...as I try to work the kinks out of a new computer system.

In one of the most understated -- and cheapest -- fundraising appeals you'll ever see, central Washington congressional candidate George Fearing has put up a YouTube video showing one of the biggest, least fun and least visible parts of campaigning: calling people and asking for money.

Hat tip: Evergreen Politics, at www.evergreenpolitics.com.

In a coup for incumbent superintendent of public instruction Terry Bergeson, the state Labor Council endorsed her yesterday at the group's annual convention in Vancouver.

The state teachers' union, the Washington Education Association, is supporting a challenger, Randy Dorn.

(Locally, the Labor Council also endorsed legislative District 9 candidate Tanya Kelley, a Democrat, and a "limited endorsement" for the Green Party's Chris Winter in the same district.)

Today, Bergeson's likely strongest opponent fired back. Dorn, a union head and former lawmaker, said he now has the backing of 50 Washington state lawmakers, from Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, to Rep. Brendan Williams, D-Olympia.

There are quite a few Republicans on Dorn's side, too -- at least partly an indication of the simmering bipartisan unhappiness with the high-stakes Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) test that Bergeson supports. Among them: Vancouver's Don Benton, Richland's Jerome Delvin and Shirley Hankins, Ritzville's Mark Schoesler and Moses Lake's Judy Warnick.

Got a call recently from Robert Bloom, a Rathdrum, Idaho man who is trying to wring business out of the strong smoking ban that Washington voters overwhelmingly approved in 2005.

Bloom's answer: the "Smōk Shaque."

The shaque, as pictured in Bloom's brochure, looks a lot like a steel garden shed. He wants to lease these to bars and other previous bastions of smoking to put outside for smokers who need to light up.

"Stimulate your profits by showing your valued smoking customers and employees that you care about them," says the brochure.

Inside, there are bench seats, a little table, lights, an exhaust fan, and heat. And steel ashtrays.

State Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, is chronicling her travels to the Philippines and China on this blog.

Under a post entitled "They Called Me Brave," Roach recounts seeing military maneuvers during a pre-China visit to the Philippines:

The military was walking down the street. I didn't think too much of it but had read in the paper about the New People's Army. They are kind of like FARC in Columbia. That means they kill people.

and more:

There is danger here. I was given a bodyguard who walks in front of me where ever I go. He is taking his job quite seriously. To put all the community leaders in one room there was publicity about my visit and because of that they are worried for me.

Later, Roach met with a provincial governor. It didn't go well.

Roach wanted to mention that a shipping container with medical supplies had been delayed, apparently by customs agents in the Philippines, for 18 months.

Instead, the governor announced his most important issue was global warming and preceded to talk non-stop about that. And then about how everyone had access to health care (NOT), and how everyone had a free education through college (NOT), and how he was a delegate to WTO and had been to Seattle. He rambled on about being arrogant (Not, Not!) and then told us how busy he was. Pretty busy, I guessed, as I noticed he apparently had no time to put on his socks.

On to China...

Washington's Faith and Freedom political action committee, a conservative Christian group, this week released its own long list of endorsements in state judicial races.

But unlike most such endorsements, which are typically cheerleading for your picks, group chairman Gary Randall makes it clear that some of the picks were not that hot. From the endorsement writeups:

"Tim Bradshaw appears to be the lesser of the three evils...George Appel appears to be the lesser of the three evils...He is the lesser of the two evils...He appears to be the lesser of the evils."

In an aside to voters, Randall said he was loath to make such lukewarm endorsements, but felt he had little choice from the field of candidates.

This personal research has once again pointed out that people of faith and conservatives have much work to do in recruiting and electing qualified candidates who reflect our beliefs.

he wrote.

More on why endorsements are rarely news:

The Association of Washington Business recently announced its "automatic endorsements" for incumbent lawmakers, based on their voting records.

All 35 lawmakers listed had something in common: Every single one is a Republican.

Then yesterday, Planned Parenthood Votes! Washington (yes, the exclamation point is in the middle of the group's name) issued its endorsements of state lawmakers and candidates.

Of the 76 legislative candidates and incumbents listed, every one is a Democrat. In some races, the group endorsed two Democrats for the same seat.

The Seattle P-I's Joel Connelly reports that the latest Elway Poll shows Gov. Chris Gregoire 16 points ahead of Republican challenger Dino Rossi: 52 percent to 36 percent.

Surprisingly,

The Elway Poll showed Gregoire ahead nearly every place in the state, trailing only in Pierce and Kitsap counties.

Other polls have consistently suggested that the race is closer, although most gave Gregoire a slight lead over Rossi. Elway's polling suggests that Gregoire's gained support in recent months while Rossi's lost some.

Down the ballot, the poll had state lands commissioner Doug Sutherland at 30 percent to Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark's 31 percent. Lots of undecided voters in that less-visible position, as in the race for state schools chief.

Click on the link to the P-I post above for more details and specifics.

Gov. Chris Gregoire is running two new TV ads, both tailored to Eastern Washington voters.

Both tout jobs and Gregoire's work hashing out an agreement to slightly draw down Lake Roosevelt in order to provide more water for farmers, municipalities and -- in unusually dry years -- for fish in streams.

This one, titled "Understanding Spokane," is running in the Spokane area. It focuses on Gregoire's early-adult life in Spokane, where she got her Gonzaga Law degree and started her family.

"Understanding Yakima" is running in Yakima and the Tri-Cities. It's very similar, except that it briefly touches on the summers Gregoire spent on a relative's farm in Windust, Wash.

The 5 percent cut in state-government gas use, hiring freeze and the other measures announced today by Gov. Chris Gregoire would save about 300,000 gallons of gas, plus another $90 million this fiscal year from the freeze and other measures. That's according to Gregoire spokesman Pearse Edwards.

Gov. Chris Gregoire is calling on state agency heads, colleges and other statewide elected officials to stop filling new staff vacancies and to cut the gasoline used by state vehicles, among other budget-trimming moves.

"Even though Washington's economy remains healthy, a weakening national economy has affected us," Gregoire wrote in a memo sent to state agency directors. The high cost of food and gasoline are being felt by all, she said, including the state.

"We must continue our aggressive reduction of fuel consumption to ease the burden on our budget," she wrote.

To mitigate the unexpected costs of high gas prices "and a continued softening of the national economy," Gregoire wrote, she's calling for:

-a halt to filling new staff vacancies,
-a 5 percent reduction in gas use compared to last year,
-a freeze on non-emergency out-of-state travel,
-holding off on buying non-essential new equipment
-and freezing non-emergency contracts with consultants, etc.

State general-fund spending, which rose 31 percent during Gregoire's four years, is Exhibit A for Republicans trying to unseat Gregoire, a Democrat. So Republican challenger Dino Rossi was quick to say that Gregoire's not going far enough.

"I'm glad that Governor Gregoire has started to recognize the budget crisis she's created," Rossi said. As governor, he said, he'd cut staff at the governor's office, freeze salaries for gubernatorial appointees and halt salary negotiations with state employee groups over pay increases until the budget picture's clearer.

The Washington Policy Center's Jason Mercier posted the memo here.

Note: This post has been changed to reflect a little mental dyslexia on my part. Rossi said he'd cut the governor's office budget, not the governor's budget office. Mea culpa.

S-R staff writer John Craig reports that:

The husband of 7th Legislative District candidate Shelly Short may face criminal charges in the alleged theft of $3,318 from a volunteer fair organization.

Colville Police Chief Damond Meshishnek said his department is nearing completion of an investigation into financial irregularities reported June 16 by the Northeast Washington Fair Association.

Short's husband, Mitch J. Short, 46, was president of the association at the time.

The case is being investigated as a possible first-degree theft, and a report is expected to go to the Stevens County prosecutor's office soon, Meshishnek said.

There is no indication that Short was involved in the alleged financial irregularies. She didn't respond to requests for comment.

Mitch Short had little comment, other than to call a story now -- as ballots are in the mail in the five-way Republican primary for the seat -- "a political smear job at its worst."

Court records, Craig said, show that the Shorts were under pressure to repay more than $11,000 in credit card debt at the time that Mitch Short began drawing cash from the fair group's checking account.

The story has more details.

The state Commission on Judicial Conduct today decided to censure -- or officially call on the carpet for a in-person reprimand -- former Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Collen Hartl.

Hartl violated the code of judicial conduct, both sides agreed, when she had a sexual encounter with a public defender who appeared frequently in her court. From the CJC's announcement today:

"Shortly after that, Respondent hosted a Friday night holiday party at her house, attended by several Federal Way Municipal Court employees. During the course of her party, Respondent became highly intoxicated and revealed the encounter to a group of court employees."

On Monday, the judge reported the situation to the commission, but said there had simply been "flirtation" between the two. According to the commission, she also called the court administrator to ask if court staff "would support that version."

Hartl -- who said that voice mail was in no way meant to induce anyone to be dishonest with the commission -- resigned the following day.

"Respondent's sudden departure, together with the foreseeable public dissemination of her admissions and unseemly behavior at her party, received considerable public notoriety and media attention and significantly disrupted the court's operations,"

the commission said.

In the stipulated agreement, Hartl agreed that the conduct violated the code of judicial conduct, which among other things requires judges to avoid the appearance of impropriety. She also agreed not to serve as a judge again without the commission's approval.

In other judicial news, the commission also admonished Pierce County Superior Court Judge Katherine Stolz, who sparked a controversy by insisting that a man in her courtroom remove a religious head-covering.

Weeks ago, I wrote that Initiative 1029's getting on the ballot was going to be a nail-biter -- because organizers were stuck in traffic as they rushed to Olympia to beat the deadline for filing hundreds of thousands of signatures.

Nail biter? That was just the beginning.

The measure, which Secretary of State Sam Reed said today had gathered enough signatures to appear on the November ballot, would require more training and background checks for some home health-care workers.

But a glitch in the text of the petitions (it said it was an initiative to the state legislature, rather than directly to voters) has given opponents an opening to ask the state Supreme Court to yank it from the ballot.

State Supreme Court chief justice Gerry Alexander today denied those critics' request for an injunction to do that. But he said the court will hear the case Sept. 4, a week earlier than the court would normally resume hearing cases after a summer break.

State election officials are hoping for an almost-immediate ruling, since ballot printing needs to start in early September.

Staff writer Carley Dryden has a story today about the Whitman County city of Pullman possibly following in Seattle's footsteps and instituting a 20-cents-each tax on plastic shopping bags.

Washington State University professor Elizabeth Siler's promoting the idea, after counting 55 plastic bags littering a stretch of Highway 195 last year.

"A plastic bag we get today at a grocery store in Pullman that accidentally blows out of the car window will be here longer than any of us," she said. "I am going to biodegrade in 100 years or less. But that bag out my window will be there another 1,000 years, breaking down, choking animals, creating environmental havoc."

City Supervisor John Sherman sounded lukewarm on the idea, which Siler hopes to bring to the city council shortly after WSU goes back in session in a few weeks.

"Right now, with the high cost of food, we are very concerned about adding additional costs to people," Sherman said. He said there's a chance the measure will fail for that reason.

"I think it will be very controversial," he said.

Click here to read Dryden's full story.

What was supposed to be a routine hearing to update the Spokane Tribe's gambling agreement turned into a broad – and sometimes prickly – debate Thursday on the growth of gambling in Indian Country.

Numerous lawmakers in both parties are clearly uneasy with tribal casinos' growth into an estimated $1.3 billion industry in Washington. A new round of tribal compacts approved by Gov. Chris Gregoire allows for another 9,000 slot-style machines, for a maximum of 27,225, although tribes could seek more as early as next summer. There are 27 tribal casinos in the state. Another is slated to open east of Seattle this fall.

"Will there be a cap, ever, on how many machines or whatever the tribes can have?" asked Sen. Rosa Franklin, D-Tacoma.

"Are we done for a while?" state Rep. Cary Condotta, R-East Wenatchee, asked Spokane tribal leaders and their attorneys. "Do you feel you're there?"

"I can only speak for Spokane," tribal attorney Scott Crowell responded. "And we think that the compact provides us the flexibility that we need."

But Scott Wheat, another Spokane tribal attorney, bristled at the question. Lawmakers don't tell Boeing how many airplanes it can make, he said, or Coors how many beers it can sell. Nor do they tell the state lottery how many tickets it can print.

"It's very difficult for tribes to hear this discussion of creating artificial limits and an artificial market," he said. "That's not done in other businesses and industries."

In a case where the 11 petitioners are all known as John Doe, the state Supreme Court ruled 6-3 this morning that unsubstantiated allegations of teacher sexual misconduct can be withheld from public disclosure.

School districts can investigate any complaints, the court said, and when the investigations don't prove any wrongdoing, releasing a teacher's name would violate his or her right to privacy.

In a lengthy dissent, Justice Barbara Madsen blasted the ruling, saying that students are reluctant to report abuse, school district investigations are often inadequate, and that the secrecy allowed by the court's ruling is likely to allow abusers to continue to abuse children in schools.

"It is important to bear in mind that unsubstantiated does not mean untrue," Madsen wrote.

(Disclosure: the S-R and several other newspapers, broadcasters and publishing trade groups filed briefs in this case.)

The 6th District primary is quite a scrappy race, and so far, most of the scrapping's been between two well-funded Republicans vying to challenge incumbent state Rep. Don Barlow in November.

In one corner is local doctor of optometry Mel Lindauer, who points to his Eastern Washington roots and time in Spokane.

In the other, coffee-business entrepreneur Kevin Parker, a recent Spokane transplant who says he has the energy and business savvy that Olympia needs.

On his campaign website, Lindauer takes shots at Parker, suggesting that Parker is hiding* the fact that he once ran for a parks and rec commission slot in Oregon. A poll Lindauer apparently did also had 91 percent of respondents saying that someone should have lived in Spokane for at least 5 years to be a qualified candidate. Lindauer moved to the area 15 years ago; Parker 2 1/2 years ago, although he also lived there as a college student.

*Full disclosure: I'm apparently responsible for the never-held-office-before issue. Nearly a year ago, I wrote a brief overview story about the interest in the race. My notes do indicate that Parker mentioned the run for the parks board -- he wasn't elected -- but I erroneously wrote that this was his first run for office. I'll run a correction for the record, but I'm amazed that this has become a major campaign issue.

The two have also battled over local support -- Parker points out that a lot of Lindauer's campaign contributions came from eye doctors and from donors outside Spokane -- and over endorsements. (The link above is another writer's summary of contributions and some comment on the race.)

And recently, a person going by the name "spokanerepublican" posted on the conservative blog www.soundpolitics.com a message sharply critical of Lindauer, and pointing to a number of court cases involving Lindauer and his wife. The post alleges that "they have been involved in 15 damning lawsuits."

Among the readers of the post: Mel Lindauer. He posted a response, including his phone number.

To set the record straight:
1. I have no personal judgments against me.
2. My wife has no personal judgments against her.
3. A corporation, for which I am President, incurred 1 judgment several years ago. This was a money-claimed-owed dispute. I disagreed with the decision of the court, but the corporation did not appeal and the judgment was paid. I take my obligations very seriously.
4. I have never been the subject of any professional, medical, or business complaint that was ever found to have any merit.

I asked one of our reporters in Spokane to pull the recent cases involving the couple and glance over them to see if there was anything particularly damning in there. She made copies for me, which are en route in the mail, but her initial reaction was that the cases were indeed minor: a billing dispute with a contractor, for example, and a slip-and-fall type case in a driveway.

Stay tuned...

UPDATE: I've looked through several recent cases, and yes, they all look like relatively minor things. Billing disputes -- plural -- with contractors, for work on the Lindauers' home and office. The office one is largely a dispute over a contractor's months-late completion of the office work. And the parking lot slip-and-fall only named the Lindauers as one of several defendants after a woman fell on the snowy, steep lot.

That said, if I'm missing something here, let me know. My e-mail is richr@spokesman.com.

As I wrote in the post below, the private Economic Opportunity Institute is proposing a Washington state "high incomes" tax aimed at people making at least $100,000 a year.

The group also looked at a couple of other tax increases, each of which would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the state every two years:

-End some tax breaks: The group proposes ending tax credits involving soda-pop syrup, private-school tuition, a research credit, high-tech factories, stevedore companies, insurance agents and brokers, travel agents and others. The changes would send an extra $400 million to the state every two years.

To sweeten the deal, the group would use about a third of that money to offset $130 million in new tax credits for small businesses.

-Expand sales taxes on some things: Teh group also suggests applying the state sales tax to:

-candy and gum ($61 million over two years)
-consumer services ($255 million). The group says it makes no sense to charge sales tax on movie rentals but not theater tickets, for example, or to tax pet grooming products and not pet grooming services. Plus, it says, the wealthy are more likely to be buying the services.
-detective and security services ($109 million)
-janitorial services ($11 million)
-custom software ($220 million)
-and securities brokers ($128 million)

for a grand total of $784 million more for state coffers per budget cycle, plus $293 million more for local governments.

Washington's private Economic Opportunity Institute, a liberal-leaning budget thinktank, has done something that virtually no state politicians are willing to: think out loud about how to raise taxes.

In a recent report, the group suggests a "high incomes tax" for Washingtonians. In fact, such a tax could raise enough cash to reduce regressive sales or property taxes, the group says, while still netting more money for government services.

Under the plan, the first $100,000 per person of adjusted gross income (yes, $200k for spouses) would be exempt from the tax. So 96 percent of the people in the state wouldn't pay anything under the new tax.

Couple earning $200,000 to $1 million would pay 3 percent of their earnings to the state. Those making more: 5 percent. It would raise about $2.6 billion every two years.

With about half that new money, the group says, lawmakers could then either drop the state's part of the sales tax from 6.5 percent to 6 percent. Or they could cut the state part of the property tax in half. Even after either of those options, the state would still have more than $1 billion more left for its two-year budget.

The group acknowledges that such a tax would likely require a super-majority vote of the state Legislature and subsequent approval by the state's voters.

"But the right mix of a high incomes tax, reduced general taxes, and dedication of revenues to popular new programs might win the popular vote,"

Among the early critics: the conservative-leaning Washington Policy Center, where Paul Guppy writes

The first federal income tax started at 1% and only applied to the wealthiest 2% of people in the country. The first 1040 tax form was one page long. With 98% of the people exempt (at first), it’s not surprising that the idea was popular at the time (making OTHER people pay more in taxes has always had political appeal.) Today the top rate is 35% and, as we know, the federal income tax now applies to far more than just the wealthiest 2%.

and

If you are among the 96% who wouldn’t get hit by the new tax at first, don’t get too comfortable. Once Olympia takes a drink from the new money pipeline, you can be sure they will start looking for ways to open the tap wider.

Months after Washington passed a "toxic toys" bill aimed at limited lead, phthalates and cadmium levels, Congress is reportedly poised to pass a bill setting national standards for lead and phthalates in toys and other childrens' goods.

According to the Washington Toxics Coalition, a U.S. House vote was slated for today, with a Senate vote likely on Friday. The coalition says the bill bans some phthalates (which are used to make plastics softer and more durable) and reduces allowable lead levels.

This spring, state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, championed a bill that proponents called the toughest toxic-toys legislation in the country. Washington's law is tougher than the federal bill, and covers things like kids' cosmetics and the materials in car seats.

A dozen states considered such bills this year, according to the coalition.

The Spokesman-Review's guide to the dozens of candidates running in the primary is up and working. (Like many things about our website, the candidate order is puzzling. The governor's race, for example, is listed 25th on the list. I have no idea why.)

Here's the link to the races.

For years, lawmakers have been saying that someone should take a look at Washington's hundreds of tax breaks – some dating back to the Great Depression and further – and see if they're really still justified.

Well, someone is. The state's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee recently recommended some changes.

Washington should torpedo the 1939 tax break for gasoline that evaporates during handling and delivery, the committee said, because modern vapor-recovery systems have sharply reduced such losses. Fuel suppliers and distributors would pay about $2.5 million more a year in taxes as a result.

And lawmakers should consider some threshold for a Depression-era farmers' exemption from state business tax. At the time, hundreds of farms were being abandoned in Washington, and the average per-capita farm income was $166 a year. Since then, the size and number of profit-turning farms has increased, with more than one-quarter of corporate farms reporting income of more than $100,000 a year. Today, the tax break adds up to about $30 million a year.

In its report, the committee said lawmakers should think about restoring the tax for some farms, saying the legislative record "is unclear on why farms, regardless of profit status, are to be tax exempt."

Also due for reconsideration, the committee said, is a 1930s tax break intended to help street cars and small private ferries. For most transportation, the state business tax rate is nearly 2 percent. The tax rate is about a third of that, however, if the distance traveled is less than 5 miles.

Here's a Powerpoint presentation summarizing the recommendations.

One of Republicans' key points of attack in the governor's race is the 31 percent increase in state spending during Gov. Christine Gregoire's 4 years in office. That's $8 billion more, much of it for state-employee and teachers' salaries, as well as health care costs.

But Jeff Chapman, research director at the private Washington State Budget and Policy Center, offers a different way of looking at those big numbers.

Compared to personal income in Washington, state spending has stayed remarkably stable for more than a dozen years. According to Chapman's calculations, it has hovered between 6.6 percent and 6 percent of personal income since 1995. The high was in 1995-1997. It's now about 6.1 percent.

Even if the state solves a projected $2.7 billion budget shortfall over the next two years solely by boosting taxes -- which is unlikely -- state spending would still be just 6 percent of projected personal income.

Solve the gap purely with budget cuts -- also unlikely -- and state spending would be just 5.6 percent of personal income.

In other words: even if lawmakers close the gap entirely with big tax increases next spring, the tax rate relative to personal income would still be lower than it's been for most of the past decade.

The state's "Climate Action Team" came to Spokane last week, seeking input on ways to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in Washington.

On the way, they stopped at an Ellensburg-area wind farm.

They met at the Spokane Convention Center, awarded high marks for its green, energy-efficient design.

And they traveled together in a bus. Powered by biodiesel.