Month: December 2023

Plus: McMorris Rodgers and Ukraine

Early each week (Sunday or Monday) RANGE Media publishes a preview of and links to meetings to be held by local government entities during the following week. It is a great service that is worth your learning about and signing up for. For example, at 12:40PM last Monday an email popped into my in box entitled “You can apply to be the next Spokane District 2 City Council Member” with the teaser “CIVICS | Plus, talks on the future of TRAC, no more regular council meetings for 2023, and budget decisions for Mead School Board” and a link to the entire post. I encourage you to click that link and enter your email in the pop up window so you, too, will receive email notifications, and, if you’re financially able, sign up for a paid subscription. 

Here’s the beginning of this week’s RANGE roundup:

Welcome to CIVICS, where we break down the week’s municipal meetings throughout the Inland Northwest, so you can get involved and speak out about the issues you care about.  

Some things that stick out to us this week include: 

• Apply to be the next city council member for District 2 in Spokane
• Discussions on the future of TRAC 
• Big budget decisions for the Mead School Board
• New board members for Central Valley School Board
• A Logan Neighborhood transit-oriented development project is holding a public hearing

Important meetings this week:

• Spokane Valley City Council 
• Mead School District Board of Directors
• Central Valley School District Board of Directors
• Board of County Commissioners
• Spokane Plan Commission
• Spokane Park Board
• Spokane City Council Study Session
• Spokane Regional Transportation Council

If you click any of these underlined items it will take you to the part of the CIVICS post that summarizes what’s going on this week with that particular council, commission, or committee. 

Check it out! Sign up. Tell your friends. 

McMorris Rodgers and Ukraine

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to adjourn for the holiday season the end of this week without voting to fund Ukraine. The prospect that Rep. McMorris Rodgers might return to Spokane (or go wherever) for the holidays without voting in this crucial funding makes me profoundly ill. I’m angry with her, with the man she so enthusiastically nominated (in Caucus), Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and with the entire Republican Party. And I told her so (politely, of course). I encourage you to do the same: click this link and lodge a message with her concerning how you feel about the profound and lasting consequences of her and her party’s inaction on this matter. Ordinarily I consider trying to influence her with such missives a waste of time but, maybe, just maybe, she’ll take some note. Below I have pasted an opinion piece from The Atlantic written by David Frum which lays out what is at risk and why.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Why the GOP Doesn’t Really Want a Deal on Ukraine and the Border

The congressional opposition to the president’s funding request explained—as far as it can be

We’re not going to negotiate in the pages of The Atlantic.”

That was the response I got from a congressional staffer when I pressed for some details, any details, on what really separated Democrats from Republicans on aid to Ukraine.

For two years, the Ukrainians have fought heroically to defend their country against Russia’s invasion. The United States and other allies have funded that defense. But Russia has not given up, and past rounds of U.S. aid are nearly exhausted. For Ukraine to keep fighting, it urgently needs more aid.

The Biden administration has sent Congress a request for $61 billion in new funds for Ukraine and $14 billion to help Israel defend itself against Hamas and Hezbollah. The package also includes humanitarian assistance to people displaced by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as assistance to Indo-Pacific allies, and $14 billion for border security (for a total of $111 billion).

Republicans in the House and Senate are resisting this request. The ostensible reason is that they want more radical action on the border than the Biden administration has offered. The whole aid package is now stalled, with potentially catastrophic consequences for Ukraine. Ukrainian units are literally running out of ammunition. If supplies of military equipment are interrupted, restarting them will take a while, which means that Ukraine could be left unaided over the winter unless Congress acts in time. And with both the House and the Senate scheduled to go into recess at the end of this week for their Christmas break, very little time remains in which to act.

How is any of this happening? On past evidence, a clear majority of Senate Republicans sincerely want to help Ukraine. Probably about half of House Republicans do too. In a pair of procedural test votes in September, measures to cut or block aid to Ukraine drew, respectively, 104 and 117 Republican votes of the 221 then in the caucus.

The offer that President Joe Biden is making regarding the border represents a meaningful opening bid. The fundamental reason for America’s present border crisis is that would-be immigrants are trying to game the asylum system. The system is overwhelmed by the numbers claiming asylum. Even though the great majority of those claims will ultimately be rejected, their processing takes years, sometimes decades. In the meantime, most asylum seekers will be released into the United States. This makes claiming asylum a rational bet for would-be immigrants to try their luck, and millions of people are doing just that. The $14 billion of proposed additional funding would pay for some 1,600 new staff in the asylum system. New hires can speed up the process, reducing the incentive of de facto U.S. residency pending a claim’s hearing that attracts so many to seek asylum here.

Maybe the Biden administration’s budget proposal on immigration enforcement is not high enough. Asylum abuse might be checked by rejecting asylum seekers who passed through other safe countries on their way to the United States. (Such a policy has been in force in the European Union since 2013.) But in the multilateral negotiations among the White House and Republicans in both houses of Congress, the normal process of offer and counteroffer seems to have broken down altogether. I stress the word seems because getting clarity on the state of play is very difficult—as the response I received from the congressional staffer suggests.

On december 6, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued the following invitation to Republicans: Write an amendment detailing everything you want, and the Democratic Senate majority will let you bring it to the floor for a clean vote. That offer was rejected by Senate Republicans. How do you get to “yes” when the other side refuses to state its terms?

In a letter to Biden dated December 5, House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted that nothing less than “transformative” border policies would do. The House Republican vision is contained in a bill known as H.R. 2.

H.R. 2 is certainly transformative. It would rewrite the asylum system from top to bottom; it passed the House in May by the narrow margin of 219–213. All Democrats present plus two Republicans voted no. H.R. 2 is obviously going nowhere in the Senate. For that matter, it’s not at all clear that H.R. 2 would have commanded a majority in the House if there were any prospect of its becoming law. H.R. 2 was an easy vote to please the Fox News audience without any need to weigh potential negative consequences.

So how did this unpopular item become the absolutely indispensable precondition for a Ukraine aid deal?

As well as anyone not in the negotiating room can figure, the impasse on the Republican side is powered by four main impulses:

Playing to the gallery

A lot of House Republicans do not much care about enacting laws and solving problems. They are in Congress to strike poses and score television hits. They do not want to make deals. They want to position themselves as the one true conservative too pure for dealmaking. The only things they’re willing to say they want are the things they know to be impossible.

The politics of domination

On December 4, Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas told reporters: “There’s a misunderstanding on the part of Senator Schumer and some of our Democratic friends. This is not a traditional negotiation, where we expect to come up with a bipartisan compromise on the border. This is a price that has to be paid in order to get the supplemental.” For many Republicans, what mattered was not what they got but how they got it: We demand, you comply; we win, you lose.

A deal, no matter how juicy, is less interesting to them than a ritual of submission. If they cannot enforce that ritual, they are not interested in any deal.

Intentional failure

The border is Biden’s single greatest political vulnerability. A recent NBC poll puts the Republican advantage on immigration at 18 points and border security at 30 points. Suppose Republicans did extract a big border concession in 2023; suppose they got everything they wanted. Then suppose their policy worked, and the flow of asylum seekers really did taper off dramatically in 2024. Would not the result of that success be only to strengthen Biden’s reelection chances and hurt Donald Trump’s? Maybe the reason Democrats are having so much difficulty getting to “yes” with Republicans is that many Republicans are committed to “no,” regardless of what the offer is.

Animosity toward Ukraine

The premise of much of the reporting about the negotiation is that Republicans sincerely care about the border and are using Ukraine and Israel as leverage in order to get their way on their higher priority. But for some Republicans, at least, stopping aid to Ukraine seems a priority in itself. A few actively subscribe to the pro-Putin politics of the far right. Others—including Speaker Johnson himself—started as supporters of Ukraine but have bent their view under the influence of anti-Ukraine party spirit. (Johnson supported the initial tranche of Ukraine aid in March 2022 but had defected to the anti-Ukraine side by May of that year.) Whatever each member’s motives and story are, the result has delivered them to the point where immigration-for-Ukraine no longer looks to them like a win-win deal.

The story’s not over yet. A last-minute reprieve for Ukraine and for the national honor of the United States may come through. Majorities in both the House and the Senate want this deal to happen. Significant counteroffers for immigration control are on the table, and agreement can surely be found. But the malign forces are strong, and they will not vanish on their own.

David Frum: Yes, the U.S. can afford to help its allies

We’re headed to a “no” that will doom Ukraine and disgrace the U.S., while doing nothing to remedy the crisis at the border. A “yes” on both Ukraine and the border is still within reach, if only pro-Ukraine Republicans will press their colleagues to grasp it. If leadership was ever needed, it’s needed now.

David Frum is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Things to watch and consider

Liberty Lake Library/Liberty Lake City Council

Late last Monday evening (December 4) the temporary supermajority on the Liberty Lake City Council rammed through their controversial ordinance giving them direct oversight over the policies of the Liberty Lake Library Board. Phil Folyer (a lame duck who will be replaced in January), Chris Cargill, Jed Spencer, Wendy Van Orman, and Mike Kennedy (who just now replaced the appointed Tom Sahlberg) voted in favor. Council Members Annie Kurtz and Dan Dunne voted against.

A earlier, similar ordinance said that the council or mayor “will not initiate any book ban” and the council will “confirm or deny any books banned” by the board. That ordinance was vetoed by Mayor Kris Kaminskas (the first veto by a mayor in the twenty-plus year history of the City of Liberty Lake), a veto which the council at the time did not have the votes to override. When that original ordinance was passed by the council, Council Member Chris Cargill, one of the two CMs who earlier had voted to ban the book “Gender Queer” said, “To me, if you are opposed to banning books, you should be in favor of this ordinance because it says very specifically that the council cannot do it,” as reported by Garrett Cabeza of the Spokesman.

Tellingly, last Monday the ordinance passed by the temporary supermajority did not include that language. Moreover, that night the same 5-2 supermajority rejected an amendment that “would have prevented censorship from the council, mayor or board, and required policy to follow the law.” Cargill called the amendment “unnecessary”. 

Of course, it remains to be seen if this council, or a later one, will actually try to use the ordinance to ban books it doesn’t like. It also remains to be seen if the council will go through with proposed budgetary machinations that would significantly cut library funding, a move that one would have to interpret as retribution. Message: the actions of the City of Liberty Lake City Council henceforth should be subjected to careful scrutiny.

A Couple of National Notes:

The man nominated in glowing terms by our own U.S. Rep. McMorris Rodgers (R-CD5, eastern Washington) in a closed-door session of the House Republican Caucus, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, recently spoke to the National Association of Christian Lawmakers — a group that seeks to enact its anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ “biblical worldview” into law. In his speech Mr. Johnson claimed that God had counseled him to step forward for the position of Speaker of the House. From an article on the event covered in Rolling Stone, this was:

…just the latest evidence that the politician [Johnson] who is now second in line for the presidency views himself as on a divine mission. Rolling Stone previously reported on Johnson’s exhortations to save a “depraved” America from God’s wrath and vengeance. 

No one should be surprised that Johnson believes that the voice in his head is the voice of God or that the voice guides his timing and his particular agenda to “save” America. Fundamentalists and cult leaders have claimed divine justification for each of their particular belief systems since time immemorial. Nor should it surprise anyone that Rep. McMorris Rodgers, former leader of the House Republican Caucus, nominated such a man on a mission to lead House Republicans.

Tuberville Caves. Was he trying to copy McConnell?

On December 5th, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) finally relinquished his blockade of Senate approval of all military appointments and promotions. (Details here.) Tuberville, who sailed to his Senate seat in 2020 on his name recognition as a famous retired college football coach, claimed he was taking a principled stand against abortion. He opposed military policy to provide support for women in the service to seek health care across state lines from states that have criminalized the medical standard of care. 

Tuberville finally relented. Most of the media coverage suggested that he gave up his blockade thanks to pressure from fellow senators worried about the political optics of a Republican holding up military promotions. But what was he really up to?

We don’t want to give this man who apparently thinks that Guatemala shares a border with the United States too much credit for intelligence, but one must ask what his real motivation was for this hold. Tuberville is a staunch supporter of Donald Trump and the narrative that the 2020 election was stolen. 

Immediately upon taking office in January of 2021 Tuberville joined the group of U.S. Senators who announced their opposition to the counting of the electoral votes for Joe Biden, winner of the 2020 election. The evening after the attack on the Capitol on January 6 Tuberville, despite his position as a freshman senator, joined five other Republican senators to vote to object to Arizona’s electors and the other six who objected to Pennsylvania’s electors. 

Donald Trump has declared his intention to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807. This would empower him “to deploy U.S. military and federalized National Guard troops within the United States in particular circumstances, such as to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, or rebellion.” Having Trump’s hand-picked loyalists in positions of power within the military (as proposed for the civil service by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025) would greatly reduce the likelihood of pushback from military leaders to Trump’s invocation of the Insurrection Act. 

Moreover, as you will recall, there is precedent for Republicans holding positions open so they can fill them later. Infamously, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell stonewalled President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court for nearly eight months on the flimsy and duplicitous excuse of “letting the people decide” based on the the 2016 election. Never forget that McConnell quickly reversed his excuse for holding a seat open for months when he rammed through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination less than two weeks before the 2020 general election. We are still—and will be for some time—reaping the consequences of McConnell’s work.

McConnell broke with any Republican pretense of decency with his holds on approving judicial nominations. Was Tuberville hoping for his own historic power play—but lost his nerve over objections to torturing the military, objections from people in his own party? Here’s Liz Cheney’s comment tucked away on an NPR interview (start at 8:30, but the whole 11 minute video is worth your time):

“Why is Tommy Tuberville doing that?” she said. “It’s causing great damage to this nation’s military readiness. Is he holding those positions open so that Donald Trump can fill them? What’s he doing? It’s certainly not serving the purposes of the United States of America.” 

After McConnell’s hold on judicial appointments and the events of January 6, we have every reason to be suspicious of the motives of any Republican loyal to Donald Trump who tries to hold up government appointments.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Ms. Cheney’s NPR interview was sampled on Fox and Friends (see embedded Fox video), but, not surprisingly, it was immediately and fervently discounted by commentator Joe Concha suggesting that Liz Cheney would say anything to sell her new book “Oath and Honor”—as if anyone in the Cheney family needed money from book sales. Ms. Cheney’s comment about Tuberville wasn’t mentioned—and Concha veered off into condemning transgender surgery—a Fox staple.

Civil vs. Criminal and its application to extremism

We have two systems of justice in this country, the civil and the criminal, two systems that—importantly—operate under somewhat different rules of which most of us (including me until recently) are only dimly aware. 

The distinctions between civil and criminal law were recently brought to mind by an easy-to-miss article in the Spokesman noting that Ammon Bundy, recent candidate for governor of Idaho, was “in hiding” following a civil court judgment. (See extensive P.S. below)

Richard Girnt Butler, leader of the Aryan Nations and the Church of Jesus Christ–Christian whose center of national activity was a compound north of Hayden Lake, Idaho, finally had his wings clipped and his compound bulldozed as a result of a civil lawsuit that concluded in 2000.

Both Ammon Bundy and Richard Butler had (or perhaps we should say have) a considerable regional following. (Bundy, running for Idaho governor as a third party candidate in the 2022 general election, pulled 101,835 votes, 17.2% of the total.) In both cases several underlings had been successfully criminally prosecuted, but, as leaders, Bundy and Butler managed to escape criminal liability. (Admittedly, we don’t yet know if Bundy’s national prominence as an armed anti-federal government agitator is over—but we can hope.)

Bringing and winning a criminal legal case requires that a federal, state, or local government prosecutor recognizes that a crime has been committed and believes there is enough evidence to convict the perpetrator. (Locally, think of the Spokane County Prosecutor’s office managed under elected Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell, a man whose wife Leslie is infamous for her white supremacist views. Contemplate what that could mean in willingness to pursue criminal prosecution.) 

In a civil case no discretion by a government-employed prosecutor is involved. Instead, civil cases are brought by individuals or groups arguing injury and asking for just compensation. In the case of Ammon Bundy the civil suit was filed by a medical facility in Idaho, St. Luke’s, for financial damages as a result Bundy’s actions at St. Luke’s Meridian Medical Center. 

In the Richard Butler case Victoria and Jason Keenan, a Native American mother and son, who were harassed at gunpoint by Aryan Nations’ members, brought a civil suit against Butler to court with the support of the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

There is a key difference in the judgment criteria between criminal and civil cases: To win a civil lawsuit requires proving the plaintiff’s case by “a preponderance of the evidence”. In a criminal case the evidential requirement is “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”. Beyond a reasonable doubt is a much higher bar, particularly if the case goes before a jury, where one determined doubtful juror can prevent a conviction. (Note, though, that only a tiny fraction of all civil and criminal cases ever get to a jury trial (e.g. less than 2% of (federal) criminal cases do)—our popular impressions based on Perry Mason and other dramatic courtroom TV shows notwithstanding.)

Another important difference between criminal and civil suits: In a criminal trial a defendant may refuse to answer a question on the grounds that the answer may be self-incriminating, i.e. “plead the Fifth”, and the fact of refusing cannot be used to infer guilt. In contrast, in a civil trial a defendant may “plead the Fifth” but doing so does not forbid adverse inferences against the pleader based on the fact of refusal. I cannot say whether that issue came up in either of the civil cases discussed in this post, but it is nonetheless a potentially important distinction between the rules of evidence in criminal and civil cases. 

Defendants proven guilty in a criminal case may be subject to a variety of punishments and deterrents, including prison time, fines, and probation. The focus is to discourage continued criminal behavior. In contrast, in a civil case the court may award monetary compensation (damages) or issue an injunction to stop a certain behavior. The focus civil justice is to make the injured party whole or to prevent further harm.

In the two civil cases we’re discussing here, Bundy’s and Butler’s, the civil judgment was monetary. St. Luke’s won a judgment of $52.5 million in damages against Bundy and associates. When Bundy refused to begin to make payments, St. Luke’s was able to legally take over ownership of his Emmett house and property valued at $1 million. Bundy and his family decamped with their furniture to parts unknown. Whether he will turn up to make trouble elsewhere (as has been his pattern) remains to be seen, but this judgment will likely continue to plague his efforts.

The civil case against Butler and associates were judged liable for $6.3 million, bankrupting Butler and his Aryan Nations and resulting in the bulldozing of the Hayden Lake compound. Butler, at 86, died four years later of congestive heart failure in the Hayden Lake home provided to him by Sandpoint, Idaho, millionaire Vincent Bertollini. Absent Butler’s leadership and the focal point of the Aryan Nation’s compound, the national prominence of the white supremacist movement in the inland Northwest receded somewhat. Even so, it would be dangerously foolish to imagine that Butler’s ideology and those attracted to the region by Butler’s message don’t remain here as fertile soil for the next demagogue.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

More Detail:

P.S. Buried in the Northwest Section below the TV schedule in the December 2 (digital only) Spokesman was an article that caught my eye: “Bundy ‘in hiding’ after losing home, websites in legal battle with St. Luke’s”. Ammon Bundy, darling of the militant far right, leader of the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, and participant in his father Cliven Bundy’s 2014 Bundy standoff in Nevada, lost a civil lawsuit and now pulled up stakes and, at least for now, had disappeared. 

The last two paragraphs of the article read:

Bundy and Rodriguez began making defamatory statements about St. Luke’s, its CEO and some medical professionals after leading protests at hospitals in Meridian and Boise in March 2022 over a child welfare case involving Rodriguez’s 10-month-old grandchild.

The defendants were found to have posted multiple lies about why the baby was taken into custody. They posted videos and blogs saying the hospital was working with the Idaho government to take children away from Christian families to be sexually abused and given to gay couples, according to court documents.

This episode of bizarre, conspiracy-fueled activism was just the most recent act with which Ammon Bundy and his extended family have gained national attention. They first appeared in the news with the standoff at the 160 acre Bundy farm near Bunkerville in southeastern Nevada in 2014. Under the leadership of Ammon’s father, Cliven Bundy, the family and supporters called up by the family, some of whom were armed, held a standoff with officials over a court-ordered seizure of Bundy cattle. The court order resulted from decades of the family grazing cattle on BLM land while refusing to pay grazing fees. “According to Bundy, the federal government lacks the constitutional authority to own vast tracts of lands, an argument repeatedly rejected by federal courts.” The 2014 standoff was defused when Bundy’s cattle were released. No shots were fired—and the whole mess gradually dropped out of the national news. That is a shame, since this whole anti-federal government movement continues to percolate. Cliven Bundy, Ammon’s father, despite multiple criminal indictments and trials, remains free to preach and gather followers for his bogus conviction of the illegitimacy of the federal government. (See the sub-heading “Prosecutions of some standoff participants” at this Wikipedia page.)

To better understand the religious extremist, conspiracy theory-riddled worldview of the Bundy family and their extensive network of would be revolutionaries—including links to local Inland Northwest figures like former Washington State Rep. Matt Shea, current Idaho State Rep. Heather Scott, and others, I recommend the investigative reporting of Leah Sottile as presented in her podcast series Bundyville and Bundyville the Remnant. (There are two seasons. Be sure to start with Episode 1 “The Battle”. “The Explosion”, listed in some places also as “Episode 1”, is the beginning of the second season.) 

Ammon Bundy, Cliven’s son and the original spur for this post, is better known for leading the February-March 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (in which Matt Shea and Heather Scott played cameo roles). The occupation, which lasted 40 days and made national news, resulted in one fatality, that of LaVoy Finicum, a man who, unsurprisingly, has become a martyr figure for the anti-federal government crowd led by Bundy and fellow travelers. Ammon and his band of armed followers seized the Malheur Refuge as an opportunity to continue to press their claim that ownership of land by the federal government was illegitimate. Some participants hoped to ignite a widespread armed revolt. Twenty-eight of the occupiers were ultimately both arrested and criminally charged, including Ammon Bundy. Rather unbelievably, “On October 27, 2016, Ammon Bundy and six other defendants were found not guilty of conspiracy to impede federal officers and possession of firearms in a federal facility by a jury.” The trial played out “like a three ring circus” according to the Washington Post. Ammon went free, newly invigorated in his anti-federal government agitation, and eventually moved to Emmet, Idaho, about 30 miles from Boise. 

In the early days of the Covid 19 pandemic in March, 2020, Bundy created the far-right “People’s Rights network”. During the pandemic, Bundy was arrested more than five times for protests and disruptions against COVID-19 mitigation efforts by the Idaho government. The arrests and subsequent trespassing convictions didn’t begin to slow him down. 

A year later, Ammon was still agitating through his People’s Rights Network, stirring up multiple conspiracy-theory-motivated protests. On March 11, 2022, Idaho State Health and Welfare with full legal authority took into custody the 10 month old baby of an associate of Bundy’s. Health authorities determined the child’s recent weight loss could threaten his life. The People’s Rights Network under Ammon’s leadership focused on the custody issue. At the time Bundy was running as an independent to become governor of the State of Idaho (in the 2022 general election he garnered 17.2% of the vote!). He was allied with Janice McGeachin, a far right pistol-kissing Republican who lost a primary challenge to Governor Brad Little the same year. From the Idaho Statesman as published in the Spokesman in March 2022:

In the past few days, protesters have posted names, photographs and addresses of people allegedly involved in the custody case online. They have gathered at private homes, Health and Welfare’s building, the Ada County Courthouse and St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center, where the baby was treated for a time.

Bundy posted a video on Friday calling on protesters to go to the home of a judge on Saturday. Later in the day, after the child was returned to his parents, Bundy posted another YouTube video to call off the Saturday protest. The child was returned to his parents around noon, according to a news release by Meridian police.

It was finally this over-the-top action by Bundy, Rodriquez, and their People’s Rights Network that sparked the civil lawsuit discussed in the body of this post. Sadly, Ammon Bundy and his followers almost certainly believe that their agitation and defamation was not only necessary to get the baby released by the evil, conspiring “State”, but also that the release wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

The book that riled the Liberty Lake City Council

By the time you read this the Liberty Lake City Council Members, Phil Folyer (who is a lame duck that will be replaced in January), Chris Cargill, Jed Spencer, Wendy Van Orman, and Mike Kennedy (who just now replaced the appointed Tom Sahlberg) may have exercised their transient supermajority to take over control of the Liberty Lake Library Board. 

For an excellent, detailed (and lengthy) analysis of the controversy I highly recommend that you click on Aaron Hedge’s and Erin Sellers’ RANGEMedia.co article published yesterday entitled “What is obscene? Who gets to decide?”. While you’re there signup to receive email notification of publication of RANGEMedia’s article and, if you can possibly afford it, sign up for a paid subscription. These reporters deserve our support.

As detailed in the RANGE article this whole controversy started over a challenge to the book “Gender Queer” lodged by Erin Zasada in December of 2021. Ms. Zasada did not read the whole graphic (meaning illustrated, not explicit) novel before she decided that she wanted to make the book unavailable to everyone else who visited the library. 

Remembering from my young adulthood the quip that the surest way to increase the circulation of a book was to get it “banned in Boston”, I bought a copy, read it in a couple of hours (I’m a slow reader), and shared it with others. The subject matter, the author trying to understand their innate sexual orientation, is a bit jarring—but, for anyone undergoing the same internal struggle as the author, it is clear to me that this book could be a life-saver. A gay friend of an age similar to mine who read “Gender Queer” quickly declared that there should be a copy of it available in every high school library. As the RANGEMedia article points out, the book clearly is not obscene based the three-pronged “Miller test” for obscenity. One of the three qualifying questions is “Whether a reasonable person finds that the matter, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” “Gender Queer” lacks none of those attributes and I take pride in thinking of myself as a “reasonable person”. 

Underlying the Liberty Lake book banning controversy is a profound difference in worldview. For some, sexuality and sexual identity are strictly binary and, moreover, any deviation from that binary requirement is a choice that a person makes rather than part of one’s inborn makeup. In this worldview one fears that one’s supposedly perfectly normal teenager can be enticed into aberrant, “sinful” sexual behavior, i.e. “groomed”, simply by understanding that such things are possible. In this worldview, sexual identity is malleable and “conversion therapy” works. (It doesn’t, in spite of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s endorsement.) This first worldview almost always comes bound up with Fundamentalist religious convictions. 

The second viewpoint, a viewpoint shared by most biologists and physicians, notes that sex is profoundly NOT binary—an observable biological fact manifest in babies born with complicated variations of internal and external sex organs and variations in physiological responses to sex hormones. I recommend the documentary “Every Body” as a very human look at this complicated reality. (It’s available to watch on YouTube for a fee.) These people’s lived experience strongly suggest that one’s gender identity is formed biologically as well. In this view, having access to a book that confirms for such a person that they are not a hopeless freak damned to a life contemplating suicide or—worse—damned by God as a sinner—access to such a book is life saving. In this second worldview all of these people are just that, people just as worthy of a rewarding life as the rest of us. 

I’m happy to live in a society that includes people with the former worldview, but it really raises my hackles when these people want to dictate what folks of the latter worldview have available to read. It is even worse when they wish to make and enforce laws that govern love and sexual expression between consenting adults. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. The Science of Biological Sex provides a more in depth discussion of biological sexual and gender variations that the binary-only folks have to ignore to maintain their fear-filled views.

Liberty Lake City Council running amok?

Tonight the City of Liberty Lake City Council is poised to take advantage of a quirk in seating timing following the November election to ram through a controversial ordinance giving itself veto power over the Library Board (See below).

But that bit of power politics may be less significant than a less noticed and less understood budgetary detail that Erin Sellers and Alyssa Beheza of RANGEMedia.co pointed out yesterday in their Civics post (the bold is mine):

After a lengthy discussion at the last city council meeting, with one of the major sticking points being whether the nearly 25% of property taxes that fund the library should be pulled from the $3 million pool prior to sending $1 million out to the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district the city shares with Spokane Valley, or a proposal to instead pull it from the $2 million in property taxes leftover after the money is sent to the TIF, effectively slashing the library’s budget by a significant amount. 

Let’s reword and unpack that. (Note: I’m working here on interpreting what Erin and Alyssa wrote and in response to a rumor that alarm bells are going off in some quarters.) If I understand correctly, there is a pool of 3 million dollars in property taxes. The standard allocation has been for the Liberty Lake Library to receive 25% of that pool, which, in this case would be $750,000 (i.e. 1/4 of 3 million). However, there is another annual line item of a million dollars, the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district, that, in prior years, has come out of some other place in the budget. At tonight’s council meeting there is a proposal to take the million dollars out of the 3 million dollar property tax pool BEFORE awarding 25% of the REMAINDER in the pool to the Library, that is, 1/4 of 2 million or $500,000. That would be a reduction of the funds to the Library of $250,000 or, differently put, a reduction in funding (from this source) by a third. That is real money. 

Knowing no better at this moment, that budgetary proposal reeks of someone’s subtle way to punish the Liberty Lake Library and the Library Board for daring to challenge some members of the City Council’s efforts to dictate Library policy. 

Below I’ve copied Petra Hoy’s Be the Change 509 email where it pertains to the Liberty Lake City Council.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

From Be the Change 509:

PLEASE JOIN US AT THE NEXT LIBERTY LAKE CITY COUNCIL MEETING Tuesday December 5, 7:00 PM.

HELD REMOTELY & IN PERSON AT CITY HALL
22710 E COUNTRY VISTA DRIVE LIBERTY LAKE WA 99019

PUBLIC COMMENT
If you wish to provide oral public comments during the Council meeting, you may do so in person at City Hall or virtually via zoom. If you wish to speak in-person, please fill out a yellow Request to Speak Form. 

If you wish to speak via zoom, please join the zoom meeting using the meeting information above. The Mayor will invite public comments during the appropriate section of the agenda, at which time you can send a request to speak to our meeting host using the chat function within the zoom meeting.

WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENTS
If you wish to provide written public comments for the council meeting, please email your comments to khardy@libertylakewa.gov by 4:00 p.m. the day of the council meeting and include all the following information with your comments:
1. The Meeting Date
2. Your First and Last Name
3. If you are a Liberty Lake resident
4. The Agenda Item(s) which you are speaking about
*Note – If providing written comments, the comments received will be acknowledged during the
public meeting, but not read. All written comments received by 4:00 p.m. will be provided to the
mayor and city council members in advance of the meeting.

ZOOM MEETING
To view the meeting live via Zoom Meeting, join the Zoom web meeting:
Meeting Instructions:

To join the Zoom web meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84556637756?pwd=UWEyRk0rcjIxUXNxbHlJbWZoSFpPZz09

Dial-in Phone Number
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
Meeting ID: 845 5663 7756
Passcode: 017236

Woodward’s “lump of coal”

NOTE: To watch either the City of Spokane City Council briefing session at 3:30P today, December 4, or the Legislative Session that follows at 6P online click here. To contact your council person(s) click here. One can also attend one or both sessions in person at City Hall. In person public input is accepted only at the 6P meeting.

The Background

Near the end of July the City of Spokane with Mayor Nadine Woodward at the helm, put out a request for proposal (RFP) for prospective operators of TRAC (“Trent Resource and Assistance Center”) for 2024. The current contract with the Salvation Army is due to run out. TRAC is the city’s congregate homeless shelter east of downtown in the industrial district near the junction of Trent and Mission. The shelter, Woodward’s answer to the issue of homelessness downtown, has been controversial since its inception, plagued with issues over over shelter conditions and budget overruns. The Salvation Army hurriedly took over running TRAC (without competitive bidding) when the contract with the previous operator, the Guardians Foundation, was terminated in late 2022 over concerns of embezzlement of funds. In response to the city’s July, 2023, request for proposal (RFP):

The Salvation Army and Jewels Helping Hands applied for that new contract, as did Hillyard Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1474, whose commander, Mike Fagan, served on the Spokane City Council. That organization was considered too inexperienced for serious consideration by the committee reviewing proposals.

The city committee tasked with reviewing the RFPs overwhelmingly voted in favor of Jewels Helping Hands (JHH). Here was the logic of the recommendation:

Jewels came out on top, according to committee members, in large part due to the depth of its network of agreements with other organizations and service providers, which are needed in order to provide support services at the shelter, as the facility is meant to be a brief stop on the path out of homelessness. Jewels Helping Hands [JHH] also emphasized the dignity of those they served in their application and included money in its budget for addiction and mental health treatment, said Karen Ssebanakitta, a member of the city’s Community, Housing and Human Services Board, which was tasked with forwarding the committee’s recommendation to the City Council.

In early September, 2023, the city administration under Mayor Woodward, abruptly backtracked, calling for a pause in the selection process, citing “uncertainties” in funding sources and in the formation of a new regional coalition on homelessness. 

As Erin Sellers of RANGEMedia accurately detailed in mid November, after Woodward’s pause the entire process didn’t just pause, it “ground to a halt”—in spite of the looming deadline to settle on an operator with the nimbleness to take over operating TRAC for 2024. No one but Nadine Woodward herself knows for certain whether her administration dropped the ball on the process due to administrative ineptitude or due to Woodward’s antipathy toward Julie Garcia, the executive director of JHH with whom Woodward butted heads over management both of the Cannon Street Shelter and of Camp Hope. Either way, thanks to Woodward and her administration dallying, the City of Spokane City Council is now left with what looks almost like a fait accompli of having to grant an expensive contract renewal to the Salvation Army to keep TRAC running through the depths of winter. This is all in spite of the city’s Community, Housing and Human Services Board’s hearty recommendation of Jewels Helping Hands.

In the words of newly elected City Council Member (CM) Paul Dillon [District 2, South Hill] who will be first seated this evening, “This is like a lump of coal in a stocking that the mayor has left the city and the taxpayers with.” I highly recommend reading RANGEMedia’s Erin Sellers’ last Saturday, December 2, article “With city council cornered, a TRAC contract compromise could guarantee shelter” for orientation. The same day, December 2, Nate Sanford of the Inlander covered quite a lot of the same territory. Both articles almost require a published cast of characters in order to follow the details—but both also offer a window on the pressing problem the City Council will need to clean up this evening—Woodward’s “lump of coal”. 

At tonight’s council meeting the extension of the city’s contract with the Salvation Army appears in the “Current Agenda” as item number 11 of the “Consent Agenda”. The actual contract wording appears on pdf page 160 as “AGREEMENT AMENDMENT B, Title: TRAC Shelter Amendment”. I’m no lawyer, but I do not see wording to confirm Erin Sellers’ mention of an “option for the city to terminate the agreement early”, an option that might have made this Amendment palatable. I also fail to see in this contract amendment any proration of the contracted $3.93M. The only clause that hints at either issue is “April 2024 will serve as a transition month in provider and/or service levels.”

One would hope at the very least for clarity on these issues before a vote.

There is still some hope held out that changes in the agenda could occur during the Briefing Session. 

[Julia] Garcia said that should JHH be awarded the original RFP she applied for, moving in as the new operator would be possible. But if the city instead decides to post a completely new RFP for a service provider, she won’t apply again. 

“My only objective is to help the people of Spokane,” Garcia said. “I am unwilling to hurt my organization by continuing to waste time and man hours on things that we’ve already done.” 

Pasted below is Julie Garcia’s post from her Jewels Helping Hands Facebook page addressing a link to Nate Sanford’s Inlander article.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Jewels Helping Hands:

What this article fails to mention is the cost of TSA [The Salvation Army] for 4 months is the entire cost of JHH for a year. The JHH part in this RFP was 3.5 million in the contact. The rest was for an influx of services to actually exit folks out of homelessness, private trauma informed security which eliminates the use of police overtime utilized now and telehealth medical to curb the over utilization of the emergency room. Also provided sobering services and medically assisted drug treatment. On call mental health and behavioral health on site.

True leadership does not burn down the ship over their own personal feelings, real leadership works towards a goal for the whole. Nothing, absolutely nothing benefits our community more than getting our homeless population off the streets and housed. Warehousing them is not solving anything and costing tax payers an enormous amount of money. Bankrupting our city.

This city is hell bent on destroying homeless services through political agendas instead of actually moving the needle for the entire community. Business owners concerns are valid. Neighborhood concerns are valid. People experiencing homelessness concerns are valid. Yet the only concern of our city administration is proving that their “ridiculous “ solution works. It doesn’t. It was a terrible, poorly planned, worse executed, no evidence based, no best practice based, unbelievably costly idea.

No one wants to run the TRAC shelter but someone has to. The JHH proposal is not sustainable. It was meant to lower the capacity so the next provider could be affordable or close the shelter due to the cost. But doing so in a compassionate, housing driven way. Not exiting people back downtown or into neighborhoods.

Spokane needs to demand better.

Candidacy in eastern Washington–what it accomplishes and why we need it

Democracy requires participation. Democrats and progressives need to participate more. As we look ahead to the fall 2024 elections in which, I believe, democracy itself will be on the ballot, what follows is a call to action.

You’ve probably noticed that Republicans never fail to run a candidate for every position—no matter how quixotic the candidacy appears. For example, in Legislative District (LD) 3 (essentially the City of Spokane) State Senator Andy Billig and State Representatives Timm Ormsby and Marcus Riccelli always have a Republican challenger. 

Contrast that to the Spokane-surrounding, Republican-dominated Legislative Districts (LDs) 4 (Spokane valley north to Mt. Spokane), 6 (north & west of LD3), 7 (north), and 9 (south). [For detailed maps click here or explore an interactive map here.] In 2022 in those four Legislative Districts (LDs 4, 6, 7, and 9), only two Democrats signed up to run for what were a total of ten legislative positions on the ballot that election—all occupied by Republican incumbents. Hats off to Michaela Kelso, who ran against State Rep. Jenny Graham in the 6th, and Ted Cummings, who ran against State Rep. Suzanne Schmidt in the 4th. Even though neither Michaela nor Ted won, they (and any Democrats who take on a Republican incumbent) deserve our thanks—for several reasons most of us fail to consider. 

In 2022, the other State Rep in District 6, Mike Volz, ran unopposed, just like seven other Republican incumbents in LDs 6, 7, and 9. As a result none of those eight Republicans needed to spend much, if any, time campaigning among their constituents, knocking on doors, or dealing with challenging questions. Instead, they were free to stump for other Republican candidates or simply relax. Moreover, in the unchallenged Mike Volz example, in 2022 Mr. Volz only felt the need to spend $8,291 on his campaign—while he deposited the other $70,000 he raised in campaign funds into the MIKE VOLZ SURPLUS FUND. Those “surplus funds” (more than 50% of which came from business contributions) can be rolled over without restriction to “a political party or legislative caucus committee” (and thence to other Republican candidates), among other possible uses.

Repeat the Mike Volz story again and again with each unopposed Republican candidates and pretty soon you’re talking real money, real money that can be sloshed around to defend or support other Republican candidates. 

Under-appreciated candidates like Michaela Kelso and Ted Cummingsperform another essential service by running against Republican incumbents: the fact of their campaigning in “red” districts gives Democrats in those districts a reason to cast a ballot—and serves notice to all whom they contact that Democrats are real people concerned with their communities. 

This post is a plea for people to step up as candidates for 2024, even though winning might seem unlikely. Gaining office and governing in a democracy is a team project—and all members of the team deserve support. Forty-four elected positions will be on the ballot in the fall of 2024. It would be ideal if a Democrat were represented in every race. If you have the slightest curiosity about running you don’t have to learn the ropes by yourself. Sign up as a volunteer at spokanedemocrats.org. That will get you on the mailing list for candidate training, volunteer training, and other outreach planned by the Dems for 2024.

Emerge Washington specializes in training progressive Democratic women to run for public office in the State of Washington. Visit their website here and sign up for updates on their 2024 training program. 

Be sure to thank and contribute to those who do step up. Recognize them for the way their candidacy helps the team. 

I came to these conclusions slowly. In the wake of Lisa Brown’s loss to incumbent U.S. Rep. McMorris Rodgers in 2018 someone pointed out to me what should have been obvious: even though Lisa did not win, her strong candidacy tied up Republican campaign funds controlled by McMorris Rodgers that would otherwise have gone elsewhere. The 2018 fall general election resulted in a U.S. House Democratic majority—with a gain of 41 seats. Some part of this was due to tying up McMorris Rodgers’ war chest in defending her own seat.

I headed this post “Blue Missouri” to highlight an effort by Democrats to regain a foothold in a painfully “red” state. The presentation in which I heard about Blue Missouri offered the points I covered above, but “Blue Missouri” takes it a step further. The organization crowd sources small monthly contributions which it guarantees will be used to top up the campaign coffers of Democratic candidates for the Missouri legislature running against incumbent Republicans. The idea is to give prospective candidates a head start. “No more free passes for the GOP.” I like their logic. Visit their website’s home page where their endeavor is explained. Check out the FAQs on that page. I’m not saying this can be immediately replicated in eastern Washington, but it is certainly food for thought.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Ted Cummings and Michaela Kelso were featured in this post because I was looking back at the latest Legislative District elections. Many more such candidates deserve our thanks for their efforts. Most recently they include Lindsey Shaw running against Michael Cathcart in the City of Spokane, District 1 (NE), municipal elections this fall. Many others remain active in our communities after having run for office, for example, Naghmana Sherazi who now works with the Lands Council, serves on the Board of Emerge Washington, and helped with this post.