You can knock Sen. Maria Cantwell for supporting Sen. John McCain's call to strip all earmarks from the omnibus spending bill, then turning around and supporting the bill, complete with nearly 100 earmarks she supported. (See Les Blumenthal's story.) But when you look at the details of what such spending would support in our area, it's hard not to feel some ambivalence.

Others in Washington's delegation staked out their positions clearly. Sen. Patty Murray, who ranks no. 12 in the Senate in securing earmarks in this bill, made a floor speech defending such "congressionally directed spending." Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, true to his declaration of a unilateral earmark moratorium, did not sign on to any.

Sen. Cantwell did not offer an explanation for her seeming contradiction, but here is a reasonable defense: I don't like the way earmarks have been abused. I've supported recent reforms, and along with President Obama support further reforms. But for the moment, they are part of the game and I'm not doing my job for constituents if I don't play that game and help get money for projects that might otherwise get shut out.

Would that make her a hypocrite or a realist?

Below is the itemized list of earmarks for Pierce County and the region. Whether they are pork or progress may depend on where you live.

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UPDATE No. 2 (1:54 p.m.)

Statement from Rick Bender, President of the Washington State Labor Council

We regret the incident. It was a result of frustration with the legislature’s failure to protect workers' rights in the workplace. Our job is to always protect workers' rights.

We do not believe that any law has been violated and we have no additional comments until we know where this will go.

Thank you very much.

So, I guess the Labor Council is admitting to something, but not to a crime. (Reminds me of the apology that Jason Giambi made a couple years ago, without ever saying he took steroids.)

UPDATE No. 1: House members have been briefed, but many of them are not happy about the sketchiness of the details that the House lawyer, Tim Sekerak, and Frank Chopp's lawyer, Cathy Maynard, are giving them, or not giving them.

According to someone at the briefing: Someone on the labor side of the Worker Privacy Act, possibly someone at the Washington State Labor Council itself, allegedly sent a threatening e-mail to two senators and two representative. It was something like, move the bill forward or you get no more contributions from us.

"We get stuff like that all the time -- 'if you don't do this, I'm never going to contribute to you again!'" one lawmaker said. "What's different in this e-mail?"

(All the stuff below is actually from my first postings on this topic.)

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LeMay Automobile Museum officials, hampered by the frozen credit market, are turning to the City of Tacoma for money.

City and museum officials outlined a plan Tuesday in which the museum would borrow $3.5 million from the city and leverage the money with other funds to build the first phase of the planned Harold E. LeMay Museum near the Tacoma Dome.

The money would come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 108 loan program. Tacoma would borrow the money from HUD and re-lend it to the museum.

Tacoma has participated in the Section 108 program for about 20 years, but has not made a loan from it in about three or four years, said Martha Anderson, assistant director of the the city's Community and Economic Development Department.

That's because private markets were providing a sufficient flow of funds, and the program comes with enough rules that borrowers don't use it unless they have to, Anderson said in a meeting of the City Council's Economic Development Committee.

David Madeira, museum president and CEO, told the council committee members that the museum tried to get financing for the new building last May and was told there was no money. Officials began looking for other options and discovered "new market tax credits."

The New Markets Tax Credit Program is a separate federal initiative that would provide another piece of the funding puzzle. That, combined with a Section 108 loan -- as well as private bank financing -- would allow the museum to move forward with construction on the $28.4 million first phase.

"This is a big piece of the picture to us," Madeira said.

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It's JUST a budget drill, but if the $8 billion budget shortfall didn't get the attention of legislators, the budget-cutting exercise will.

Rep. Kelli Linville, D-Bellingham, told me a couple weeks ago that the first round of the exercise was to assume an all-cuts budget with no federal stimulus funds. (But I'm not sure if the information I got this morning was based on those ground rules. It matters a lot. The gravity of the situation, and all.)

Anyway, here's what the House is looking at after that extreme exercise:

1. 100 percent elimination of the Basic Health Plan, the state-subsidize health coverage program for working poor. The governor's budget proposal called for a 40 percent cut to save $252 million, so I'm assuming total elimination would save about $700 million.
2. Eliminate General Assistance Unemployable (GAU) and Alcohol Drug Addiction Treatment Support Act (ADATSA), same as the governor did in her budget proposal. That saves $415 million.
3. Eliminate the "backfill" for county public health departments. I think that adds up to about $50 million over a 2-year budget. (This is the money that went away after Tim Eyman's I-695 and the Legislature's decision to repeal the state Motor Vehicle Excise Tax.)
4. Eliminate the Adult dental, vision and hearing services under the Medicaid program. Don't have a dollar amount for that one yet.
5. A 14 percent cut to hospital reimbursement rates. (The guv had 4 percent cuts in her budget.)
6. Ten percent deeper cuts to nursing home reimbursements. (The governor did cut some in her budget, but the Legislature countermanded those cuts in its "belt-tightening" bill of a couple weeks ago.

Susan Eidenschink (League of Women Voters), Robbie Stern, chairman of the Healthy Washington Coalition and Jack Johnson of Community Action Network happened by as I was writing this up. So I asked what they thought of the drill.

"If the cuts are like that, they're drastic," Eidenschink said. "The safety net would be just about demolished."

Stern said that drill must not take into account the $1.77 billion the state is getting in additional Medicaid dollars from the feds because the cuts should not be that deep. And if they are that deep, that means the state budget-writers are diverting state dollars that are freed up by the arrival of federal health dollars to other uses, he said.

I also got a hold of Cassie Sauer, spokeswoman for the Washington State Hospital Association, which has an abiding interest in all things related to health care, and asked her for a comment.

"They are very scary about where we might be headed in an all-cuts budget," she said of the proposed cuts, drill or not. "The level of devastation to the health care safety net and to vulnerable people who need health care is immense."

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Matt Bergman, managing partner of Bergman Draper & Frockt, a Seattle law firm that specializes in asbestos litigation, has stepped down, taking the blame for the full-page newspaper ads that tried to pressure three state senators into passing a bill into law.

The senators retaliated by killing the bill, Senate Bill 5964.

Mark Firmani, who handles public relations for the firm, confirmed a few minutes ago that an e-mail that was sent to me anonymously is, in fact, authentic.

Bergman left Monday for Kenya, to open another school he has built with his own funds, Firmani said. Bergman is not resigning from the firm; he is just stepping down as its managing partner, Firmani said.

The ads ran last week in newspapers in the legislative districts of Sens. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island and Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam. The ads suggested the three senators were blocking passage of an asbestos-litigation bill, thus denying justice to a client of the law firm, whose husband had died at at 57 because of exposure to asbestos at the Bremerton Naval Shipyard.

The senators blamed a former colleague, Brian Weinstein, a member of the law firm who until December was a state senator representing Mercer Island, for the heavy handed ads.
The ad that ran in The News Tribune cost about $10,000.

Bergman said it was his call to run the ads:

"Recent events in Olympia have given me reason to doubt my leadership. It is not so much the content of my decision to run the ads (I’ve made mistakes before) or the result of the decision but rather the manner in which the decision was made.
I am distressed that a course of action as significant as attacking Democratic senators in the midst of the most stressful legislative session in a decade was made in haste with so little deliberation, consultation and foresight."

Here is the full letter:

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Pierce County Assessor Treasurer Dale Washam today told the County Council that the office skipped tens of thousands of property inspections required by state law to ensure properties are assessed fairly for tax purposes.

At a budget hearing this morning, Washam said the office skipped inspections on more than 181,000 residential parcels under his predecessor, Ken Madsen. That’s well over half the residential parcels in the county.

Washam also said the office failed to inspect tens of thousands of commercial properties.

I’ve spoken with several current and former assessor-treasurer employees in recent days who also contend the inspections weren’t done. I’m calling Madsen today to seek comment.

State law requires local assessors to physically inspect every parcel at least every six years. In other years assessors can use statistical methods to update property values by comparing sales of comparable properties.

The physical inspections catch improvements like garages or decks that can substantially increase the value of homes. They also can uncover significant damage or other problems that can lead to declining values.

When asked at this morning meeting what impact the lack of physical inspections had on property owners, Washam said he asked his appraisers the same question. “The answer I got is, we can’t answer,” he said.

Update: I just got off the phone with Ken Madsen. He conceded his office did not conduct "boots on the ground" inspections of every parcel. However, he said the office "touched" every parcel, though some were touched by statistical analysis.

"It depends on what you mean by physical inspection," Madsen said.

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Gov. Chris Gregoire has picked the guy she wants to be her first state "Secretary of Commerce." Now all she has to do is get the Legislature to convert part of an existing state agency in the "Department of Commerce."

Rogers Weed, former Microsoft exec, will start his new job next Monday at a salary of $147,000 a year. (He must taking a huge pay cut.)

If you'll recall, the governor said she wants to change the focus of the existing state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development to "commerce."

Here is the bill that will to that: House Bill 2242.

CTED is the agency that has become a catch-all for everything under the sun. (Tell me why that agency would be in charge of setting up housing programs for newly released prison inmates? Is that part of the "Community" mission?)

Here's the guv's news release from yesterday. (I deleted it without reading because the subject line didn't mention the new cabinet appointment. But Pearse Edwards sent me another one. Shame on me.)

Former Washington Gov. Gary Locke is working his way through the confirmation process in the U.S. Senate for the national commerce job. Reed technically should be confirmed by our state Senate, but he can serve without being confirmed.

Gov. Gregoire calls on business, labor leaders to fuel engine of innovation

Governor introduces Rogers Weed as her new commerce director at forum

SEATTLE – Gov. Chris Gregoire today named former Microsoft Vice President Rogers Weed as the director of the Department of Commerce to help lead Washington state through the deepening national recession and into a thriving economy for the 21st century.

“Rogers is the very essence of an innovator, as evidenced by his high-level contributions to Microsoft products ranging from Windows to Encarta to Pocket PCs,” Gregoire said, “and he is a proven leader and a family man.”

“I want Rogers to wake up every morning with a laser-like focus on keeping the companies and jobs we have, and bringing new jobs and companies to our state — and I mean both large and small companies,” Gregoire said, announcing the appointment during a major economic speech in Seattle.

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I'm pretty late to this party. But once again, newly minted Democrat, Sen. Fred Jarrett of Mercer Island, sent me an invitation.

Who will replace Ron Sims, who's on his way to Washington D.C. and the Obama Administration?

March 11, 2009

Dear Joe,
You may have read recent press reports that I might be a candidate for King County Executive this year. Over the past several months many of my friends and supporters have encouraged me to consider entering this race.

I am currently occupied with my Senate duties and will be until the session ends. That is my priority. I am deeply involved in strengthening education and the challenges of our budget, and the economic situation our state faces. Even if I decided to run, I am prohibited from doing so during the legislative session. Consequently, I've answered those who've suggested the race that while I saw the opportunities a new county executive would have, I didn't know how it could be done

This weekend, Susan and I talked about the race. What it would mean for our family and what I could bring to the race. We decided we should take a closer look into whether such a candidacy would be feasible.

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Senate Bill 5688 says, "It is the intent of the Legislature that for all purposes under state law, state-registered domestic partners must be treated the same as married spouses."

It stops short of authorizing same-sex marriages, however.

The Senate passed the measure Tuesday night on a largely partyline vote, 30-18, with Democrats in the majority. Sens. Jim Hargrove of Hoqiuam, Tim Sheldon of Potlatch, Paull Shin of Mukilteo and Brian Hatfield of Raymond were the only two Democrats to vote against the bill.

The House is expected to pass its own bill, which has 57 sponsors out of 98 members, or may just pass the Senate bill. SB 5688 was sent to the House.

Prime sponsor, Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, the dean of the gay caucus in the legislature, put out a statement, which is posted below. (My guess is that Murray's bill is the one that will be signed into law, because of his veteran status in the Legislature. He replaced the laate Cal Anderson, the first openly gay member in the Legislature. At the time, Murray was an aide to Seattle City Councilwoman Martha Choe. Anyone remember that far back?)

Again, I digress.

Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, wanted to put the measure on the ballot for a public vote. He predicted voters would defeat a measure.

"Washington is not ready for gay marriage, but this bill would amount to legalizing gay marriage – it just takes us there through the back door rather than through the front door," Swecker said.

Here is Murray's statement, followed by Swecker's:

Senate approves ‘final step in state’s domestic partnership effort’

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House Bill 2122 would reduce the business and occupation tax for people in the business of "printing or publishing a newspaper" to the same rate paid by The Boeing Co., Weyerhaueser and Microsoft, according to industry lobbyist Roland Thompson of Allied Daily Newspapers.

That's a 43 percent cut from where it is now. The reduction would take effect July 1 and apparently would last indefinitely. The summary of testimony before the House Finance Committee indicated newspapers said they needed the tax break until about 2015.

The bill, sponsored by House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, would cost the state about $3 million to $5 million in lower tax collections over the 2009-11 biennium, Thompson said. (And save newspapers that amount, collectively.)

There is no fiscal note yet to show a more precise impact on state revenues.

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Officials from throughout Pierce County have agreed to change the list of local road projects they want to receive economic stimulus funding.

The Pierce County arm of the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) voted Tuesday night to drop a paving project in unincorporated Pierce County from its list of recommended projects and slightly reduce the amount of money that would go toward a Port of Tacoma project.

The change allows Eatonville’s Rural Town Center project to move onto the list of projects moving forward to the PSRC, which will make the final decision Thursday on how to distribute $78 million in funds from the federal stimulus package.

“I feel good and bad,” Eatonville Mayor Tom Smallwood said Tuesday. “I feel good because we’re getting a share. I feel bad for the other agencies in the county.”

Two local projects remained unchanged on the list of recommendations: Puyallup’s Shaw Road extension and Orting’s State Route 162 Rechannelization.

The PSRC executive board still must approve the list of projects before they can receive funding.

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