Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #189
Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed
Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of
Contents * Featured Articles Calendars of Events Communication with Our Members People who
Insist on Believing what’s Not So Opportunities Petitions Commentaries from Our Members Don
Smith: You Could Reach More People with Blogs* Cathi
Bright: Labor Support for Resolving Big Issues** William
Andersen: Quit Plastic Bags despite Failed Tax Rich
Austin Praises our Newsletter Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef Americans Like to Beat their Opponents State and Local Links to the Beef BIAW
Wins. Labor, Education and our
Public Lose.* Conservatives Play Offense. Liberals Only Defense.* Joint
Task Force on Basic Education Finance Report Featured Advocacy Group: DIME PAC by WSLC Nation and World Links to the Beef Jay Inslee: Eliminate Wasteful Military Expenditures Dave Reichert: Anti-Public Health
Insurance Option What about our Forgotten
Prisoners? Our Liberal Spirit Rehearsing My Life.
Preparing for My Day.* Our
Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean
Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and
Competent Spending ·
Investment for
Productivity ·
Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental
Protection and Energy Independence ·
Security and
Equal Rights ·
Justice and
Peace Everywhere ·
International
Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives oppose all of these Let’s
End Our National Nightmare
Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More on Conservative opposition to our
American Dream Washington State’s 5 Major Needs · Federal Funding for Health and Education · Substituting
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators [A
Simple Summary of Why We Need Health Care Reform and What it should include] Quote of the Week Prayer Is
Preparation. Ecumenical Institute
Calendar of Events
Saturday, September 26 at 7 Pm at the Westin Seattle -
Human Rights Campaign
Pacific Northwest 10th Anniversary Dinner. $200.
Communication
with Our Members
How Should We Treat People who Insist on Believing what’s Not So?
We have seen many tea baggers and other
opponents of health care reform (and more broadly, opponents of Barack Obama)
insist on believing what’s not so. I
believe that it is a waste of time to try to change their minds. It’s better to ignore their delusions, understanding
that contrary to what our commercial media pundits suggest, most Americans will
not be persuaded by them.
I believe we should focus upon strengthening our own understanding of what is so. Operating in our real world, we should be
able to out-compete those who live in various fantasy lands. Notice that our newsletter has followed this
approach. I am increasingly receiving
thanks from members (both ones I know and ones I don’t) for our newsletter’s
educational value.
It can even be to our advantage to let
our Conservative opponents continue to live in their fantasy lands. For example, we hear them and the commercial
media pundits say that Republicans
will stage a comeback in our 2010 elections, winning enough congressional
seats to derail Liberal legislation.
That’s baloney.
By the 2010 elections, our economy will
have recovered just enough that voters with short memories will credit our
Obama Administration’s stimulus-recovery programs (as occurred in 1982
following Reagan’s recession and slight recovery). We will be implementing health care reform,
such that fewer people will find themselves with insufficient insurance
coverage to obtain the health care they need or face enormous bills forcing
them to default on the mortgages or into bankruptcy. A variety of other reforms (such as
unionization, GLBT rights, immigration and more) may have passed.
We will also have more young, Hispanic
and other Liberal voters, a trend that will continue for decades. So let the Republicans believe they can win,
even though they have no policies to offer beyond the ones that have clearly
failed and they project a whacko tea bagger image.
I am impressed that many Americans are
often mistaken in their beliefs. But in
spite of 30 and more years of Conservative spin, most Americans have maintained
their Liberal values. Conservatives may
have made the ‘L-word’ unpopular, but that appears to be only a skin deep
wound. So let’s do our thing with
confidence instead of commercial media inspired paranoia. Dave Thomas
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Access
to jillions of political cartoons.
Download
Sightline Institute’s climate policy primer ‘Cap and Trade 101’. About
Sightline.
Conduct your own home energy audit.
Petitions
Tell
your senators to back a strong clean energy bill.
Tell
Puget Sound Energy, its regulators and Governor Gregoire: No more dirty coal.
Tell
BLM Director Bob Abbey to ban hard rock mining in Bristol Bay watershed.
Tell
your senators to ratify the convention to eliminate discrimination against
women.
Tell
Attorney General Eric Holder to expand the torture investigation to those who
created policy.
Tell President Obama to
promote action on Darfur at the U.N. General Assembly and G-20 meetings.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Don Smith: You Could Get More Exposure by Integrating With Blogs
I
liked your essay comparing the struggle of Populists with the struggles of
current-day liberals (but I'd call them progressives -- lol). I
particularly like this paragraph:
"Put simply, Socialists trust public enterprise,
while rejecting abusive private enterprise. Conservatives trust private
enterprise, while rejecting abusive public enterprise. Liberals recognize
that both public and private enterprise can yield benefits and can be
abusive."
It
paints liberals as the "moderates" that they are.
BTW, do you ever visit OpEdNews? It has some really good
articles, as well as some not-so-good articles.
Your ideas and writing would get more exposure if you integrated with
such blogs. For example, you could cross-post some of your essays there. Don
Smith
Dave Thomas Responds
I
don’t’ visit OpEdNews. About the only
blog I visit is Daily Kos. As I have
reported, I obtain hundreds of links to commentaries every week from 10 Liberal
Advocacy Groups. From those I select
about 50 for inclusion in our newsletter.
My
mission is to educate Liberals about our values, history, present situation and
priorities, political strategies and more.
Our newsletter enables me (and others who are contributing to it) to
provide an ongoing education to our members.
Quite differently, Blogs tend to comment on discrete issues to a
continually changing audience. They
seldom provide an in-depth education, especially about dealing with our larger
challenges. For example:
· In 2007, I focused upon producing clean elections
without private campaign donations.
· In 2008, I focused upon reforming our regressive
Washington tax system, so that most people would pay less tax, higher income
people would pay fairly for our institutional and capital heritage that has
enabled their incomes, and generate stable state revenue which adequately funds
providing equal access to quality services by all of our people.
· During 2009, I am focusing upon stopping Building
Industry Association of Washington from negatively influencing our state
government’s ability to serve our people.
While various blogs, such as Pacific Northwest
Progressive Advocate, have occasionally posted commentaries concerning these
topics, none have persisted to provide detailed analyses of the history,
present situation and strategies to deal with these issues. Dave Thomas
Cathi Bright: Labor Support for
Tax Reform,
Public Campaign Funding and Opposition to BIAW
Hi Dave, This edition was very interesting and after pondering your
assertion that there needs to be a coalition to address the three issues above
provoked me to comment. I just wanted to let you know that my former union, The
Washington Federation of State Employees/AFSCME Council 28, has been a long
time supporter of tax reform. When I was on the executive board we passed
several resolutions in support of tax reform, and have supported organizations
like the Washington Tax
Fairness Coalition.
Because we do not have a dedicated funding source for publicly funded
campaigns you can imagine that the state employees unions would not be able to
support public campaign funding. This is due to the fact that the
money would have to come from somewhere and usually that means from the pockets
of public employees through increased retirement contributions; increased
medical insurance premiums, co-pays, and deductibles; no COLAs; and (the worst)
budget cuts that cause layoffs. However, I am optimistic that if there was a
dedicated funding source, they would come around. Additionally, as you likely
know, public sector employees enjoy greater union density than do those in the
private sector. And a lot of the work done by members of building and
construction trades unions is publicly funded. The result is that the negative
impact of publicly funded campaigns without a dedicated funding source
outweighs the benefits in many ways.
That said, what I believe to be labor's greatest asset are the
"boots on the ground" rather than the money we spend on campaigns.
Business outspends labor by a ratio of roughly 18:1. We'll never be able to
outspend them and that's why membership mobilization programs are so important.
However, the problem is that many unions simply don't have much discretionary
money because of the high cost of representation (which is, of course, the
primary function of a union). Where there are vibrant political action programs
and extensive member education, we find that unions can have a significant
impact on elections as is evidenced by many legislative and other races that
very likely would not have been won were it not for labor's participation. So
do away with corporate citizenship and the problem is solved!
Regarding BIAW, L&I has corrected the loopholes and mistakes in
their retro calculations. I have been told that BIAW's revenue from the
retro program went from something like $42 million to $11 million. Still a lot of money, but nothing like it
was. The remaining necessary action is to fix two aspects of the retro program:
first to enforce the rule that says retro money is supposed to be spent on
safety programs, and second to fix the calculation method that refunds excess
premiums back to the employer but not the employee (who pays up to 50%). Fix
those problems and BIAW's political program is limited to voluntary
contributions from their members (similar to unions governed by Hudson rules).
So I think that it is practical for the member organizations of the
FAIR PAC to be somewhat narrowly focused on keeping special interest influence
out of judicial races. There are other coalitions and organizations to which
labor unions belong that are working to address tax fairness and the issues
surrounding BIAW. It is possible that the BIAW will drive itself into the ground
given their electoral success rate. But I guess it doesn't matter if you win
the governorship or judicial races if you are able to buy what you want from
the legislature anyway.
It also doesn't help when Democrats are tagging labor as a
"special interest" as Ross Hunter did recently. Too many people that
are not familiar with what unions actually do, believe that unions do represent
some kind of special interest. Although that logic never did make any sense to
me. Unions pursue legislation that benefits
all working people, not just those who are fortunate enough to have a union,
like increasing minimum wage and unemployment compensation benefits. In my
estimation, when the vast majority of people belong to a single constituency
group, then it cannot rationally be a "special" interest and becomes
the public interest. Thanks for
considering my comments, Cathi Bailey
Bright, Secretary-Treasurer WSDCC Labor Caucus, Associate Member IAM 751
Dave Thomas
Responds
Thanks for describing the various obstacles that
hinder labor unions’ ability to deal with big issues. I hope you will continue to inform our
members and me about this important topic.
I don’t believe that it is true
that “other coalitions and organizations to which labor unions belong that are
working to address tax fairness and the issues surrounding BIAW.” I sure haven’t been able to find any. Labor, education, environmental and other
advocacy groups have been missing in action with respect to these issues. See also my comments below about Conservatives playing offense
while Liberals often only play defense. Dave Thomas
William R. Andersen: Despite Failed Tax, Quit Plastic Bags
Cold Turkey
Published by Seattle Times on 8/21/2009
Many voters felt the plastic bag fee was too
nanny-ish. Understandable, but still, the environmental problem remains. Here's
an idea. Judging from the massive sums they spent to defeat this measure, the
plastic producers clearly expected plastic-bag sales to take a huge dive if the
fee was approved.
Let's all see if we can make that happen anyway by
resolutely swearing off plastic bags at the grocery. Cold turkey.
Let's develop a culture in which those who regularly
use plastic grocery bags are assumed to be either self-absorbed people like
those who talk too loudly on their cell phones or people for whom reusable bags
are genuinely beyond their means. We can roll our eyes at the former and
empathize with the latter. But for ourselves, let's do what's right, even
without the official prompt. The inconvenience will be minimal. After all, if
you've got a life, plastic bags can't be a very big part of it. William
R. Andersen
Rich Austin Praises
our Newsletter.
The PSL Newsletter is an example of how people can agree, disagree, or
alter personal opinions in an atmosphere of cordial public discourse. The PSLN has lots of facts/opinions to
peruse. We all may not agree on
everything, but it appears we all agree on something: respect for one
another. You, of course, provide a forum
in which this invaluable service can happen that we once were able to find in
our once free press. Kudos! Rich
Austin Thanks, Dave Thomas
Liberals
and Democrats
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Health Care Reform
Subsidies for
private insurers who provide coverage to 10.2 million Medicare Advantage
participants (of 45 million total Medicare participants) should be eliminated
to remove their advantage over single payer coverage and to save our government
the 14 percent more cost per participant than regular Medicare
participants. This would save $177
billion over 10 years, which would help pay for extending health care insurance
to more people. But insurers,
AARP and other senior advocacy groups try to convince seniors that
eliminating the subsidies would be cutting Medicare benefits.
Being a
Conservative, maverick John
McCain can’t resist lying about health care rationing Conservatives say they want consumers to have
a choice of health care plans, but then they try to eliminate the choice of a
public plan, because they think too many people would choose it, leading to the
collapse of the private plans that Conservatives support.
President Obama
recognizes that Republicans are unlikely to support any health care reform
proposal, wanting instead to score political points against Democrats. Republicans say that $1 trillion is too much
to spend on health care reform, but they
spent that much just to provide partial insurance coverage of medicines to
seniors, or more accurately to subsidize pharmaceutical companies.
We frequently
hear people attending town hall meetings say they
don’t want the government to interfere with their Medicare. How about getting all those who oppose
government health insurance coverage to sign
a pledge to refuse such insurance, which would include Medicare, Medicaid,
Veterans Administration and Indian health programs. They might also pledge to forego Social
Security benefits.
Supporters of
health care reform should emphasize the wrong doing
of private health insurers.
Addressing Prisoner Abuse
Our Justice
Department’s Ethics Office recommends reopening CIA prisoner abuse cases,
which likely would include appointment of a special prosecutor.
Americans Like to Beat their Opponents
Americans don’t
just like to win. We like to beat our
opponents. We want our opponents to
lose.
President Obama
wants to find a way that we can win without forcing our opponents to lose. Hopefully by obtaining their support. This often requires a long process of
communication and negotiation.
This makes us
nervous. We don’t have President Obama’s
patience. We just want to resolve the
issue quickly. We want to quickly beat
our opponent.
Obama’s
approach pays big dividends if a former opponent becomes a supporter. But not so if too much compromise on our part
is required. Obama’s approach worked in
the passage of our stimulus-recovery package.
It appears less likely to work with health care reform. But if it doesn’t, we can just beat our
opponents, under reconciliation. Thus,
our approach can be a fall back alternative to Obama’s approach.
Here’s the Beef
Without a fiscally irresponsible predecessor and with
a national health system, Australia
has been able to stimulate its economy more easily than our United States has
been able to do.
State
and Local
BIAW Wins. Labor, Education and our
Public Lose.
The Building Industries Association of Washington
(BIAW) has long bragged
of its successes: electing candidates, stopping legislation it opposes,
passing legislation is favors and winning through legal action or threats of
legal action. BIAW is proud of
its aggressive approach. In 2002,
Executive Director Tom McCabe said "We have a mission,
which is to protect free enterprise and affordable housing. We do
not shy away from a fight if it involves those principles.”
BIAW won big in 2003.
When Boeing
talked the Legislature into rewriting the rules on unemployment compensation fund assessments,
a change that BIAW opposed, it got a referendum on the ballot to let voters
decide, got the changes revoked, and had a major voice when the rules were
rewritten again, this time more to the group's liking. BIAW also successfully supported the passage
of initiative 841 to repeal our state’s
ergonomics regulations.
But of course there are plenty of groups with lots of members and no
clout. What differentiates BIAW? Money
certainly helps -- BIAW, according to the Public Disclosure Commission, has
contributed more than $800,000 in cash and in-kind contributions to the I-841
campaign.
But it's even more than that. "We stand for something," says
Executive Vice President Tom McCabe. “BIAW is a group with definite opinions and
little reluctance to voice them, and it does so because its members want it
to. Those members have become
particularly disenchanted with state government in recent years. They'd argue that state government is corrupt."
That's not an attitude designed to win friends in Olympia, which McCabe
says is the point. "Other business groups get enmeshed in the world of
Olympia; they want people to like them. That means preserving personal
relationships, sometimes at the expense of pushing a group's position.”
The minutes of the
February 2006 BIAW Board Meeting describe BIAW’s 2006 legislative
successes:
Legislative Session: cut off was February 14. BIAW did
a great job and stopped
a number of bad bills:
Rrtro-bution legislation - never surfaced after the bad press of 2005.
Senator Fraser's lien legislation (SB 6470) - would have made builders and
employees personally liable. Legislators received over
6,000 e-mails from
BIAW members opposing the bill. A great victory for BIAW.
Worst vesting bill ever - legislation
proposed builders not invest until the in the city/county approved their
application
Construction Defect bill - legislation proposed increasing contractor's window of liability from
six to twelve years,
An important BIAW-supported billed survived the
cut-off. Legislation requiring Senate confirmation of Governor Appointees to the
GMA Hearing Boards passed out of the House unanimously and will instill some
accountability and oversight into Hearing Boards appointees.
New Storm Water Rules: BIAW and AGC have sued the
Department of Ecology for recently issued construction general Storm Water Permit.
The hearing will be in October and BIAW is doing everything it can to help them
learn to comply.
Heat Stress Rules: L&I is in the process of developing a “Heat
Stress Rule” requiring employers to provide water, access to cooling areas,
etc. BIAW will continue to try to stop
the rule including filing a legal challenge.
Election 2006: BIAW's goals for 2006 include electing
a new Supreme Court Justice and electing two or three new housing supporters to
the Legislature.
BJAW will be implementing a Voter Identification
project in 10 legislative
districts.
BIAW describe their 2008 legislative efforts, while strongly criticizing
their opponents. Joel Connolly
describes BIAW’s 2009
legislative successes. For
more. For more. Contrast BIAW’s legislative
successes with Labor’s legislative failures. And we know that education has taken at least
a $1 billion budget shortfall. Our least
advantaged are being harmed most of all, as they lose medical and other benefits.
In summary, BIAW’s well funded aggressive approach is
virtually all powerful, not only passing and opposing bills as it wants, but
rendering its opposition so ineffective that many don’t even try to stop
it. And BIAW cheerfully jeers at our
failure to stop them.
The result is great harm to our people’s environment,
health, education, and safety net, including worker and consumer protection
from business abuses. My major question
is how long are we going to take it?
Who will come forward to create a coalition which can
end our present nightmare? We are ending
our national nightmare. But that is not
enough if we continue our nightmare closer to home. Unless we do, our children may be better off
if we take them to another state, where people have refused to allow such
abuse.
Conservatives Play Offense. Liberals Only Defense.
Conservatives
like BIAW play offense. They use their power to strongly attempt to
realize what they want, using deception, threats and whatever else they think
will overwhelm obstacles and opponents. Here are some
examples of BIAW’s invective. Another example.
Liberals
from the New Deal through Lynden Johnson’s presidency also played offense,
although they wavered in the face of McCarthyism. Divided concerning the Vietnam War, oriented
toward the special interests of ethnic minorities, labor unions, teachers and
others, and confronted by increasing aggressive Conservatives, including
denigration of the ‘L’ word by Presidents Reagan and Bush, Liberals became less
sure of our values after Johnson’s presidency.
Liberals typically remained in a defensive crouch in the face of
Conservative attacks, costing us the presidency in the 2000 and 2004
elections. Beginning after our 2004
presidential election defeat, we are clarifying our values and becoming more
aggressive toward those Conservative who block their realization.
At
our state level also, Liberals have been much less aggressive than
Conservatives. It isn’t helpful to dwell
on this past and the various reasons various people have had for being less
aggressive than Conservatives. We must focus upon becoming more aggressive
now because we can’t win by defense alone.
As
I have expressed before, we must first express our values. For example, to provide all Washington people
with access to a quality natural and social environment and services. And
to enable our state government to provide access to quality services for which
it is responsible.
Then
instead expressing further detail about what we want and how we hope to obtain
it, we must strongly attack Conservatives for obstructing our main stream
values, in favor of their self interested values. For example, BIAW is
trying (often successfully) to limit both the revenue and expenditures of state
government, such that our environment, health, welfare, education and other
services are neither high quality nor widely available. And to limit regulations which protect our
workers and consumers from corporate abuse.
We
should mount a strong and sustained campaign to challenge the legitimacy of
BIAW leadership’s authority to pursue an ultra-Conservative agenda, without the
authorization of their members, many of whom value the state services that the
BIAW leadership is destroying. We may not be able to replace BIAW’s
Godfather Tom McCabe and his henchmen and henchwomen, but we may be able
distract them from their nefarious activities.
More
generally, we need to remove the basic obstacles that appear on the right side
of the first page of every newsletter, if we are to realize our values.
Otherwise, we are just spending a lot of effort for very limited small
gains. These obstacles include:
·
Private campaign financing
·
A regressive tax system which produces too little and too
unstable revenue
·
The use of BIAW’s financial resources to elect Conservative
Candidates, affect legislation and bring law suits.
Imagine
that candidates didn’t need primate campaign contributions, that our tax system
fairly raised sustainable revenues and that BIAW wasn’t a factor. Then
education, labor and other parties acting in the public interest could be
expected to realize many improvements, through persuasion instead of financial
resources. It would be helpful if an
alliance of these parties would go on the offense, since their action could
pave the way for legislators to act.
In
any event, I intend to go on the offense. Our newsletter now reaches 3500
Washington Liberals each week, including over 500 education leaders, 400 labor
leader, 600 active Democrats and 600 active members of other Liberal advocacy
groups. If some of you will just join in taking potshots at the BIAW from
behind many trees, it may produce a people power demonstration similar to what
happened several hundred years ago in Concord, Massachusetts. In any
event, what fun? While I like shock and aw, I am very patient. If necessary, I am willing to outlast their
death from a thousand mosquito bites. Dave Thomas
Final Report of
the Joint Task Force on Basic Education Finance
So what exactly is basic
education in the 21st century? How do we know whether the state is meeting its constitutional obligation to fully fund it,
in accord with the constitution’s clarion call to make it our “paramount duty”?
Following the work of
Washington Learns, the Joint Task Force on Basic Education Finance (Task Force) was commissioned to answer these questions, and
to provide the missing link between the state’s learning goals and its funding formulas. The Task Force sought ways to
move from piecemeal reform and episodic patchwork to
a coherent, durable, and transparent system that lives up to our constitutional mandate to define and fully fund
basic education.
The Task Force that took
on this challenge included legislators, educators, a representative of the Governor, and a local school board member. For 17
months, we worked to craft answers to these daunting
questions. This
report presents our conclusions, and proposes legislative action to
implement them over the next six
years.
The Definition of
Basic Education
The State Board of
Education, which sets high school graduation requirements, recently proposed
that the state increase the
current number of required courses from 19 to 24, and specify a more rigorous distribution of required subjects. This proposal,
called “Core 24,” recognizes the need for all students to graduate from high school ready for post‐secondary education,
apprenticeship programs, or other job training.
The Task Force supports
this change, and its definition of basic education begins with the need to implement Core 24. Thus, the starting point for
the Task Force’s recommended definition of basic education
is the opportunity for all students to meet the new, more rigorous high school
graduation requirements proposed by
the State Board of Education. To make achievement of this goal possible for all students, basic education must include pre‐school for children from
low‐income families,
specialized
instruction for English
language learners and students with disabilities, and extra time and teaching
for struggling students. The
definition of basic education must also include the means to achieve these goals, including the associated funding formulas.
The Task Force’s most
important recommendation is to link the goals of education to the means of achieving those goals, and to the necessary
funding formulas required to make “ample provision” for the education of all children. This should
include all the elements described below in the legal definition of “Basic Education.” This definition means
that the state is obligated to fund a program of education sufficient to
provide every child in Washington
with the opportunity to meet the graduation requirements set by the State Board of Education.
The Task Force recommends
a specific program of education based on its broad review of education research, but recognizes that individual
districts will need flexibility to respond to unique differences in their populations. The program we recommend has
significantly more instructional time than current state funding provides, which is necessary to
meet the increased demands of the Core 24 program.
The Task Force recommends
a system of allocations to school districts that will provide smaller class sizes for both academic and career and technical
education programs, and additional days for teacher professional development. The allocation formulas
also provide increased funding for school counselors,
teacher‐librarians and other
specialist professionals, and funding for classified staff, school administration, and other costs. All these
allocations are based on the number of students to be served. These funding allocations
are more specific and more easily understood than current funding formulas. This clarity will help
citizens and the legislature gauge the impact of funding allocations and
measure results. In our current funding system, we are
missing this vital feedback mechanism.
The Task Force recommends
that the legislature also include the following elements in the funding
formulas, as they are necessary
adjustments that enable ALL children to take advantage of the core program.
Early learning
Because many students
will need pre-school to be prepared to
succeed in our public schools,
the Task
Force recommends including pre-school for all children
from low‐income families in the definition of basic education. The proposed pre‐school program would be
funded based on the federal Head Start model.
Demographic
adjustments
The Task Force recommends
specific allocations sufficient to fund additional time and resources for struggling students, students who need to
learn English, students with disabilities, and students
who live in state residential facilities. Allocations for additional time and
instruction for struggling students will be based on the
percentage of students in
a school who come from low-income families, because
this is the best predictor of the level of
need. However, these funds will be used to serve all students who need extra help, regardless of family income.
The Task Force did not
include programs for highly capable students as part of basic education, but strongly recommends that districts continue
to develop programs best suited to their students’
specific needs. We also urge the state to continue to fund these programs. The quality of instruction in the classroom is
the most important factor in determining student learning outcomes, and thus the Task Force also recommends
revamping the teacher preparation and compensation
system.
A new compensation
system for new teachers
Quality teaching is the
most vital investment we make in education, and so mproving teacher quality is the investment that matters most. A new career ladder for teachers
will require a new model for teacher compensation that provides increases in pay for increases in
classroom effectiveness, based on new categories of residency, professional, and master teachers.
The new salary allocation
model also provides for mentoring of new teachers by master teachers, a mechanism for comparing educator
salaries to similar non‐education salaries in regional labor markets, school‐wide bonuses for
improving student learning, and special
incentives to attract
teachers in shortage areas such as math, science, bilingual education, and special education.
A new system of
teacher preparation and a new career ladder
The current system of
teacher preparation assumes that more post‐graduate coursework and degree attainment translates into increased
student learning, but research contradicts this belief.
The Task Force recommends that the state invest in intensive mentoring of new
teachers by expert teachers,
coupled with an ongoing system of objective, structured peer review of teachers’ classroom practice, and school‐wide rewards and
incentives for improvement.
The Task Force recommends
creation of a career ladder for teachers that includes three levels: residency, professional, and master teacher.
Moving up this career ladder will require successively
higher scores on an objective, structured peer review process. The Professional Educator Standards Board will create this peer
review process and set scores for entry into the teaching
profession and advancement on the career ladder. The master level will be
equivalent in skill and
effectiveness to teachers who have earned National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards certification.
Peer
reviews will be performed by master teachers who have no conflicts of interest.
Featured Advocacy Group -------
DIME PAC by WSLC -----------------------------
A
new long-term political strategy: Based on new evaluations, Dime PAC will
strategically target WSLC political support
Some
good news has arisen from this year’s bad-news legislative session.
The
Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) has conducted a review of its political
program -- from evaluations of legislators, to political communications and
activism, to campaign contributions. Based on that review, the WSLC Executive
Board and several of our largest affiliates have decided to make significant
changes to our political program to ensure labor’s support is more
strategically targeted to lawmakers who support working families’ interests,
regardless of their party affiliation.
Rank-and-file
members of WSLC-affiliated unions will be hearing much more about this at our
2009 Convention in Wenatchee on Aug. 6-8, and at our 2010 Legislative
Conference in Olympia on Feb. 11. The changes will impact how legislative
candidates are evaluated by the delegates who vote on election endorsements at
the WSLC’s 2010 COPE Convention next May 15 in Seattle. Here is a quick summary of what will change:
Candidate
Evaluations
WSLC
affiliates have expressed concern that our legislative voting record does not
always accurately reflect a legislator’s support for working families. It has
become common practice for caucus leaders to "protect" their members
by either denying votes on important working family legislation or by blocking
recorded roll-call votes on the floor.
Affiliates
also felt we need to identify legislators who vote the right way on the final
passage of the bill, but actively work against the legislation during the
committee process or in caucus meetings. An example would be legislators who co-sponsored
this year’s Worker Privacy Act and reportedly worked behind closed doors to
quash it and avoid a vote, after being pressured by Boeing and other business
interests.
For
these reasons, we have determined that the voting records cannot be the sole
determining factor in deciding which legislators truly support our issues and
which legislators oppose them. In
consultation with our affiliated unions, the WSLC is developing a new, more
comprehensive system for evaluating legislators. In addition to COPE voting
records, this new system will take into account positive and negative bill
sponsorships, public communication on working family issues, caucus and floor
advocacy (either for or against labor), questionnaires and interviews, and
support for labor activities in their communities.
The
formula for how much weight each factor will get is still being developed, but
we are confident that the end result will provide a more comprehensive picture
for union delegates when they decide who has earned the WSLC’s endorsement.
DIME
PAC -- During the 2009 session, it
became clear that organized labor can no longer rely on party leadership to
advance a progressive agenda for working families. That was clear in 2009, but
it has happened many times before as well. That’s why it’s so important that unions
more strategically target their campaign contributions and their grassroots
political education efforts.
In
the past, the WSLC and many of our affiliates have made significant
contributions to caucus campaign committees and to incumbent legislators who
were not facing serious election challenges. Those campaign contributions are
eventually used by caucus leadership to fund activities that benefit individual
legislators who then turn around and work against the interest of our members
in Olympia.
This
needs to change. We need to make sure that only those legislators who are
willing to stand up for working families receive our financial support.
The
WSLC has created the Don’t Invest In More Excuses PAC -- or DIME PAC for short
-- as a way for unions to target campaign contributions more strategically. Although it’s up to the rank-and-file members
and elected officers of individual unions to decide how to make their political
contributions, the WSLC urges affiliates to consider contributing to DIME PAC
rather than to political party funds. All contributing affiliates will decide
how best to target DIME PAC contributions and expenditures for the 2010
elections.
Grassroots
Efforts
The
value of organized labor’s endorsement has never been about money; unions
simply cannot compete with the amount of money that corporate interests pump
into election campaigns at the state and federal levels. Labor’s strength has
always been in its people. Union members
are widely seen as the "foot soldiers" for many political campaigns.
That’s because of our long, proud history of effective political volunteerism
and activism, not because of our campaign contributions. Like the monetary
support from DIME PAC, the grassroots election activities of our successful
Labor Neighbor program need to be targeted to elect champions for working
families, not just to build political majorities.
Efforts
have already begun to identify potential candidates who have a history of
standing up for working families. They are being encouraged to run for office
at every level of government. (This year’s WSLC Labor Candidate School trained
dozens of potential candidates on how to run successful campaigns.)
Washington’s "Top-Two" Primary Election also opens the door to
possibly recruiting and supporting candidates in districts that are overly
partisan and previously weren’t in play.
There
is also renewed interest among some affiliated unions to more aggressively
pursue ballot initiatives that take workers’ issues directly to voters—as labor
did in leading the charge for our historic indexed minimum wage.
All
of these changes are part of a long-term strategy to ensure that labor’s
political efforts are more effectively targeted to advance a pro-worker agenda
in Washington state. The true champions of that agenda are the legislators who
deserve our support. That support must not be taken for granted or manipulated
by party organizations and their leaders.
All affiliated unions are
urged to e-mail me or call me at 206-281-8901
to share your thoughts and ideas on these changes. Together, we’ll make it happen. Benjamin
Lawyer, WSLC Political Director
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the Beef
Washington State 2009 Legislature
clobbered education and labor.
See K-12
science standards report.
State
Representative Brendan Williams: Health care reform must adequately support
long term care.
Man
with dual U.S. and Canadian citizenship would have died from illness without
the latter.
Contrast
with BIAW’s happy talk about their 2009 legislative successes. For more. For
more.
If
adopted, Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033 lower rich people’s taxes while reducing
state services.
Washington State Labor
Council’s position on Disability Insurance Retrospective Rating Program.
Washington’s
Group Health Cooperative is one of only two U.S. consumer controlled HMOs.
Washington
State should decriminalize marijuana.
Nation
and World
Jay Inslee:
We Must Eliminate Wasteful Military Expenditures
Dear Mr. Thomas, Thank you for contacting me
regarding military acquisitions and spending. I appreciate hearing from
you.
Like you, I agree that we must carefully evaluate the
merits of each defense expenditure and try to weed out irresponsible spending
that goes to unnecessary and out-date endeavors. On April 6, Defense
Secretary Robert Gates released his proposed Defense Department budget for the
Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, which, while representing an overall increase in defense
spending of $14 billion over the previous year, reduces or freezes funding
for some major projects while adding funding for programs which were
deemed the most vital by the Defense Secretary and the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. I applaud Secretary Gates for showing a sincere willingness
to make the kind of tough decisions on spending that are absolutely
necessary to maintain the strongest military in history while reducing the
massive waste and cost overruns which traditionally plague defense
spending. On July 30, the House approved H.R. 3326, the FY2010
Defense Appropriations Act by a vote of 400-30, with my support. This
bill represents major changes that Secretary Gates has said are intended
to "profoundly reform how this department does business." You can
rest assured that I will keep your thoughts in mind as the FY2010
Military Appropriations process moves forward.
I believe that American taxpayer dollars should be
spent effectively to defend our country without waste or corruption.
That is why I was pleased to support the Clean Contracting Act of 2008, which
was made a part of the Defense Authorization bill for Fiscal Year 2009 (H.R.
5658) which passed the both houses of Congress and was signed into
law in October of 2008. The Clean Contracting Act will promote competition in
the award of contracts, limit the use of abuse-prone contracts, increase
contract oversight, and deter corruption in contracting.
Legislation like this has been made possible by the
increase in oversight of the administration's conduct of the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan by the Democratically-controlled Congress. The
110th Congress held over one hundred hearings on everything from contract
fraud and procurement problems at the pentagon to the quality of medical care
for our wounded soldiers. Many of these investigations have lead to positive
changes in policy, such as the Clean Contracting Act and the New G.I. Bill. I
will keep your thoughts in mind as Congress moves forward with the process of
deciding which defense programs should be abandoned.
I continue to be disappointed that the Defense
Department has ignored evidence as presented by nonpartisan agencies such as
the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its assessment and execution of
the war to date. The GAO reported in April 2008 that even the policies which
the Defense Department has enacted weren't being followed by the Department's
program managers. Military auditors have brought forth dozens of separate audit
reports since 2002 alleging gross mismanagement of contracts, to which little
heed has been paid. Secretary Gates has shown some willingness to make
difficult reforms and I believe the Obama Administration has great potential to
make much-needed reforms to the military procurement process.
Please continue to contact me about the issues that
concern you, as I both need and welcome your thoughts and ideas. As a service
to my constituents, I maintain a website which contains valuable resources and
information on Congressional activities. Please feel free to visit the website
at http://www.house.gov/inslee for information on recent issues and to learn
more about the services my office provides. If you have not done so already,
please visit http://www.house.gov/inslee/signup.htm to subscribe to my e-mail
updates.
I encourage you to contact me via email, telephone, or
fax, because security measures are causing House offices to experience delays
in receiving postal mail. My email address is: Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov.
Please be sure to include your full name and address, including your zip code,
in your message. Very truly yours, Jay Inslee, Member of Congress
Dave Reichert: I Oppose a Public Health Insurance Option
Dear Mr. Thomas, as you may know, Congressman John
Dingell (D-MI) introduced the largest health care overhaul in a generation,
H.R. 3200. Unfortunately, this $1,100,000,000,000 ($1.1 trillion) bill threatens
to raise health care costs, reduce choice, and let government bureaucrats
interfere with the patient-doctor relationship. It would create a
government-run "public plan" that would force 114 million Americans
out of the private health coverage they currently have and assess penalty taxes
on families and small businesses struggling to make ends meet.
The bill is currently advancing through committee
consideration in the House of Representatives, and was recently reviewed and
debated in the Ways & Means Committee. As a Member of this committee,
I offered amendments during debate on the bill to ensure that any Americans who
like the health care coverage they have can keep it and to protect small
businesses from an onerous new health care penalty tax if it would cause them
to cut jobs or wages. Unfortunately, both amendments were defeated, which is
one of many reasons why I opposed this legislation
I remain committed to protecting and strengthening
your health care - protecting you from increased health care costs, losing the
health plans you currently have, and letting the government interfere in your
medical decisions; and strengthening health care by ensuring that better
quality, more affordable care is available for all Americans. Congress needs to work together to transform our health
care system in a way that helps Americans lead longer, healthier lives without
diminishing the health care that we already have. We cannot accept a solution
that could bankrupt this country while neglecting the unique health needs of
individuals, families, and seniors.
I will continue to fight against a
government-run public plan that could force millions of Americans to lose their
health coverage, and instead advance common-sense solutions to transform health
care in a way that ensures the American people, their freedoms, and their
health come before costly, bureaucratic proposals. I urge you to visit my health care reform website to
see videos and news links of the debate on this bill, learn more about my
efforts to transform our health care system, weigh in on polls, and share your
personal health care stories in a constituent forum. Again, thank you for taking the time to get in touch with me. I
value your interest and input, and hope to hear from you in the future about
this or any other issue of importance to you. Sincerely, David G. Reichert, member of Congress
I don’t understand how Dave Reichert and other
Republicans think that competition among private health care insurers will
produce better choices, when they propose nothing to increase competition. In most states, the health insurance market
is occupied by only one or several private health insurers. Unless regulations can be passed to stop this
market domination, only a public health insurance option can force
competition. Dave Thomas
We Need an
Industrial Policy
I was very pleased to find that our Washington State
Labor Council convention was broadcast several times on TVW. I learned a lot about the concerns and views
of the participants. One theme was that
we need an industrial policy. Instead of
continuing to let our manufacturing base erode, we need to create a capital
fund to assist industrial innovations that allow us to compete with other
countries. And other policies to enhance
our strengths and enable their application on a fair trading field. See
also Harold Meyerson’s commentary.
What about our Forgotten Prisoners?
We worry about people who are unemployed or
underemployed, people without sufficient health care, people who are defaulting
on their mortgages and declaring bankruptcy, people who are failing to graduate
from high school or college, and various other suffering people. But in spite of the Christian admonition to
comfort the imprisoned, we pay little attention to some of the most afflicted,
those who are in prison, often for minor drug offenses, and their families who
must do without them.
We have one of the highest rates of incarceration in
the world. The number of prisoners in
California has soared from 20,000 in the mid-1970s to 168,000 today, an
increase of 740 percent. Not due to
penal reform, but to cost and overcrowding, prisoners are now being
released. We need to go beyond cost
cutting to rationally reform our sentencing practices.
Here’s the Beef
Our
bubble economy harms even our rich.
Recession
and fall in property values is causing more banks to fail.
Patients,
relatives and health care providers all benefit when patients do end-of-life
planning.
Grocery
stores influence your shopping decisions in many ways.
U.S.
has population densities along some rail corridors sufficient to support high
speed rail.
Thanks
to global warming, bye bye pika.
Warmer
ocean water will produce both physical and biological consequences.
Can Palestine’s
Economy Improve before there Are Peace Accords?
Our
Liberal Spirit
Rehearsing My Life.
Preparing for My Day.
Last
week, I commented that I frequently do a daily office shortly after I
awaken. This is a liturgy that
I
created by borrowing from various other daily offices and adding some of my own
phrases. I think of it as a rehearsal of
my life or a preparation of my spirit for the day.
SPIRIT
PREPARATION
THE PRELUDE
Let us attend onto our lives.
We stand before life as it is.
Ready to bare the depths of our being.
We live this day out of a rich story of
our past and future.
THE CONFESSION
We have seen ourselves as the creator
rather than the creature.
Rebelled at the brokenness of our lives.
Allowed self to blind us. And pains to embitter us.
Exalted our lives. And forgotten our
legacy.
We have pretended to be beyond the
confines and demands of others.
Mourning our abandonment.
We have refused our mystery, depth and
greatness.
And desired to be less than human
beings.
Negating the destiny to which we have
been called.
We have evaded the decisions required of
our lives.
We have forgotten that whatsoever
Is done to the least human being, is
done to all.
Ignoring the innocent suffering of the
world.
We have done little to forward the march
of humanness.
Many have been our days without action.
and nights of escape.
We have lost our vision. And narrowed
our perspective.
Not facing our death, we refuse life's
promise.
Escaping the present into the future and
past.
We have refused to dance through the
necessary tasks.
And waited like a beggar outside life's
feast.
THE THANKSGIVING
I call us to remember the unchanging
truth of life.
Naked we come from our mother's womb.
Naked we return.
The mystery gives. It takes away.
Blessed be the mystery.
As it was in the beginning. Is now. And
ever will be.
World without end.
Let us acknowledge the reality of our
lives.
The past is approved. The future is
open.
We are free to live. Our every decision
is utterly significant.
Our gift is that we can embrace our
lives as glorious struggle.
With thanksgiving and praise.
THE DAILY READING
-----------
THE DEDICATION
Let us stand as free responsible
individuals.
As members of the human race. On planet
earth.
As participants in the long march of
life itself.
Let us stand before life as it is.
Its mystery, brokenness and
possibility.
Its freedom and responsibility.
Its abandonment and care.
Its struggles and effulgence.
This is the day we have on our hands.
Let us die as we live and live as we
die.
We pledge to maintain our values in
tension.
To choose among rights. And among
wrongs.
We will not retreat into ritualism.
Nor use ideology to evade reality.
Neither forsake our discipline. Nor
succumb to temptation.
The needs of each person and community
shall be ours.
We shall not substitute emotionalism for
action.
Nor be immobilized by uncertainty.
Willingly we accept the tribulations of
corporate action.
Let all that we do be done in love.
THE PRAYERS
How do we prepare ourselves to care for
the world?
-----------
How do we prepare ourselves to support
those who care?
-----------
All the world belongs to all the people.
To live their lives in full possibility.
With freedom and responsibility.
THE OFFERING
We present and offer ourselves to the
world.
To be a reasonable, holy and living
sacrifice.
Let us go forth to labor freely,
gratefully and sacrificially.
THE GRACE
Bless, preserve and keep us all.
May we feast at the banquet of life.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
William Greider, 2003, The Soul of Capitalism. Opening Paths to a Moral Economy.
William Greider’s book joins
other books on our reading list that question the legitimacy of legally treating
Corporations like people. Greider suggests alternatives and how people can initiate them.
Thom Hartman,
2002, Unequal Protection, The Rise of
Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights
Marjorie
Kelly, 2001, The Divine Right of Capital,
Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy
Charles Derber, 2004, Regime Change Begins at Home, Freeing
Senator Byron Dorgan, 2006, Take This Job and Ship It, How Corporate Greed and Brain-Dead Politics Are Selling Out America
Robert Kennedy, Jr., 2004, Crimes against Nature, How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals are
Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy
Sherrod Brown, 2004, Myths of Free Trade. Why American Trade Policy Has Failed