I’m Back!

           I left the Yup’ik village, where I teach in Alaska, just over a week ago and have spent the time almost entirely with family. Together we have seen four movies (the new Star Trek, Night at the Museum, Terminator and Up), went out to eat several times and twice angered PETA and the EPA when we barbequed ample amounts of steak. That is a wild and crazy week for me and I enjoyed all of it. I’m refreshed and ready to get back to work on the blog.

           Even when I am trying to focus on family the outside world seems to bang at my door. From time to time I give money to conservative Republican candidates and consequently I receive a steady stream of mail from the state and national party. A letter from Washington State Senator Mike Hewitt arrived several days ago and while he is not my senator, his 16^th district is very rural and conservative so I decided to see what he had to say. Here, briefly, are the highlights.

“Sure enough, when the Legislative session began in January, the Democrats admitted the budget was billions of dollars out of balance. They had made so many campaign promises to special interest groups that they found themselves with a past due bill for $9 billion.”

During the 105 day legislative session, “The marmot was named the official state endemic mammal.”

“While they debated new taxes, the Democrats began to cut into the heart of state government – taking money away from colleges and universities, voting for higher tuition, and even reducing the supervision of convicted sex offenders.”

I wrote about how the Democrats were reducing sex offender supervision in a post title Blind Eye to Sex Offenders. Senator Hewitt correctly indicts the Democrats for cutting the budget in this manner, but other than that I find his letter to be a pretty weak denunciation of the party that has been in power for years. In addition to making us all less safe by granting greater freedom to sex offenders here is my review of the last Washington State legislative session.

Democrats have controlled the governor’s office since 1985 and they have ruled in both the house and senate for almost as long. Today the state budget is $9 billion in the red, but the democrats didn’t fix that problem. Other than making life easier for sex offenders, what did they do?

Washington is now Felon Friendly

           In a March 2009 post titled Unfair to Felons, I told how the state is now a friendlier place for the 46,000 felons who have not paid court ordered restitution to their victims. Recently Secretary of State Sam Reed stated that, “When people have served their time and are out of prison, we want them to get involved in their community and get connected.” He went on to say that giving felons the right to vote would reduce the bureaucratic challenges in determining who is a legal voter.

            So, because our highly paid bureaucrats can’t figure out who should be allowed to vote and because our elected officials want felons to “get connected,” they passed HB 1517 restoring voting rights to felons without a requirement that they first pay restitution to their victims.

Kill the Messenger

A month later in a post titled Strangle Performance Audits, I talked about how, in an effort to close the state’s multi-billion dollar deficit, elected officials planned to cut 15 million dollars from voter-mandated performance audits. What do performance audits do? Find ways to improve performance, cut budgets and save money. As I said then, “If you can follow this reasoning you might feel right at home in state government.” In the end, the state was saved from legislative stupidity by the governor’s line item veto.

Even they aren’t this Dumb--Are They?

           I title this section Even they aren’t this Dumb because HB 2316 did not pass. Thankfully. This law would have made it illegal for someone working for Boeing to “threaten any legislator...with the relocation of manufacturing jobs...based upon the outcome of any pending or proposed legislation.” The legislation doesn’t name Boeing, but that is the target.

Boeing could still move all the jobs out of the state, they just couldn’t say that to anyone in Olympia. Shouldn’t our elected officials want to know if Boeing was planning to move?

I’m thinking Boeing should leave the state just because the Washington legislature was stupid enough to consider such a silly, unconstitutional, law.

Many of our legislators spent the entire one hundred day session passing, or trying to pass, silly or downright destructive laws.  Apparently, some of our elected officials are just that dumb.

Three Dumb Ideas from Olympia

Writing on different topics is a good idea for a blogger, it helps keep the site fresh and interesting for the reader, so I like to follow a political post with perhaps a book review or a personal note, but sometimes our elected officials just keep doing dumb things that I feel compelled to expose. This month has been such a time.

      Dumb idea number one was highlighted in a post titled “Unfair to Felons?” The Washington State senate has passed a bill to restore the voting rights of felons before they have paid restitution to their victims. The supporters of the legislature tell us that it is unfair to deprive the felons of the right to vote and it is just too hard to keep track of which felons have paid restitution and fines and should, under current law, have their rights restored. As I asked in an update to that post, why should the state of Washington make felons whole before the felons have completed paying court ordered restitution to their victims and thereby made them whole?

      Dumb idea number two was titled, “Blind Eye to Sex Offenders.” As you all know the state is facing a nine billion dollar budget deficit that our legislature and governor created. One way our leaders want to fix their problem is by allowing some 12,000 sex offenders to have unsupervised release.

      We shouldn’t be releasing sex offenders at all, but the current law allows it. This new horrid legislation, SB 5288, comes a mere two months after a convicted sex offender killed a teenage girl in the Vancouver area. The fundamental purpose of government is the protection of the rights and property of citizens. By considering SB 5288 our elected officials have shown that they are not willing to meet even the minimum requirements of good government. I asked our elected officials in my earlier post, “What were you thinking?” I’m still waiting for an answer.

     Dumb idea number three makes me think that we really do need education reform. Our elected officials want to pass a bill, HB 2316, that makes it illegal for someone working for Boeing to “threaten any legislator...with the relocation of manufacturing jobs...based upon the outcome of any pending or proposed legislation.” The legislation doesn’t name Boeing, but that is the target.

How many of our elected officials passed high school civics? I’m just a blogger, but I think that saying, “if you do that I will leave,” is an exercise of free speech.

If the legislature attempted to enforce such a law I am sure that it would quickly be challenged. Then the taxpayers of Washington State would spend millions defending the law while it slowly wound through the courts but, hopefully, ultimately it would be declared unconstitutional.

Even if the law was enforced, Boeing could still move all the jobs out of the state, they just couldn’t say that to anyone in Olympia. Shouldn’t our elected officials want to know if Boeing was planning to move?

      These three bills should be allowed to die quietly in committee. Then our elected officials will have only spent our time and money writing dumb legislation, not enacting it. Perhaps afterward they can spend some time and effort working to fix the nine billion dollar budget deficit they created.