Like the rest of the Seattle House delegation, except Bob Hasegawa, Jamie Pedersen, and Frank Chopp, she voted for the 520 toll raid (SB 6392). Like the rest of the delegation, except for Bob Hasegawa, Marylou Dickerson, Sharon Tomiko-Santos, and Frank Chopp, she voted to stick Seattle taxpayers with the cost overruns on the car tunnel (SB 5768).

I see little consistent heroism from anyone in Olympia. Until we show we can take down an incumbent, we’ll only get people willing to co-sponsor other people’s efforts, and then not follow through to get the needed bills passed, while continuing to pump billions of dollars into automobile infrastructure.

I don’t have time, or interest, to help half-hearted transit-and-road friends advance their careers.

Beneath the political radar, we’re undergoing an industrial revolution. Drive (or take the bus or LINK to) into any small warehouse park in the country. Knock on any office door beside a loading dock.

Chances are, you’ll find a small manufacturing operation with somebody on a computer sending or receiving CNC (computer numeric control- for sending machining instructions directly to a milling machine) all over the world.

Right now, neither major party- or any minor party, including all the socialist ones, even notice these people. But it’s widely if grudgingly conceded that companies like these are responsible for virtually all the new jobs now.

Considering what happened politically due to the last Industrial Revolution, whoever gets to this new group now could be solidly in power for a long time. Politically, their interests are liberal. If they get a fair chance at the Government contracts, even socialist.

It would be a shame to see this group go far right- and take the country with them- because nobody on my side even knows they’re there. Transit in particular seems to be oblivious to them right now- at a time when many of them could really use a place in some Transit Oriented Development.

As for the DIR- Democrats for Improved Republicans- I think US politics needs a place for responsible conservative businesspeople. The Republican Party has too good a history to end up the possession of the irresponsible greedheads-on-meth who now control it. The worst of whom used to be Democrats.

The problem with natural Republicans forced to join the Democrats is the same as with Democrats trying to be fiscally conservative- the suit just doesn’t fit. I like Fred Jarrett. He deserves to have his real party back.

Mark

Mark Dublin

Mark

You have to go down to line 30 on his contributor list to find a real live constituent who has contributed to his re-election campaign.

FWIW, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles voted against the raid on 520 bridge tolls, and Rep. Marylou Dickerson was one of the few Democrats who voted against sticking Seattle taxpayers with the cost overruns on the car tunnel.

http://www.pdc.wa.gov has all the candidates who are raising money for all the state-level offices. That’s where I found out that David Frockt is challenging road warrior Sen. Ken Jacobsen.

http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/ has lots of useful information, including all state-level offices up for election this year.

Nothing gets the attention of politicians faster than having someone force them to raise money to get re-elected. Even if we can only afford one or two serious challenges, making a whole lot of legislators sweat would be worth the effort. But I happen to think Jacobsen would be one of our best options for showing that legislators who turn their back on their transit-using constituents *can* be taken down. He’s been nailed there on a perch for years, but with the Louisiana system, the perch may have just disappeared…

Of course, that doesn’t mean don’t do anything but vote for one of the two main parties until then, but it does make the bar pretty high to get any non R or D in office.

If there weren’t a difference, the Senate wouldn’t have pushed against that amendment. Obviously.

And seriously, comparing last year’s highway projects with this year’s? Okay, so the delta in highway projects in a recession is small? What’s the total? Pretty sure you’re talking more like $2,000M.

I’m sure someone posting from the Senate network would love to see us give the Senate a pat on the back and a guest piece to spin things in their favor!

In practice the law gives cities a veto on county-wide TBDs.

A compare of last year’s and this year’s highway projects list shows about $10M spent on new projects (vs. cost increases) with around another $1M for various highway and ferry studies including a couple of tolling studies. In other words, no obvious bias.

In researching the RMG program it appears to be primarily capital needs focused but I suppose the legislature could have programmed that for Community and/or Pierce to shore-up operating costs had they wanted to. The additional RMG funding originally got tacked on in the house transpo., committee. I wonder if they contemplated flipping the funds for operating purposes? Maybe next year transit advocates could come at the legislature from that angle (flipping RMG funds to op vs. cap)?

Another bugger for transit and rail is the competition for revenues with the general fund budget. Most of the non-constitutionally protected highway funding in the transportation budget looks to come from sales tax on vehicles, rental car taxes, (both authorized in 2003 by then chairs Murray and Horn) and passenger vehicle weight fees (authorized in 2005 by then chairs Murray and Haugen). These general purpose taxes go toe-to-toe with general fund revenue streams whereas the weight fee has a clear transportation nexus. Finding new non-highway eligible funding streams will be a challenge in light of the chronic structural deficit in the state’s operating (general fund) budget. Maybe that’s in part what the above transit study is designed to examine.

One other thing my research turned-up is the current transportation benefit district statutes allow funds to be used for transit purposes (including the councilmatic $20 local option vehicle license fee). Looks like the difference with the Liias proposal was a transit board would have had the authority to impose the fee but if you’ve got a friendly city/county council, the authority is there under current law to fund transit.

One last thought. The mood here is pretty anti-senate and anti-Haugen. Why not invite her to do a guest post outlining her position on transit funding (and private motor carriers too)? My research indicates she has at least been at the table when transit funding is in the mix. On that note, maybe this outfit should ask to be at the table too as part of the newly funded transit study. As the saying goes, ‘if you’re not at the table, you’re on the table.’ I saw another recent post here about taking the long view; that advice applies to dealings with the legislature as well.

However Ben is correct in that the downtown portions of both the proposed tunnel and the elevated options considered by WSDOT are almost entirely useless to transit because of the lack of exits in the central downtown portion.

Remember, a lot of Washington State’s best politics came from Republicans of the Dan Evans stripe, including the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle. These people have been politically homeless since a bunch of Southern Democrats took over their party. Somebody needs to organize “Democrats for Improved Republicans.” Then maybe “bipartisanship” won’t mean “Do what Glenn Beck says.”

While I liked the old Dan Evans type of Republicans (and nationally liked the Rockefeller/Ford Republicans). I think the chance of steering the party back in that direction is slim to none. The know nothings, nativists, birchers, free market fundamentalists, gun nuts, and theocrats are a majority of the party these days. Typically when I find an Evans Republican these days, they consider themselves democrats. Even if by some chance the old Evans type Republicans were able to take the Washington GOP back they would find themselves quite out of step with the party nationally.

Frankly as someone who currently considers himself a yellow dog democrat, I’d rather focus my efforts on trying to fix the problems problems of the democrats from inside the system. The advantage and the challenge is today’s democratic party is such a large coalition that no one group has a real solid hold.

Meantime, anytime somebody says they’re “progressive”, ask them why they’re afraid to say “liberal.” If they say they’re more moderate than that, vote for somebody else.

So what does it mean when someone says they’re a “socialist”? ;-)