Month: November 2023

For the impending government shutdown

Former speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s continuing resolution (over which he lost his speakership) expires this coming Friday. MAGA Mike Johnson, the current Speaker, has yet to pass a single budget bill. Last Thursday, apparently in no hurry, MAGA Mike adjourned the House of Representatives until this morning. On Friday, Veterans’ Day, he gave the “afternoon keynote address” at the Worldwide Freedom Initiative Meeting in Paris at 15:15 Paris time. (To be fair, we don’t know if he spoke in person or via Zoom.) Apparently, being seen and speaking at an international far right conference with folks like David Bossie, Devin Nunes, Nigel Farage, Kristi Noem, and Balázs Orbán is more important to Mr. Johnson than avoiding a government shutdown that would likely stretch beyond Thanksgiving. 

We know something of MAGA Mike’s background and political convictions: his ultraconservative views on abortion and gay marriage; his “covenant marriage”; his anti-science young-earth creationist beliefs; and his lawyerly efforts to overturn the 2020 election, to point out just a few. 

Elected from a painfully conservative Louisiana Congressional District, Mike Johnson isn’t shy about any of this (even though much of it came to light to most Americans only after he was made Speaker by unanimous vote of House Republicans):

When recently questioned on Fox News by host Sean Hannity, Johnson, a Trump supporter and 2020 election denier, responded, “Someone asked me today in the media, ‘People are curious, what does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview.”

Given that revelation my Mr. Johnson, it should come as no surprise to anyone who has paid attention to the expressed belief system and educational background of U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (CD5, eastern Washington) that it was McMorris Rodgers who gave the laudatory nomination speech for MAGA Mike in the closed-door Republican Caucus. 

Apart from her University of Washington “executive” MBA, McMorris Rodgers’ entire education was received in Fundamentalist Christian institutions. (Read CMR. Who is She Really?) Like MAGA Mike, she is a young-earth creationist: “The account that I believe is the one in the Bible that God created the world in seven days.” Her enthusiastic nomination speech suggests that her views are little different from his. The only difference is that she is less “out” than he is. Judging by the stammering that preceded her “world in seven days” statement made at the Bing, McMorris Rodgers’ understands that openly advertising views like his might not fly so well among many of the voters in eastern Washington.

From the Spokesman article describing McMorris Rodgers’ nominating speech:

…McMorris Rodgers recalled the Old Testament story of David, who slew the giant Goliath after he, too, was underestimated.

“In the story of King David, we are reminded that man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart,” she said. “Mike Johnson has the heart and the mind to bring hope and healing, to secure our border, keep our families safe, and build a brighter future by tackling our sky-high debt and broken budget process.”

Not unlike David, who ascended to the throne after the previous king of Israel and his heir apparent fell in battle, Johnson only became speaker after McCarthy and his first proposed successor were done in by hard-right lawmakers who opposed any collaboration with Democrats.

Since Johnson is now third in line for the presidency one surely hopes that the line about the previous king and his heir falling in battle is not prophetic. 

With no sense of irony, McMorris Rodgers: 

Point[ed] to the words “in God we trust” that are engraved above the House rostrum where the speaker stands, she told her fellow Republicans, “The first job of a leader is to inspire trust. People we serve are counting on it.

“May today be the day that we vote unanimously for a speaker who will lead us to rebuild trust,” the Spokane Republican added, “first in God and each other, and ultimately with the people of this greatest experiment in self-governance the world has ever known, the United States of America.”

Surely McMorris Rodgers (and MAGA Mike) would like us to believe (and may themselves believe) that “In God we trust” has been the official motto of the United States since the founding. That would fit the pseudo-historical founding narrative to which MAGA Mike subscribes—that the U.S. was founded as an exclusively Christian nation and should return to its Christian roots (as defined by the like of Mr. Johnson). 

McMorris Rodgers might be surprised to learn that “In God we trust” was adopted as the official motto of the U.S. only in 1956 at the height of the Cold War. It replaced E pluribus unum (“Out of many, one”). E pluribus unum was the traditional motto of the United States since it was adopted as part of the Great Seal by the U.S. Congress (under the Articles of Confederation) in 1782. According to some, “In God we trust” was adopted during the Cold War to contrast the U.S. with officially atheist communist Russia. It is certainly not indicative of a Christian founding. (Similarly, the “under God” line in the Pledge of Allegiance was added by an act of Congress only in 1954.)

If Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, acclaimed by McMorris Rodgers as someone in whom we should all feel comfortable placing our trust, causes a government shutdown this coming Friday with all his dawdling and ineptitude (or out of anti-government conviction), we should all remember that we have “our own” U.S. Representative to help him shoulder the blame.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. One might wonder why McMorris Rodgers, with nearly two decades in the House of Representatives without accomplishing much of anything, enthusiastically nominated an obscure three and a half term Christian right wing ideologue as Speaker. Isn’t she better qualified than he after nearly twenty years in the House? Or does she value the fact that Johnson comes from such an electorally secure district that he can get away with pushing their mutual doctrine without fear of reprisal?

Updated Election Results Trending Well

Developers, realtors, and business interests outspent progressives in the City of Spokane races by two to one or more in direct contributions to candidates and large chunks of money contributed to “independent” expenditure (“IE”) political committees. It looks like they are poised to lose in their efforts to take the mayorship, the city council presidency, and two of the three district council member positions they hoped to buy. Looking at the updated numbers today, which are coming in in portions very similar to the original, congratulations are very likely in order to Lisa Brown, Betsy Wilkerson, Paul Dillon, and Kitty Klitzke—and thanks to Lindsey Shaw (District 1, NE) for a valiant effort. Larry Stone did have one victory, City of Spokane Proposition 1, the “protect the children” anti-camping measure, that he lavishly funded, and which will likely now be the subject of expensive litigation for which the rest of us tax payers will be on the hook. 

It would be nice to think that the realtors, developers, and business folk who spent all this money with outside consultants to beat up Spokane voters for weeks with negative, misleading, dramatic ads have learned a lesson—but I don’t suppose we should hold our collective breath. 

Shawn Vestal, as usual, nailed it. He did so in a piece that appeared Wednesday morning, November 8, soon after the first round of results were published. I’ve copied his piece below in case you missed it. I continue to believe that Mr. Vestal’s writing is enough reason alone to subscribe to the Spokesman.

Keep the the high ground,

Jerry

The big money fell short, up and down the ballot

Shawn Vestal

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

So we’ve got a good idea how the candidates and issues fared.

But how did the money do? That big, big money behind the megaphone that’s been blaring for weeks?

Did it buy what it tried so hard to buy?

We’re still counting, but it’s safe to say: Nope. In an election where campaign spending soared beyond anything this city has ever seen, the big money fell flat.

The millionaires’ megaphone didn’t turn the tide.

In the races for Spokane mayor, council president and City Council, the conservative candidates with the most financial wind in their sails were trailing their opponents in nearly every race, most of them by wide enough margins that the races can be viewed as over.

It’s been an expensive campaign. When you consider all sources of election spending – including funds raised by the campaigns themselves, in which donations are limited, and money raised by independent political committees, in which donations are unrestricted – nearly $4.1 million poured into City Hall races.

Seventy percent of that supported the conservatives aligned with incumbent Mayor Nadine Woodward – more than $2.8 million, compared to $1.2 million for the candidates running on the left.

The biggest difference was the massive infusion of unchecked independent expenditures on the right. The biggest spender was the Good Government Alliance, which poured $1.4 million into the races, raised from a relative handful of wealthy individuals and businesses representing what you might call the Larry Stone wing of local politics.

It didn’t pay off.

At the top of the ticket, mayoral challenger Lisa Brown posted a 3.5-point lead over Woodward on Tuesday night. If you add up all the campaign cash in the mayoral race – the money raised by candidates and independent groups trying to help them – Brown was outspent by a margin of more than 2-to-1.

Her lead is small enough that it will take another day or two to declare a winner with certainty, but that’s not the case in any other race. Almost every other outspent liberal was ahead by a significant margin.

Betsy Wilkerson, outspent 2.5-to-1, led Kim Plese by 6.5 points.

Paul Dillon, outspent more than 3-to-1, led Katey Treloar by more than 7 points.

Kitty Klitzke, outspent 2.3-to-1, led Earl Moore by more than 20 points.

Among all the candidates backed by the Good Government Alliance, only incumbent Councilman Michael Cathcart won, just as many observers expected. Cathcart had an 8-point lead Tuesday night over Lindsey Shaw, who was outspent by a margin of more than 12-to-1.

It was a rocky night all around for the effort to try and hoist conservative candidates into office. In addition to the Good Government Alliance, the National Association of Realtors spent more than $433,000 on local conservatives – at the urging of the Spokane Association of Realtors.

In addition to the big money, the Woodward ticket drafted considerable help from the local GOP machine and former consultants and staffers for Cathy McMorris Rodgers. A former GOP chairwoman started a faux “news” website to elevate oppo research against liberal candidates – information that often made its way into fliers and TV ads in which half-truths were as true as things got.

Brown and the candidates affiliated with her campaign, on the other hand, drew comparatively little outside spending. The biggest independent committee was the union-funded Citizens for Labor and Liberty, which raised just less than $365,000.

All in all, independent spending on the Woodward slate was more than six times higher than their opponents – an overwhelming advantage everywhere but the ballot box.

Make what you will of that. Whether the city’s blue tint is just too strong for a handful of big spenders to overcome, or whether the particular nature of these candidates and their ideas actually defined the outcome, or whether the stream of attack ads deploying the knife-fight tactics of D.C. campaigns – like a community theater version of a Broadway show – backfired, the money didn’t buy what it tried to buy.

At least in the City Hall races, that is.

In one notable local race, the big spending and the outcome did line up. The biggest PAC on the left of any issue in this area, Justice Not Jails, raised more than $527,000 to oppose Measure 1, the county’s $1.7 billion proposal to build a new jail and fund other undefined law enforcement purposes.

Measure 1 lost big, 63% to 37%.

Where to check election results

It isn’t over until it’s over—and it is officially over on November 28 when the election results are certified. But the initial results in Spokane County are, generally speaking, quite encouraging. Here’s where the day by day “unofficial” results are posted if you want more data than news outlets typically provide:

https://www.spokanecounty.org/2995/Current-Election-Results

As of last evening 96,525 ballots were received and 25,000 remain to be counted. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Tell your friends to vote against the money bomb

Voters in the City of Spokane are the recipients of a Republican wealthy interest money bomb. Please read Luke Baumgarten’s superb analysis of campaign and “independent” expenditures in this election cycle. On Saturday, November 3, even the Spokesman picked up the story and weighed in with an article by Emry Dinman. Dinman’s article, in classic Spokesman fashion, blurs the point thanks to its both-sides-ism. The online headline, ‘One of the few places where a Democrat or a Republican could legitimately win…’, implies evenness even as the article itself provides multiple demonstrations of wealthy Republican interest groups like “Spokane Good Government Alliance” and the “National Association of Realtors” trying to buy the election. Their favored Republican candidates are Woodward, Plese, Cathcart, Treloar, and Moore, whom they support with gobs of money raised from relatively few people and businesses and spend lavishly on breathless, misleading attack ads:

The largest independent expenditures supporting candidates anywhere in the state aren’t going to high-stakes City Council races in Washington’s largest city, Seattle – they’re going to support conservative-leaning candidates in Spokane. The National Association of Realtors, for instance, has donated over $430,000 to support Woodward and affiliated candidates for Spokane City Council, nearly twice as much as the group has invested in Seattle candidates.

At the very bottom of Dinman’s article (should you have the persistence to read that far) is a nod to the 500 pound independent-spending gorilla, the so-called “Spokane Good Government Alliance” fueled by donations from just 48 individuals and businesses:

Amid record-breaking spending meant to sway Spokane voters, one group stands alone: the Spokane Good Government Alliance. A conservative political action committee created in 2019 to stump on behalf of then-candidate for mayor Woodward, the Alliance has raised $1.4 million to buoy the more conservative candidates in every city election this year: Woodward, Plese, Cathcart, Treloar and Moore.

The group already has spent over $1.3 million of that war chest, including over $430,000 on digital advertising, over $380,000 on TV advertising and nearly $190,000 on print advertising, such as mailers. The vast majority of all attack ads in local elections this year were paid for by the alliance, which has spent more to attack liberals – $835,672 – than to support conservatives with positive ads.

And then there’s a notation of McMorris Rodgers’ political machine connection:

John Estey, the executive director of Spokane Good Government Alliance and campaign manager for Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, wrote in an email the group hoped to inform voters about “radical-left” candidates for local office and encourage them to support their conservative opponents.

If you’re tired of a few wealthy business interests and outside Republican money (e.g. the National Realtors) trying to buy Spokane elections be sure to vote for Lisa Brown (mayor), Betsy Wilkerson (city council president), Lindsey Shaw (District 1, NE), Paul Dillon (District 2, S), and Kitty Klitzke (District 3, NW).

For more recommendations and a guide to voter’s guides click here. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Ballot Turn-in deadline next Tuesday

Opening Note: As always, anything underlined in this email is a link to more information, some of which are analyses I’ve previously published. 

I expect that most of the readers of The High Ground (these emails) have already filled out the ballot they received and either deposited it in one of the Drop Boxes (which saves the county the cost of postage) or dropped it in the mail (at no direct cost to the voter). If you haven’t voted, please do so. I encourage you to touch base with people you know and remind them to vote, too. 

The Republican blare machine fueled by uber-wealthy (mostly) real estate interests has spent a record amount of money flooding the airwaves, our mailboxes, social media, and phone lines with vile misinformation and distortion this election season, all in the hope of stirring up fear and loathing to stimulate a certain kind of voter turnout. It is a carefully honed tactic. Don’t let them succeed. Vote and encourage your friends to do the same. 

Shout Out to the investigative journalism of RANGE Media

Luke Baumgarten and Aaron Hedge each published an article yesterday (Thursday, November 2) that is well worth your time to read. Aaron’s article, How to spot an ad paid for by special interest groups, is a terrific guide to the garbage that is filling up your mailbox. Luke’s article, More than anywhere in Washington state, private wealth is fueling candidates in Spokane, reveals the jaw-dropping concentration of money brought to bear on this year’s City of Spokane municipal elections. Luke has worked through mountains of publicly available, but hard to navigate, Public Disclosure Commission (PDC)data to present a startling picture of this year’s “independent” expenditures. Please click on each of those articles, read them, share them, and sign up for a paid subscription to RANGE. (You can read RANGE for free, but they deserve our support.)

One must wonder why the City of Spokane has become such a target. Consider that Spokane is the seat of power of the Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers political machine, the machine of the two remaining Republican U.S. Representatives from Washington State (the other is Dan Newhouse, just west of us). Is all this money and organization brought to bear on our local election the result of a lingering grudge? Is this payback from the McMorris Rodgers machine for the audacity of Lisa Brown in challenging CMR for her congressional seat in 2018? 

We are facing another winter—and, once again, the Woodward administration is careening into winter without an adequate plan to provide emergency shelter. Woodward, who, ran for mayor on the issue of homelessness in 2019, is a month past the September 30 legal deadline to publish a plan for emergency warming, cooling, and safe air shelters for next year—yet another example of what happens when you hire a newscaster with scant administrative experience to run a city. See Erin Sellers’ excellent article on this issue, also at RANGE Media. Let’s elect a mayor, Lisa Brown, who has abundant experience in administration. 

Below, for convenience, I have pasted the same voting recommendations I’ve sent out before. Here’s the link to the list of some of the positive (and negative) voting guides I consulted.

Vote! and 

Keep to the High Ground,

Jerry

Ballot Measures:

Here is an excellent RANGE Media piece on both these measures

City of Spokane Proposition 1 NO (link)

Spokane County Measure 1 NO (link)

Spokane County Recommendations 2023

City of Spokane

Mayor: Lisa Brown Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 10.8.2023

Spokane City Council 

President: Betsy WilkersonVoters Guide  Spokesman Review 10.11.2023

District 1: Lindsey Shaw  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.29.2023

District 2: Paul Dillon Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.25.2023

District 3: Kitty Klitzke Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.18.2023

Cheney City Council

Position 2: Rebecca Long  Voters Guide Spokesman Review 10.10.2023

Position 6: Jacquelyn Belock  Voters Guide Spokesman Review 10.10.2023

City of Liberty Lake

Mayor: Cris Kaminskas  Voters Guide

Liberty Lake City Council

Position 1: Linda M Ball  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.15.2023

Position 3: Dan Dunne   Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 8.25.2023

Position 4: Travis Scott  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 10.10.2023

Position 5:     Annie Kurtz Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.21.2023

Position 6: Michael Hamblet  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.20.2023

Position 7: Teresa Tapao-Hunt  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.12.2023

Spokane Valley City Council

Position 6: Tim Hattenburg  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 2023  Spokesman Review 6.4.23  Spokesman Review 9.17.2023

Spokane Valley Fire Department

Commissioner #5: George Orr  Voters Guide  

Spokane County Water District 

Commissioner #3:  Mary Wissink Voters Guide

School Board Recommendations:

School board races are particularly fraught—and often challenging to research. The recommendations listed below for many of the school board contests in eastern Washington were assembled from a variety of sources by public school advocates led by Petra Hoy. (The municipal candidates recommended below are almost entirely in agreement with the Progressive Voters Guide. They are presented again as a bonus.)

SPOKANE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD RACES

Central Valley School District 

Director, District 1: Cindy McMullen  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.11.2023

Director, District 3: Debra L Long  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.24.2023

Director, District 4: Keith Clark  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.20.2023

Cheney School District

Director, District 2:   Elizabeth Winer  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 10.9.2023

Director, District 3:  Henry C. Browne Jr.  Voters Guide  

Director District 4:  John Boerger Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.29.2023

Director District 5:  Mitch Swenson  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.30.2023

Mead School Board 

District 2:  Denny Denholm Voters Guide Spokesman Review 9.10.2023  Spokesman Review 9.28.2023

District 3: Jaime Stacy Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.18.2023

District 4:  David Knaggs Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.10.2023

Spokane School Board District 81

Director Position 5:  Mike Wiser  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 2023 Spokesman Review 9.26.2023

Nine Mile Fall School District

Director Position 3:  Kirsten Foose  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.23.2023

Medical Lake School District

District 2:  Alexis Alexander  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 10.6.2023

District 3:  Laura Elliot Parsons  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 10.4.2023

District 4:  Ron Cooper Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.26.2023

Deer Park School District

District 5  Eric Keller  Voters Guide  Spokesman Review 9.22.2023

STEVENS COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD RACES

MARY WALKER SD 207

District 3 Jim Cannon Voters Guide

KETTLE FALLS SD 212

Director At Large #4  Thomas (Chip) Johnson  Voters Guide

[District 3 Write-in candidate Debbie Stewart, recommended by a respected reader of The High Ground who is familiar with the race.]

BENTON COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD RACES

Kennewick School District 17

Director 3 Michael Connors Voters Guide

Director 5  Lisa Peppard  Voters Guide

Richland School District 400

Director No. 3  Chelsie Beck  Voters Guide

Director Nol 4   Katrina Waters Voters Guide

Director No. 5  Jill Oldson  Voters Guide

CHELAN COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD RACES

MANSON SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 19

Director District #2  Aurora Flores  Voters Guide

YAKIMA COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD RACES

WAPATO SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 207

Director, District 3  Maria Antonia R. Erickson  Voters Guide

Another good negative indicator

You know those nasty mailers that have been fluttering into your mailbox over the last few weeks? Be sure to read the “Paid for by ___” line in the small print at the bottom of each mailer—a disclosure required by law in Washington State. If it says “Paid for by the Spokane Good Governance Alliance” consider the source when judging the contents. 

The ‘Good Governance Alliance’ makes a mockery of its own name by fielding misleading attack ads in the form of TV spots, mailers, door hangers, robocalls, and text messages flooding the City of Spokane voters’ mailboxes. Ninety-nine percent of vendors paid to produce this flood are located outside the City of Spokane, a preponderance of which are based in Phoenix AZ and Washington D.C. Based on reporting to date ‘Good Governance’ has spent almost a million dollars on “Independent Expenditures” with outside firms this election cycle. You can cruise the list of expenditures here. 

The so-called “Spokane Good Government Alliance” is awash in cash from a small number of monied interests. To date this year the ‘Good Governance’ political committee reports to the Public Disclosure Commission having raised donations of $1,412,521.00, almost four times what it raised in any prior municipal election cycle since it was formed in 2019. All of this money is destined to be spent either on misleading ads attacking progressive candidates or in support of all the recognizably Republican candidates for city offices. This is big bucks talking: the entire 1.4M was raised from just forty-eight unique business and individual donors—an average donation of nearly $30,000. You can cruise the list of contributors here. (Currently there are 73 rows of contributions, but many of the biggest donors wrote multiple checks.)

Who are these people? 

The single biggest contributor to “Spokane Good Government” is Gee Automotive Companies with $225,000. That’s 16% of the total. That 225K is, by itself, more than any one of the City of Spokane City Council candidates has raised this election cycle. Gee Automotive is a privately held company that doesn’t even have a presence in the City of Spokane, and yet the Gee family sees fit to use its profits to put a huge thumb on the scales of the City of Spokane municipal election. 

Next up is Larry Stone at $175,000, which is just a fraction of the amount Mr. Stone has spent this election cycle trying to keep Mayor Nadine Woodward in office, flip the City Council, and protect his investment in the TRAC homeless shelter building. Mr. Stone has contributed an additional $115,000 to “Clean and Safe Spokane”, nearly a third of that political committee’s total war chest, to promote City of Spokane Proposition 1. Prop 1 is the ballot measure that would outlaw camping in nearly two thirds of the City of Spokane, force the unsheltered homeless further into neighborhoods (and, perhaps worth noting, into Stone’s TRAC Shelter—if there were room…). Moreover Prop 1 would likely commit to City to an expensive legal battle. That total of more than a quarter of a million dollars Mr. Stone also spent an undisclosed amount producing “Curing a Broken Spokane”.

An obscure entity with an office in the Washington Trust Building, the “FJ Contribution Company I LLC”, contributed the next largest amount to “Spokane Good Government”, at $160,000. A quick search of that peculiar name reveals that one of the contacts for “FJ” is Alvin J. Wolff, Jr.. Alvin Wolff is the elder statesman of the Wolff Company, a real estate empire that owns and operates 30,000 rental units nationwide. In the 2019 election cycle the Wolff family poured significant resources in support of then mayoral candidate Nadine Woodward and a slate of Republican candidates for the nominally non-partisan seats on the City of Spokane City Council. The Wolffs gained some probably unwelcome notoriety in a Spokesman article that year. One cannot help but wonder if the “FJ Contribution Company I LLC” was established to shield some Wolff contributions to the “Spokane Good Government Alliance” in 2023. (Alvin J. Wolff, Jr. also directly contributed to $30,000 to the “Alliance”.)

The 2023 municipal election cycle is on track to set another new record for the amount of money raised and spent by “independent” political action committees. A common theme of the overwhelming expenditures on the Republican side of the ledger is real estate ownership, sales, leasing, and rental firms protecting their fat profits and wealth. (This election cycle just the three contributors to the “Spokane Good Government Alliance” mentioned in this post, Gee Automotive, Larry Stone, and the Wolff family, totaling $590,000, without considering any other monies gathered, already nearly reaches the record total independent expenditures of the 2019 cycle of $690K.) 

The “Spokane Good Government Alliance” is a perfect example of a name suggesting lofty ideals bankrolled by just forty-eight donors. These contributions likely feel like a pocket change investment for them, with a great return on investment if their preferred candidates were to retain the mayorship and achieve a City Council majority. Don’t let a small number of wealthy people buy these contests. Pay attention to “Paid for by ___” line on the mailers and in the TV ads you’re fed by these people, understand what they are selling—and vote accordingly.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. For more detail on the “independent” expenditures in the City of Spokane City Council races check out Emry Dinman’s excellent article in the Spokesman entitled Many claims in Spokane City Council election ads are misleading. The “Spokane Good Government Alliance” features rather prominently—as it should.