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Preview
Democrats Allow Continuation of
Anti-Democratic Campaign Practices
Conservative
Democrats Voted for Bankruptcy Bill
Is
Reichert Washington State’s only Centrist Congressman
Private Entrepreneurs are Key to Economic and Social
Development
Lake Hills Newsletter
– Vigiling to Bring Our Troops Home Alive
Upcoming Events
Saturday, March 17 at 10 AM at the
Friday, March 23rd at 6:30 PM at
Saturday April 28 at 10 AM at
Democrats Allow Continuation of Anti-Democratic Campaign
Practices
Our
present system of financing
·
The
ability to win elections depends greatly upon the ability to raise money from private donors, which often depends
upon the ability to attract support from groups with interests counter to the
public interest.
·
Candidates
must spend enormous time and effort
raising money instead of conversing with voters.
·
All
candidates and winning office holders (except self-financed ones) suffer the appearance of corruption.
·
Legislated
special benefits cost our State
treasury, tax payers and voters much more than would the cost of public
campaign financing, making public campaign financing a great investment.
·
Many proposals which would extend freedoms and
opportunities to our general public are
blocked by special interests, because the proposals eliminate their roles
and profits.
·
Our
present private campaign financing system is attractive to special interests because it gives them
disproportionately greater influence than voters.
·
It is attractive to some legislators and other
public officials who have the ability and contacts to raise more campaign
funds than likely challengers.
·
It has
been more attractive to Republicans
than Democrats because Republicans must raise more money to overcome the
fact that their proposals are so much farther from our political mainstream
than are Democratic proposals.
I believe a majority of
Virtually
no opposition has been expressed publicly.
Yet special interests and Republicans and others allied with them are
able to approach key legislators behind the scenes to persuade them to resist
reforms.
The three pairs of bills concerned
candidates for
The bills were passed to the House Rules Committee, chaired by Frank Chopp, who is a Democrat and Speaker of the House. He did not permit a vote and so they did not pass. By not allowing votes, we don’t know how many legislators and who would have voted for the bills. Thus Sam Hunt, Darlene Fairley and Frank Chopp are not only responsible for defeating these bills, but also for denying us the knowledge of who supported and opposed them. This lack of transparency protects legislators from being held accountable.
We spent much time and effort helping to elect Democrats in 2006, in hopes that they would act to extend freedoms and opportunities. But they have allowed the continuation of our anti-democratic private campaign financing system, even though this system helps Republicans to the detriment of Democrats. When a Democratic and opposing Republican candidate have the same financing, the Democrat virtually always wins, which is why Republicans oppose public campaign financing. To reform our campaign financing, we may have to pass initiatives which is a costly alternative which should only be used when our legislative system fails to act in our public interest.
During the past decade, Democrats have continually gained seats in legislature. They have done this through being cautious, focusing upon popular measures that they could easily support and pass. Now they have large majorities in both houses, yet they are still being super cautious. The result is that now that Democrats are in control, the voters may blame them for accomplishing too little to solve our major problems (See our new years resolutions):
· private campaign financing,
· an unfair tax system which taxes many too much and some much too little and produces too little revenue,
· an inadequate lobbying system to stimulate our Federal government to provide needed health and education funding,
· urban sprawl and inadequate public transit (necessary to end transportation gridlock),
·
insufficient energy conservation (compared with
· a criminal system with sentences disproportional to the damage caused, resulting in unnecessary incarceration and high public costs.
Are you satisfied with the actions of our Democratic legislators on these issues? If they don’t stand for addressing these issues, what do they stand for? Just as stock investors must change their strategies as the stock market changes, must Democrats change as their political situation changes? Should we consider supporting alternative Democratic candidates in our primaries, in order to address these issues?
Conservative Democrats Voted for Bankruptcy Bill
This extremely conservative bill greatly limited our freedoms and opportunities by barring people overwhelmed by medical costs beyond their control from obtaining relief from their debts. How could Democratic congressmen Rick Larsen and Brian Baird and 71 other Democrats justify voting for this bill, except as necessary to enable their re-election by obtaining campaign contributions from credit card, bank and other financial institutions?
The House (109th Congress, 1st Session, April 14, 2005) passed the bill to limit access to bankruptcy protection, S 256, by a vote of 302 to 126, with 73 Democrats voting for the bill. Those voting for the bankruptcy bill included 10 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, 13 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, 2 Progressive Caucus members and all but 3 Blue Dogs (there is overlap among some caucuses). The table below may be sorted by caucus, vote, party and Representative as well as by the median household income for the congressional district in the 2000 census. For More Information about this table.
|
Jay Inslee |
N |
WA |
1 |
D |
|
|
|
|
ND |
|
|
$58,565 |
|
Rick Larsen |
Y |
WA |
2 |
D |
|
|
|
|
ND |
|
|
$45,441 |
|
Brian Baird |
Y |
WA |
3 |
D |
|
|
|
|
ND |
|
RURAL |
$44,426 |
|
Doc |
Y |
WA |
4 |
R |
|
|
|
|
|
|
RURAL |
$37,764 |
|
Cathy McMorris |
Y |
WA |
5 |
R |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
$35,720 |
|
Norman D. Dicks |
N |
WA |
6 |
D |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
$39,205 |
|
Jim McDermott |
N |
WA |
7 |
D |
|
|
P |
|
|
|
|
$45,864 |
|
David G. Reichert |
Y |
WA |
8 |
R |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
$63,854 |
|
Adam Smith |
N |
WA |
9 |
D |
|
|
|
|
ND |
|
|
$46,495 |
Jim McDermit is a member of the Progressive
Caucus. Jay Inslee, Rick Larsen, Brian
Baird and Adam Smith are members of the New Democratic Caucus.
Reichert is Only Centrist
Member of Delegation, Again
From Congressman Reichert’s weekly
newsletter
For the second year in a row, Reichert is
sole centrist member of State's delegation.
Rep. Dave Reichert was once again named the most centrist member
of
What are
centrists? Are they confused
conservatives or confused liberals? What about Rick Larsen and Brian Baird?
What were
the
Letter
from member Dave James:
Hi Dave, It's
been a while since we've talked. I've
been thinking a lot about the subject of impeachment. I've concluded that there are many other
issues that our members of Congress need to address, such as voting machine
problems, the war, the budget deficit, inequities in the current tax system
(which Bush and his fellow neocons made even more unfair), and so on. Taking on impeachment proceedings would be a
big distraction.
To those who
insist that we need to impeach Bush and Cheney, there is one BIG problem - in
order to convict, I believe that at least 2/3 of the Senate must vote to
convict. Frankly, the votes aren't
there. This does NOT mean that I think
that Bush and his associates are innocent of committing high crimes. He lied us into this awful war, then his
people outed the name of the CIA agent Valerie Plame. Now there are the politically motivated
firings of federal judges, and I'm very suspicious that Karl Rove has his
fingers in this scandal.
We liberals
must work together and get our message out.
And I agree with
We liberals
can show our patriotism by showing our support for our returning troops,
including needed medical care and job retraining. And increasing opportunities for those less
fortunate than us.
Ultraconservatives
say that they are patriotic, but they are proving otherwise. Samuel Johnson said that "patriotism is
the last refuge of a scoundrel." Take
care, Dave James
-----------------------
We owe a special thanks to Dave James for his
canvassing last summer to identify previously unidentified Democratic
voters. He helped us find 1000 more
likely Democratic voters, about which we informed all of our Democratic
candidates.
Letter from
Wisconsin member
Bruce obtained the number of
additional troops being sent to
------------------------
I just sent this to ALL my representatives. Please send to yours, Bruce
March 13, 2007
[recipient name was inserted here],
[recipient address was inserted here]
This is totally
insane. 37,729 MORE TROOPS.
Even Gen Powell says it is wrong. Is Congress so weak that it cannot
even enforce the US Constitution? That is the document WE gave you to follow in
your work as OUR Representatives. You took an oath. WE people see that Bush was
lying and wrong! The lies and manipulation from this President ARE Impeachable
offenses and Impeachment must be done by Congress. To allow this now, will set
precedent for future. If the Constitution is "just another piece of
paper" than we people must now insist on a NEW Government. Total!
I insist you stop funding this escalation and withdraw the Troops from
Smart Birds
Go to http://www.all-creatures.org/stories/a-starling.html. Read the bird story.
Is the European Dream Better?
In
his book, The European Dream, Jeremy
Rifkin compares their dream with our American Dream. He says we believe being free and secure
requires becoming independent through self sufficiency and wealth. For Europeans, being free and secure requires
becoming embedded in a myriad of interdependent relationships with others. We emphasize hard work, economic growth and
personal wealth; they emphasize sustainable development, leisure, quality of
life, and community. We are religious, nationalistically
patriotic and militaristic. Europeans are
secular, preserve their own cultural identities within a multi-cultural setting
and favor diplomacy and foreign aid.
Compare our ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ with their
‘liberty, equality and fraternity’.
Americans
seek power, but distrust allowing others to have power. We distrust concentrated government power and
concentrated private economic power. But
recently we have greatly weakened our government’s power to control private
power. Europeans distrust government
power much less, so that businesses have much less influence on governments in
Europe than they have in the
Which
Dream is better depends particularly upon the value we place upon autonomy from
others compared community with others. But public opinion in
Interesting also would be
characterization of the East Asian Dream.
Private
Entrepreneurs are Key to Economic and Social Development
In his Banker to
the Poor, Muhammad Yunus who recently won the Nobel Peace Price argues that
the Micro-Credit programs that he has developed can do more to alleviate global
poverty than any other existing programs.
The recipients are loaned just what they can pay back,
then when paying it back, they can borrow more.
Through emergency insurance and other means, great effort is made to
enable the borrowers to repay the loans, which they almost all do. Using the loans as capital, the women create
small businesses, then expanding them.
As their incomes grow, they become less subject to abuse from their
families, improve their health, purchase better housing and maintain their
children in school, as well as having fewer children. They, their families and children arise out
of poverty.
Having created a vast network of small entrepreneurs,
Yunus begin building enterprises which would serve these entrepreneurs, thus creating
more jobs for the poor. These included
construction firms and others. He also
created disaster, health and life insurance for his borrowers.
My
career included doing community development in the
Recommended
Books
Jeremy Rifkin, 2004, The European Dream, How
Muhammad
Yunus, 1999, Banker to the Poor, Micro
Lending and the
David Bornstein, 2004, How to Change the World, Social
Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
Lake Hills Liberals Newsletter
Lake Hills in
Enhancing Freedom,
Bring Our Troops Home
During this past 5 weeks, some
of us have been vigiling for peace, including members of Lake Hills Liberals,
MoveOn, Eastside Reconciliation for Peace and Eastside Liberals for John
Edwards. Several times a week, 2 to 4 of us hold signs at a 4-way stoplight one
mile south of the main Microsoft campus. On a stake, each 12" x 17"
sign says `Bring Our Troops Home Alive'. Below signs carried by his supporters
is a 4" x 12" sign which says `John Edwards'.
We stand there from 4:30 to 5:30 PM. About 500 cars
pass by slowly as they wait their turn at the intersection. About one out of
five indicate their approval by waving, thumbs up, flashing their lights or
honking, About the same proportion are talking on cell phones. Contact
Events
Calendar
Every Thursday 7-8:30 PM in Crossroads Mall near the large chess board
at table with red checkerboard patterned tablecloth – Conversation Café –.
Participants (mostly Lake Hills Liberals) use a discussion format with
each participant addressing an issue in turn with listeners respecting what
they say. A great way to learn
different understandings and opinions, while presenting and modifying your own.
Every Thursday at 7:00pm, Valhalla Bar & Grill (
Every first Wednesday at 7 PM at
Every third Tuesday at 7:00 at Lake Hills Clubhouse next to Lake Hills
Library – Lake Hills Neighborhood
Association
Every third Wednesday at 7 PM at
Every third Wednesday at 7 PM at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church (
Every fourth Friday at 6:30
PM at
Activities
and Services
Our Neighborhood Enhancement
Interests and Activities include:
block parties; welcoming new neighbors; cooperation among home owners and
apartment tenants; environmental enhancement (recyling exchange), crime
prevention, disaster response, school and youth services, military concerns,
family financial security, and elder support task groups; and free
advertisements for members.
Our Political Actions include: displaying yard signs and bumper stickers, letters-to-editors
and government officials, campaign support for liberal candidates, canvassing
to identify liberal voters and stimulate them to vote, and encouraging
formation of liberal groups in other neighborhoods. Our newsletter stimulates networking of
liberals throughout our
Our Personal Enhancement
Efforts include: educating liberals
(our newsletter, commentaries and discussions; website; and reading list),
healthy living (walking groups), and arts and crafts fair.
· Our Lake Hills
Liberals Walks – M & F 5:15 PM and Sat at 7:30 AM at Lake Hills Library
parking lot by dumpster. Slow Pokes Walk. – W 5:15 PM Bring your cane or walker to walk a short
distance to
· .In keeping with our principle of not competing with
existing services, we won’t add a blog capability to our website. See www.nwprogressive.org/portal to
examine many northwest liberal blogs.
Our liberal spirit
commentaries (which sometimes accompany our newsletter) address mutual respect
and cooperation of religious and secular
liberals. They also address changing our
mindsets (such as not bringing our experiences to consciousness,
insensitivities, resentments and cynicism) which restrict our ability to take
advantage of our freedoms and activities.
The major restrictions on our freedom and opportunity may be in our
head. These can be changed.
Hire Our
Neighbors
·
Private Piano Lessons (students must have a piano),
afternoons - Anna Khosrowian (378-7938), price negotiable
·