that trying to pigeonhole progressives doesn't work. The old right-left model, with a center defined by a point between extremes, is no longer relevant. What matters is values.
The GOP has failed because its actions didn't match what it claimed were its core values. It claimed to be the party of individual rights, but it moved towards a police state. It claimed to be about fiscal responsbility and it spent like a drunken trust fund baby on a reality show. It claimed to be the party of small business and it relentlessly advanced the interests of the supr-rich and large corporations at the expense of our health, our environment and the economic future of most Americans.
Honest people can have honest disagreements about the details of policy. But when one is making those policy decisions, the goal must always be to place the interests of ordinary citizens first and stand up for what you believe in. Easier said than done, of course, but when you're looking at a piece of legislation that seeks to protect consumers and you're getting inundated with heat generated by the corporate lobby, that could be a clue. As the old song goes, the first thing we did right was the moment we started to fight.
We should also keep in mind that progressives are pragmatic, which to be fair to Chopp is something he clearly values. So these family discussions, so to speak, should be considered in the context in which they occur: they are discussions about the future of our party, much like a family would have. The difference these days is that more people can join the discussion, and that's a good thing, even if the rhetoric gets a little heated at times. Chopp may need to work on that hanging curve, but I wouldn't trade him.
MORE--- Brad Shannon at The Olympian mentions the Homeowner's Bill of Rights near the end of a round-up type article dated yesterday:
With Democrats holding a 62-36 advantage in the House and a 32-17 edge in the Senate — the largest majorities in decades — there was little the Republicans could do other than make noise.Poor baby, I feel so bad for him. It's been about 15 months since the GOP's Speaker's Roundtable sent out those infamous fake sex offender postcards attacking Democrats. How'd that work out for you, Richard?
"Just sit and watch it go by," said House Republican Leader Richard DeBolt of Chehalis.
With the admission that it's very difficult to include everything one wishes in stories, it's a little odd that the Homeowner's BIll of Rights being blocked by House leadership wasn't mentioned in The Times piece. It certainly generated a lot of ink and pixels at the time; for example see Slog's first post about it.
David Postman, also of The Seattle Times, has been blogging from Olympia this weekend. In this post yesterday evening about attempts to hammer out an agreement on funding the family leave bill, it appears that last minute frustrations might be running a little high.
(Sen. Darlene) Fairley and Senate Caucus Chairwoman Harriet Spanel said Chopp is overly concerned about Democrats doing something that could cost a member re-election. They wondered what would happen if all 98 House seats were filled with Democrats.It seems safe to say that discussion about Chopp's leadership will continue in the off season. How much of this is session-generated tension and how much is legitimate criticism is hard to know from afar.
"Would that be enough for him to not be afraid of losing a member," Fairley said. "We've constantly been drug hither and yon by Frank Chopp."
Postman had an interesting post last week about Chopp and his critics, which led to a very civil response posted by Josh Feit at Slog. Worth checking out if you didn't catch them last week.
At the end of the day folks will most likely come to the conclusion that since Democrats delivered on so many needed things, especially education, overall things are in pretty good shape.
In a way, the tensions between Democrats in the Legislature broadly mirror those in the national party. We're not very far removed in time from the days of DLC dominance, and that tired thinking still tends to surface and is expressed in phrases like "centrist" and "moderate." The conventional thinking is that if we "overreach" then the GOP will attack us and voters will punish us. And as late as 2004 that might have been true.
Things have changed now. Tri-angulation is dead. On the national stage, Jim Webb and Jon Tester, newly elected US Senators from Virginia and Montana, respectively, have shown that trying to pigeonhole progressives doesn't work. The old right-left model, with a center defined by a point between extremes, is no longer relevant. What matters is values.
The GOP has failed because its actions didn't match what it claimed were its core values. It claimed to be the party of individual rights, but it moved towards a police state. It claimed to be about fiscal responsbility and it spent like a drunken trust fund baby on a reality show. It claimed to be the party of small business and it relentlessly advanced the interests of the supr-rich and large corporations at the expense of our health, our environment and the economic future of most Americans.
Honest people can have honest disagreements about the details of policy. But when one is making those policy decisions, the goal must always be to place the interests of ordinary citizens first and stand up for what you believe in. Easier said than done, of course, but when you're looking at a piece of legislation that seeks to protect consumers and you're getting inundated with heat generated by the corporate lobby, that could be a clue. As the old song goes, the first thing we did right was the moment we started to fight.
We should also keep in mind that progressives are pragmatic, which to be fair to Chopp is something he clearly values. So these family discussions, so to speak, should be considered in the context in which they occur: they are discussions about the future of our party, much like a family would have. The difference these days is that more people can join the discussion, and that's a good thing, even if the rhetoric gets a little heated at times. Chopp may need to work on that hanging curve, but I wouldn't trade him.
MORE--- Brad Shannon at The Olympian mentions the Homeowner's Bill of Rights near the end of a round-up type article dated yesterday:
In a bid to steer a more centrist path this time, Democrats abandoned their most controversial measures. Those included a homeowners bill of rights that builders opposed, as well as new restrictions proposed by Rep. Brendan Williams, D-Olympia, for gun-show weapons sales.To be clear, I'm not trying to pick on any reporters in this case, because there is always the challenge of writing stories in a clear, concise manner, but it's worth adding that the bill was only controversial because an entrenched business lobby, the BIAW, said so. Ordinary homeowners were basically without a voice on the matter. And arguing that citizens not represented by entrenched lobbies should somehow out-lobby the professional lobbyists would be absurd.
“I think, public policy-wise, we pursued a very moderate course,” Williams said.
The third-year lawmaker credited Speaker Frank Chopp of Seattle with steering Democrats away from controversy, even though it led to the killing of the homeowner warranty bill, which Williams championed. He said that as the Democratic caucus has grown to a 62-36 majority, it has come to represent more diverse interests that have to be balanced.
