News Chopp Meets the Press
posted by on February 7 at 15:43 PM
Speaker Frank Chopp (D-43, Seattle) just held his weekly sit down with the press corps, and he was asked about most of the high-profile bills in play in the house.
I’ve got to get on the road back to Seattle now to beat traffic, but I want to give a quick run down of what he said.
Closing the Gun Show Loophole
Chopp said he personally supported it, but “the votes just aren’t there in the caucus” to pass it. Asked what the problem was with making folks at gun shows get background checks before buying guns just as they have to in gun shops (i.e., this is hardly an attack on the Second Amendment), Chopp said NRA members of his caucus just didn’t see it that way… and he’d rather focus on issues where there’s consensus, like mental health. He made a couple of leaps there and said that was a good way—dealing with mental health issues—of preventing people from losing their shit and going on shooting sprees.
Payday Loan Cap
Chopp said he wanted credit unions to step up and do their part to serve the low-income market. He said he wanted the payday-loan industry to have reasonable rates, but said the caucus was still working something out. In summary: He was pretty circumspect about the whole thing.
Domestic Partnerships
Asked when they’d pass that, Chopp said, “Not in the next two weeks. We’ll see.”
Rainy-Day Fund
Chopp said that was the governor’s priority, and while he was happy to work on it, “We’ve got our own priorities.”
Regulating Fraud in Paid Signature Gathering
Chopp said he strongly believed in the public’s right to petition the government (citing his own history running progressive initiatives). He said, however, fraud occurs, and his caucus was right to want to “stop that fraud.” He kind of contradicted himself, though, by using Eyman’s recent failure to get on the ballot because of ineligible signatures as an example of the problem.
Um… if the secretary of state caught Eyman’s false signatures, then the system’s working, no?
Final note: Chopp paused to say how thrilled he was that he got some good press on Sharkansky’s blog.
However, Chopp oughta stop and think about that. If I’m not wrong, Sharkansky gave Chopp a shout out for Chopp’s stand against the tunnel… i.e., for bringing us the rebuild. Thanks, Frank.
Oh, and thanks to all the hubbub in Olympia today about fighting greenhouse-gas emissions, Chopp was asked if anything like Sen. Erik Poulsen’s bill was brewing on the house side.
First, he cited bills that the house has already passed in recent years, like the car-emissions bill and green building standards. Then he said this session his caucus was working on the priorities that the environmental community had spelled out: a clean fuels bill; a PBDE bill, and a Puget Sound cleanup bill.
I reminded him that in fact there is an emissions cap bill in the house. Chopp said it wasn’t a priority.
Your misuse of the bold tag makes the baby Jesus cry. :(
thought Jesus cries over war, hunger, disease, bigotry, death ... etc
bad joke Louise, try your brain out
meanwhile CA and OR are eating our shorts legislatively.
Wow, sounds like a whole lot of nuffin to me. What the hell are they doing? His answer to every question was "we're not really working on that right now"? Guess i won't hold my breath for anything good to come out of the massive Dem majority in Olympia. If they can't get support for the gun show loophole i have to ask what the hell kind of Democrats do we have in this state? Sounds like milquetoast city to me. not impressed at all.
http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/m3u/News/070207_db_chopp.m3u
KUOW interviewed Speaker Chopp at length about the Viaduct this morning. Yes, unfortunately, he talked about the need to make a better elevated design (not possible, in our opinion). But he also referred to the need for "transportation capacity" (note "transportation" rather than "vehicular") and reiterated that he is open to the "transit alternative" (ie transit+streets).
It's the Dept. of Transportation - WSDOT - they don't do transit - they do roads - on KUOW you expect him to say no to transit? The state will not tear down the Viaduct without capacity in place - they feel the need to insure that N-S travel to and through Seattle is not brought to a near standstill - they think they have a responsibilty to the whole state - for transportation, freight, business and just people in general - the way forward is to repair and prepare to live without the viaduct - don't build a 2500 rebuild and give up on a $5B tunnel that is the worst of all environmentally -
SHERWIN Wrote:
"the way forward is to repair and prepare to live without the viaduct"
Unfortunately, with that proposal, there is a likelihood that political and monetary pressures to invest in other needed areas will keep a repaired Viaduct in place for an additional 30 years or at least until the next significant earthquake brings it and the seawall down. Frankly, this is not a worthwhile consideration as it makes a bad and wrong assumption that people will be further concerned about investing in the corridor once they know that the Viaduct is repaired and safe for travel.
The surface/transit proposal is equally flawed. It would simply shunt much of the surrent Viaduct traffic onto mult-laned roadways that parallel Alaskan Way. It would impede pedestrian access to the waterfront in manner and ability that the current Viaduct has failed to do during its entire existence, and the limited land available after surface-transit road construction would possibly limit future transit considerations.
I do have to agree with others here, a cable stayed, "Bay" Bridge, if feasible, is the only reasonable proposal to these other alternatives.
---Jensen
Jensen,
While I personally agree with you that the BAY BRIDGE option should have been considered (no docs yet from WSDOT, btw) I don't think there is the political will to do the work to investigate it at this point. There is political exhaustion. (You have otherwise bright people like Westneat and Savage going around moaning that we just can't make decisions and hoping for a "man on horseback" to give orders.)
The Governor has boxed herself in: What will she do after the No/No vote? Just go ahead and ram through the Rebuild? I don't think so, if she wants to be relected. She'll be on the ropes. I don't think she'll have any choice but to go for some sort of de facto Repair.
She'll want political suport and cover.
It will be time for the Surface people to get behind the Repair so that their Transit options can be part of that package.
So, um.... WTF *are* their priorities, then?
From: Tim Eyman
In response to a public records request, we received this email from Brenda Galarza, the Records/Public Disclosure Officer for the Secretary of State on January 25th, 2007:
Public Records Request
January 16, 2007
8. Any reports or documents pertaining to suspected or verified criminal activity in the initiative process in 2006.
a. There is none.
In response to a different public documents request, we received this email from Brenda Galarza, the Records/Public Disclosure Officer for the Secretary of State on January 30, 2007:
"Pam Floyd searched her own email and all of Tina Clark’s email and did not find anything on I917 or I920 regarding signature problems or fraud."
Can someone tell me if the Republicans have the majority? It sure sounds like it.
David, I completely agree with your analysis that political fatigue has
overcome the debate, and it has always been my experience that fatigue invites and produces the very worst of choices and ideas.
I can't agree with the notion that a Viaduct repair will in turn lend itself to expenditures towards transit options. I think we'll be hard pressed to ask State citizens and legislators outside Seattle to fund options when they are fighting for tranportation money for their own districts. I also believe that given the number of critical projects that we require in the Seattle area, it will be impossible to accomplish future transit options without significant statewide financial input. I have to believe that once repaired, that state will wash it's hands of the Viaduct until use or Nature takes its toll.
I have stated repeatedly in this forum that as a city and society we must learn to do more with less; truly evaluate the money we spend with what we receive in return and hold ourselves accountable for how those monies are used. As a city, we have failed to do that. We have wasted the city's time, money and efforts and the efforts of WSDOT and state government pursuing fiscally irresponsible tunnel proposals or Viaduct options which are in themselves expensive and don't in any way reclaim the full expanse of the Alaskan Way corridor.
Difficult as it is, we need to overcome the exhaustion and re-examine our options. I, for one, would like all of us to take a step back and have the state and city invite recognized professional and academic urban planners and engineers from around the world to study and hold a symposium to address these issues. Having studied opinions originating outside the current localized debate would bring fresh ideas to the table. It would also give everyone time to catch their breath and reconsider alternatives.
Of course the qusetion is, would local egos would tolerate it?
---Jensen
While I appreciate Frank's background as a non-profit executive and advocate for the poor, I wish he would spend some of this political capital to move the agenda forward. Why work for a progressive majority if you are always going to run to the middle?
Frank Chopp is correct about the tunnel. The money to build the tunnel is not there, won't be there and if the viaduct was torn down to build a tunnel, the tax burden on the people in the city of Seattle would become such, that what is generally called "the average working person" in this state, would not be able to live here. Housing is already so expensive - in part due to the fact that we have the highest property taxes in the state - most working people no longer can afford to live on their own. It will only get worse
Besides, the tunnel is pushed most by the developers and the Downtown Business Association. So one has to ask: when did The Stranger's editorial board become friends with the DBA?
Also, I keep waiting - as do so many other people who have been screwed over by them - for a piece on Varnes Investment Properties by someone on The Stranger's staff. Right now, Insider Pages.com is doing more to protect (potential) renters from VIP than The Stranger is.
Forget Frank Chopp, Maria Cantwell and all the other pols you like to sit down with and feel important. Let's see some good old fashioned investigative reporting on Varnes. Your readers could benefit from that, more than telling them your opinion of Frank Chopp. But then again, I could be wrong.
Jensen,
Your idea for a wide-ranging competition should have been adopted in spring 2001.
Do you think that the Governor can afford tolead the way on that one? I don't.
It would have to be Chopp -- and he has bigger fish to fry such as making sure Washington Democrats are strong in 2008 to defeat the Republicans for the White House.
At this point the best we can hope for (and it is not a bad solution at all) is Sherwin/Steinbrueck's "Repair and Prepare."
Maybe I am wrong but I cannot see a political scenario in which we open up the formal debate to totally-fresh ideas, even though that is what the Governor did to the informal debate with her ill-advised non-action in December.
Jensen - the idea is to buy time - make it safer sooner, - the state has said we must do something - as Sucher says, they have painted themselves into a corner - the way out is to fix it and work for a consensus on the longer time horizon fix - FoS - PWC - AArts etc. will have to keep at it -
The tunnel will not happen and the rebuild is forever -
It's funny that Tim Eyman's post was at 9:11, since he hates America and all.
svlp vzoj dzxqvaul wyvpbts citfa czhak uatdzf
cvsjimpok mahtr ctfskv rpivjuty txhgwj ildgh zcrjntv http://www.njglzvyqw.hlys.com
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).