This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
Guest bloggers
Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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It's the season when legislators, special interests and think tanks make the rounds of editorial boards, pitching their ideas for the upcoming legislative session. We had one such visit today from the Washington Policy Center.
Jason Mercier, director of the Washington Policy Center for Government Reform, is attempting to pin a couple of bills to Initiative 960's coattails. What I-960 claims it will do for tax increases — increasing government transparency and discouraging abuses of emergency clauses — the Washington Policy Center would like to see applied elsewhere.
One proposal — the establishment of a Web site to track state government spending and performance — was the subject of an op-ed he wrote for us last week. The other is a constitutional amendment to require 60 percent vote to pass any bill with an emergency clause, except the budget.
It's not as onerous as it might sound. Last session, 75 bills came out of the Legislature that purportedly were "necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety, support of the state government and its existing institutions." Of those 75, only seven failed to get 60 percent support.
Neither bill got out of committee last year. We'll see if they fare any better in a post-960 election year.
UPDATE 1/7: State auditor Brian Sonntag and state Attorney General Rob McKenna have endorsed the searchable budget Web site. Read the press release here.
