July 16, 2013

Last night at cocktail hour and during dinner, I listened to Gounod’s Faust. The music transported me to another place, remote from the world I described only the day before. It was almost enough to make me think that there is hope for civilization after all. It’s true that the recording, with Victoria de los Angeles, Nicolai Gedda and Boris Christoff, was made in 1958. However, I was listening to a CD remastering of the original, on a DVD player of recent vintage, so I had the best (old) version with better (new) fidelity. The present can do good things. 

Life, therefore, can be good if one ignores politics. It can be good, that is, for those of us who aren’t looking for work, don’t rely on food stamps and haven’t lost a house to foreclosure. 

July 14, 2013

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; . . .
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.[63]

We are rapidly approaching the point at which we no longer will be able to govern ourselves; we barely are dong so now. For the worst among us, who are full of passionate intensity, that is the desired result. Republicans in Congress oppose any attempt to assist those in need, or even to put the economy back in order. In no small part they are following the lead of their corporate masters, for whom government is the enemy: the enemy, that is, of profits undiluted by wages or taxes. They dream of the "free market," an imaginary state of unregulated activity. Being good conservatives, they are part of a tradition: "The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all."[64]

Ideology also enters into the anti-statist attitude. Tenthers, nullifiers, Tea Partiers, conspiracy nuts and "patriots" claim that the federal government is an engine of tyranny which must be destroyed. In their disdain for the state, reactionary conservatives are, ironically, in agreement with communists, although Grover Norquist’s fantasy of drowning the government in a bathtub is a bit more violent than the Marxist notion of the state’s withering away. Actually, they are more in step with the movement known as collectivist anarchism; they concur with its philosopher Michael Bakunin, for whom "the term ‘state’ epitomized all the evil which must be banished from the world."[65]

As to the dithering best, we have a prime example in our President. He has ready access to the media and through them to the people, but he rarely uses his opportunities. The fallacy of many right-wing positions could be exposed if only he would say something but, whether through lack of conviction or timidity, he lets the nonsense pass unchallenged. Not even our modified, shifted-to-the-right center can hold if all of the pull is from one side.
__________________
63. Yeats, The Second Coming
64.Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday, p. 132
65. Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, p. 204

July 1, 2013

On June 25, in Shelby County v. Holder , the Supreme Court upset part of the Voting Rights Act by finding the geographic reach of Section 5 of the Act unconstitutional. That Section provides that no change in voting procedures may be made by certain jurisdictions (states, counties, etc., known as covered jurisdictions) unless a declaratory judgment approving the change has been issued by the District Court of the District of Columbia or until the proposed change has received approval by the U.S. Attorney General. (This procedure for advance approval is known as "preclearance.") Section 4(b) of the Act contains formulas identifying the covered jurisdictions. 

The Act was passed in 1965 for a limited term of years, but extended — in effect reenacted — several times since, most recently in 2006. The 1970 and 1975 re-enactments modified § 4(b) to extend coverage to additional jurisdictions. The re-enactments of 1982 and 2006 did not alter coverage. As of the time of the decision, nine states and parts of six others were covered.[57]  

By contrast, Section 2 of the Act, which bans any "standard, practice, or procedure" that "results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen . . . to vote on account of race or color," applies nationwide.

Alabama is a covered jurisdiction. Shelby County, Alabama, sued the Attorney General in Federal District Court in Washington, D. C., seeking a declaratory judgment that sections 4(b) and 5 are unconstitutional. The District Court upheld the Act and the Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that § 4(b) is unconstitutional.

The majority opinion, by Chief Justice Roberts, is based on a principle of state sovereignty and on the conclusion that §4(b) is based on obsolete data. He melded the two into a theory that Congress may not treat states unequally unless there is some compelling reason to do so, and unless it is relying on data which (the Court thinks) are sufficiently current. If that sounds like dubious Constitutional law, it’s because it is. The decision leaves §5 in limbo, valid in concept but unusable until a new formula is devised, one which, by implication, the Court must approve.

The Chief Justice invoked state sovereignty in his first paragraph:

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 employed extraordinary measures to address an extraordinary problem. Section 5 of the Act required States to obtain federal permission before enacting any law related to voting — a drastic departure from basic principles of federalism. And §4 of the Act applied that requirement only to some States — an equally dramatic departure from the principle that all States enjoy equal sovereignty.

The opinion refers to state sovereignty so often that nullifiers might think that the Chief Justice is jumping on their bandwagon, especially considering this comment:

Outside the strictures of the Supremacy Clause, States retain broad autonomy in structuring their governments and pursuing legislative objectives. Indeed, the Constitution provides that all powers not specifically granted to the Federal Government are reserved to the States or citizens. Amdt. 10.

The Tenth Amendment, dear to antifederalists, does not include the word "specifically." It would be interesting to know whether Roberts was consciously stacking the deck or whether he doesn’t know what the Amendment says. It is a measure of the condition of the Court that either explanation is plausible.

Other comments in the opinion tend in the same direction:

"[T]he Framers of the Constitution intended the States to keep for themselves, as provided in the Tenth Amendment, the power to regulate elections."

and

[T]he Act "authorizes federal intrusion into sensitive areas of state and local policymaking," . . . and represents an "extraordinary departure from the traditional course of relations between the States and the Federal Government . . . ."

The latter is empty rhetoric. The former is nonsense, at least in this context, as the Tenth Amendment says nothing about elections and hardly can be taken to overrule the Fifteenth, which provides:

Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

However, the distorted references to the Tenth Amendment are the only hints as to which part of the Constitution is offended by Section 4.

Contrary to those sweeping statements, most of the references to states’ rights or federalism in the opinion, and the ones which relate to the holding, are limited to the question of treating states equally. This is a typical statement: "a departure from the fundamental principle of equal sovereignty requires a showing that a statute's disparate geographic coverage is sufficiently related to the problem that it targets." Even that modified nod toward states’ rights is dubious. South Carolina v. Katzenbach , the decision upholding the original voting rights Act, rejected the Roberts version of of the equal-treatment theory:

In acceptable legislative fashion, . . . Congress chose to limit its attention to the geographic areas where immediate action seemed necessary. . . . The doctrine of the equality of States, invoked by South Carolina, does not bar this approach, for that doctrine applies only to the terms upon which States are admitted to the Union, and not to the remedies for local evils which have subsequently appeared. [58]

In addition, the dissent [59] pointed out that there are numerous federal statutes which treat states differently.

Here is the ruling: "Because §5 applies only to those jurisdictions singled out by §4, the Court turns to consider that provision. . . . . Section 4's formula is unconstitutional in light of current conditions." However, the Court’s objection to the coverage provisions of Section 4 is not specific; it does not find that any given jurisdiction should be removed from coverage or even set forth a test to justify coverage. It does not challenge the basic principle that some areas of the country may require supervision. It simply holds that the coverage provisions are out of date.

This is largely an assumption based on the passage of time, buttressed by selective quotation of Congressional findings. The opinion took this from the findings included in the 2006 Act: "Significant progress has been made in eliminating first generation barriers experienced by minority voters, including increased numbers of registered minority voters, minority voter turnout, and minority representation in Congress, State legislatures, and local elected offices." The Court acknowledged that "these improvements are in large part because of the Voting Rights Act," but its conclusion is a non sequitur: "Yet the Act has not eased §5's restrictions or narrowed the scope of §4's coverage formula along the way. Instead those extraordinary and unprecedented features have been reauthorized as if nothing has changed . . . ." That ignores the possibility that only the continued existence of the Act’s requirements precludes backsliding or resort to new forms of discrimination. That is not an academic consideration. The Congressional findings made clear that continuing coverage is necessary for just those reasons; here are the principal findings set out in the 2006 Act:

(1) Significant progress has been made in eliminating first generation barriers experienced by minority voters, including increased numbers of registered minority voters, minority voter turnout, and minority representation in Congress, State legislatures, and local elected offices. [The majority opinion quoted only this much.] This progress is the direct result of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. . . .

(3) The continued evidence of racially polarized voting in each of the jurisdictions covered by the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 demonstrates that racial and language minorities remain politically vulnerable, warranting the continued protection of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. . . .

(5) The evidence clearly shows the continued need for Federal oversight in jurisdictions covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 since 1982 . . . .

(7) Despite the progress made by minorities under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the evidence before Congress reveals that 40 years has not been a sufficient amount of time to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination following nearly 100 years of disregard for the dictates of the 15th amendment and to ensure that the right of all citizens to vote is protected as guaranteed by the Constitution. . . .

(9) The record compiled by Congress demonstrates that, without the continuation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 protections, racial and language minority citizens will be deprived of the opportunity to exercise their right to vote, or will have their votes diluted, undermining the significant gains made by minorities in the last 40 years. [60]

Put simply, covered jurisdictions continue to discriminate, so no revision to the formula is required.

Congress’ findings were not made haphazardly. As stated by the dissent, in 2006 it amassed an "extensive record" showing that "serious and widespread intentional discrimination persisted in covered jurisdictions."

The House and Senate Judiciary Committees held 21 hearings, heard from scores of witnesses, received a number of investigative reports and other written documentation of continuing discrimination in covered jurisdictions. In all, the legislative record Congress compiled filled more than 15,000 pages. . . . The compilation presents countless "examples of flagrant racial discrimination" since the last reauthorization; Congress also brought to light systematic evidence that "intentional racial discrimination in voting remains so serious and widespread in covered jurisdictions that section 5 preclearance is still needed."   

Congress didn’t just extend the act blindly, as the Court implies; it looked at the record and found "the continued need for Federal oversight in jurisdictions covered . . . " Given that record, the majority’s objection to the coverage provisions collapses.

In addition, the coverage is not fixed for all time. The Act permits a jurisdiction to "bail out," i.e., be removed from coverage, by showing that it has complied with the Act for ten years, and has engaged in efforts to eliminate intimidation and harassment of voters. Conversely, the Act authorizes a court to subject a non-covered jurisdiction to federal preclearance upon finding that violations of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments have occurred there.

However, all of this is beside the point: it is Congress’ right and function to determine the factual bases and justifications for legislation; the Court’s substitution of its judgment is another example of conservative judicial activism.

The Court repeatedly cited Northwest Austin Municipal Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder , 557 U. S. 193 (2009), as authority, but each of the references to that decision was to dictum. In that case, the Court held that the Plaintiff Utility District had standing to file a bail-out suit, which disposed of the case, but the opinion, by Chief Justice Roberts, went on at length about how suspect the Voting Rights Act had become. Those ramblings were unnecessary to the result, by definition obiter dicta , and of no precedential value. Resort by the Chief Justice to his own previous gratuitous comments illustrates the weakness of the Shelby County decision.

The portions of the statute which treat states equally were not overturned: the "decision in no way affects the permanent, nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting found in §2." Even §5 was left intact, merely suspended until Congress comes up with a revision to § 4 which suits five Justices. Given the present state of Congress, and the Court, that may be a long time.

One of the oddities of the decision, and of the attitude of the majority, is that the 2006 extension of the Voting Rights Act wasn’t exactly a liberal attempt to upset the Constitutional balance. It was adopted by a Congress controlled by Republicans: the Senate by 55-44, the House by 231-202.[61]  The vote in favor of the Act was 98 to 0 in the Senate and 390 to 33 in the House. Obviously not a single Senator from an affected state, nor a Republican Senator, voted against the act. Of the 390 who voted in favor in the House, 198 were Democrats, 192 Republicans. The 33 nay votes all were Republican; by my count, 18 came from covered states and 8 from states covered in part, but 7 from states not affected. By contrast, 67 votes in favor came from covered states, and 119 from partially-covered states.[62]  The bill was signed by a Republican President from a covered state.

That political background hardly reflects a repudiation of the geographical or ideological underpinnings of the Act. Either conservative opinion has changed drastically in seven years, or the Court is out on a limb of its own, perhaps both.

____________________________

57. http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/sec_5/covered.php
58. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 328 (1966).
59. The dissent was written by Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justices Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor. The majority, in addition to the Chief Justice, included Justices Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito.
60. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-109publ246/pdf/
61. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_united_states_congresses
62. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/109/house/2/votes/374/  

June 23, 2013

The goofiness of fringe groups and agitators continues to creep toward the mainstream. The latest converts are three New Hampshire legislators who introduced a bill to have the state "recognize" the "original 13th Amendment to the Constitution." There was in fact a proposed amendment which would have become the Thirteenth if it had been ratified. It was passed by Congress in 1810, and submitted to the states, but it never was ratified by the required three-fourths of the states. It provided as follows:

If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.[50]

The issue of divided loyalty by way of foreign offices or benefits already had been covered by the Constitution, in Article I, Section 9.:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.

It isn’t clear why anyone thought that the amendment was necessary, and in any case, it is a dead letter except among anti-statists, who concoct bizarre theories about its suppression which involve the claims that the United States was converted into a corporation in 1871 (or 1860 or 1861 or 1865 or 1868), that IRS (or is it the Federal Reserve?) is a foreign banking cartel, and on and on. (I discussed these notions on 4/5/10, 4/7/10 and 5/28/10). Here’s the version of that tale included in the New Hampshire bill:

III. The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 . . . created a corporation in the District of Columbia called the United States of America. The act . . . led to adoption of a fraudulent constitution in which the original Thirteenth Amendment was omitted.

IV. Today, what appears to the public as the United States Constitution is not the complete document, as it was never lawfully amended to remove the Thirteenth Amendment. Instead, the document presented as the United States Constitution is merely a mission statement for the corporation unlawfully established in the Act of 1871.[51]

The operative section of the bill states that its purpose is to recognize that the original Thirteenth Amendment, "which prohibits titles of nobility, is properly included in the United States Constitution and is the law of the land."

V. . . . The act is also intended to end the infiltration of the Bar Association and the judicial branch into the executive and legislative branches of government and the unlawful usurpation of the people’s right, guaranteed by the New Hampshire constitution, to elect county attorneys who are not members of the bar. This unlawful usurpation gives the judicial branch control over all government and the people in the grand juries. As long as the original Thirteenth Amendment is concealed from the people, there shall never be justice or a legitimate constitutional form of government.

Thirteenthers have two aims in reviving the "lost" amendment: to remove President Obama from office because he received the Nobel Peace Prize and, as shown by the New Hampshire bill, to exclude lawyers from all public offices, including judgeships, because they sometimes are referred to as "Esquire" which, allegedly, is a foreign (British) title. Some support that notion by claiming that "bar," referring to lawyers, stands for British Accreditation Registry (or Royalty or Regency). Here’s one entertaining version: "I do have sound reason to believe that "BAR" in BAR Association stands for "British Accreditation Regency" and that all attorneys are knights for the British or Royal Crown. After all, behind every attorney's name is the title "Esquire" which is a British term."[52] I don’t recall that anyone ever called me Sir Gerald.

One of the sponsors is Rep. Stella Tremblay.[53] This is not her first foray into the anti-government fantasy world. Last year, she sent an email to every member of the state House of Representatives containing a video that claimed that President Obama was not born in the United States. This year, she treated her colleagues to an email claiming that the federal government was behind the Boston Marathon bombing,[54] parroting that allegation by Alex Jones.

One of the sillier notions entertained by those who fear or despise the government is that we still are ruled by Britain. One David Johnson, "who advises Tremblay on historical matters," believes that the U.S. "is now under the control of Queen Elizabeth II."[55] If we have no legitimate Constitution, and it isn’t restored via adopting the lost 13th, where would we look for a statement of fundamentals? Three other New Hampshire legislators addressed that a year or so ago, in a manner consistent with Mr. Johnson’s delusion; their bill would have required that “All members of the general court [Legislature] proposing bills and resolutions addressing individual rights or liberties shall include a direct quote from the Magna Carta which sets forth the article from which the individual right or liberty is derived.”[56]

______________________
50. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Titles_of_Nobility_Amendment
51. http://legiscan.com/NH/text/HB638/id/719435
52. http://www.dhealthstore.com/articles/law-legal/blacks-law-dictionary.html
53. She abruptly resigned from the Legislature a few days ago.
54. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/stella-tremblay-new-hampshire_n_ 3466760.html
55. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/01/stella-tremblay_n_2791098.html
56. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/04/397520/new-hampshire-gop-bill-mandates- that-laws-find-their-origin-in-1215-english-magna-carta/

June 17, 2013

Newspapers are in a sad state. One of their problems is that their print editions must compete with their web versions. Offering the latter free of charge only exacerbates the tendency of readers to opt for getting news on line. For that reason, digital subscriptions are in vogue. The New York Times requires a subscription to access more than ten articles a month. The Washington Post has announced that it soon will charge for access beyond twenty per month. (That number may not hold; the Times initially allowed twenty). I learned belatedly that The Seattle Times has adopted a similar policy, permitting "about" fifteen free hits per month. As we subscribe to the newspaper, that doesn’t affect us.

Various factors other than self-competition have contributed to the decline of print journalism. The trend toward on-line reading is reenforced by mobile devices, and fewer people care about news in any form. Costs of operation no doubt have increased and advertisers have options other than papers. Whatever the cause, The Seattle Times is a poor copy of its former self, even though, with the demise of the P-I, it now has no local print competition.

Presumably due to the cost of syndicated columns, the Times op-ed pages now are dominated by staff and guest writers. There have been some good columns, but the result overall is unimpressive. On June 7, the page reached a new low by including a guest column by a young woman who, after moving to Seattle, has had trouble getting a date, and blames that on timid Seattle males. However, this evidently wasn’t just space-filling; the Times invited us to enter into a dialogue by on-line chat over this burning issue, and those who couldn’t make the chat could respond to a poll asking whether they agree with her opinions. The Times probably thinks that it is reaching young readers with this nonsense.

The paper redeemed itself in part by printing on the facing page a house editorial on the recent revelations of domestic spying. Although many people have expressed opinions — covering a wide range — about the surveillance programs, it’s impossible to take many of those reactions, or the government’s statements, seriously, because all of this still largely is secret. The Times focused on that fact. It’s worth setting out its observations almost in full.

A FEDERAL document reveals a program called PRISM that scoops up email, chats, videos, photos, stored data, Internet phone calls, file transfers, video conferences and logins from nine different Internet providers. . . .

President Obama says, "There are a whole bunch of safeguards involved" in what the government did. Should we believe him? Skepticism is in order here.

The program was secret. And when the president says it does not involve reading "the emails of U.S. citizens and U.S. residents," how sure are we of that? Not nearly enough. . . .  

Has Congress been a check on the executive power? No. Have the courts? Not in this instance, which involves a tribunal in which there never is an opposing counsel and which operates in secret. How often does this court ever say "no"? . . . 

How does this square with "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures"? The Fourth Amendment seems to define a lawful search entirely in terms of what PRISM is not. 

Two years ago, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., asked Attorney General Eric Holder the still-salient question: How can the people judge a program when they are not told what it is? . . .
The essence of the Constitution is power constrained by law. We are looking for the constraint and not seeing it.

The editorial added a more general comment, one which many of us would echo:

This page supported Barack Obama. So did the voters of Washington. Obama was for "change." But on the matter of secret killing by aerial drone, on detention without trial at Guantánamo, and now on the mass interception of mail by the national security state, where is the change?

June 17, 2013


Newspapers are in a sad state. One of their problems is that their print editions must compete with their web versions. Offering the latter free of charge only exacerbates the tendency of readers to opt for getting news on line. For that reason, digital subscriptions are in vogue. The New York Times requires a subscription to access more than ten articles a month. The Washington Post has announced that it soon will charge for access beyond twenty per month. (That number may not hold; the Times initially allowed twenty). I learned belatedly that The Seattle Times has adopted a similar policy, permitting "about" fifteen free hits per month. As we subscribe to the newspaper, that doesn’t affect us.

Various factors other than self-competition have contributed to the decline of print journalism. The trend toward on-line reading is reenforced by mobile devices, and fewer people care about news in any form. Costs of operation no doubt have increased and advertisers have options other than papers. Whatever the cause, The Seattle Times is a poor copy of its former self, even though, with the demise of the P-I, it now has no local print competition.

Presumably due to the cost of syndicated columns, the Times op-ed pages now are dominated by staff and guest writers. There have been some good columns, but the result overall is unimpressive. On June 7, the page reached a new low by including a guest column by a young woman who, after moving to Seattle, has had trouble getting a date, and blames that on timid Seattle males. However, this evidently wasn’t just space-filling; the Times invited us to enter into a dialogue by on-line chat over this burning issue, and those who couldn’t make the chat could respond to a poll asking whether they agree with her opinions. The Times probably thinks that it is reaching young readers with this nonsense.

The paper redeemed itself in part by printing on the facing page a house editorial on the recent revelations of domestic spying. Although many people have expressed opinions — covering a wide range — about the surveillance programs, it’s impossible to take many of those reactions, or the government’s statements, seriously, because all of this still largely is secret. The Times focused on that fact. It’s worth setting out its observations almost in full.

A FEDERAL document reveals a program called PRISM that scoops up email, chats, videos, photos, stored data, Internet phone calls, file transfers, video conferences and logins from nine different Internet providers.

***

President Obama says, "There are a whole bunch of safeguards involved" in what the government did. Should we believe him? Skepticism is in order here.

The program was secret. And when the president says it does not involve reading "the emails of U.S. citizens and U.S. residents," how sure are we of that? Not nearly enough. . . .


Has Congress been a check on the executive power? No. Have the courts? Not in this instance, which involves a tribunal in which there never is an opposing counsel and which operates in secret. How often does this court ever say "no"? . . .


How does this square with "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures"? The Fourth Amendment seems to define a lawful search entirely in terms of what PRISM is not.


Two years ago, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., asked Attorney General Eric Holder the still-salient question: How can the people judge a program when they are not told what it is?

***

The essence of the Constitution is power constrained by law. We are looking for the constraint and not seeing it.

The editorial added a more general comment, one which many of us would echo:

This page supported Barack Obama. So did the voters of Washington. Obama was for "change." But on the matter of secret killing by aerial drone, on detention without trial at Guantánamo, and now on the mass interception of mail by the national security state, where is the change?

June 10, 2013
Having been entertained by friends in England who enjoy wine, we thought that we would send them some Washington wine as a thank-you. We tried to order Washington wine in London for delivery, only to find that the English haven’t discovered us. They have some limited acquaintance with California and with — oh, the insult — Oregon, but not with us, so we sent French and Italian.

However, in one way Washington is famous, or perhaps notorious. The bartender at a café at Heathrow knew about the recent bridge collapse, knew that it is north of Seattle, on I-5, over the Skagit (pronounced with broad a and hard g) River. Wonderful; we’re known for the failure of our infrastructure.

When we returned, I found a column in The Seattle Times by Danny Westneat addressing reactions to the incident: "Last week I wondered if the collapse of an I-5 bridge might jar us to fix up our deteriorating old infrastructure. Or if we would crouch back into our played-out ‘no new taxes’ political torpor. The torpor it is." As he noted, and to no one’s surprise, Tim Eyman was appalled that some Democrats in the Legislature suggested that we raise funds to deal with vulnerable bridges, or in his terms, were "ghoulishly, crassly, exploitatively, and predictably demanding the Legislature unilaterally raise taxes . . . "[46] By "unilaterally," he means without a referendum; so much for representative (efficient, effective) government.

The excuse for continued neglect is that the bridge collapsed because a truck clipped one of its supports, so it’s just an unforseen event. Eyman again: " An accident is an accident and it's kind of hard to peg that on anybody else except the driver of a big truck driving at 15 feet on a 14 foot bridge. There's clearly a lot of people that are trying to exploit this bridge accident in order to push tax increases."[47]

Westneat also quoted two Republican legislators to the effect that no action is needed, even though there are many "structurally deficient" bridges in the state.[48] One of the legislators seemed outraged that there would be any response; here’s his muddled analysis: "What a joke. I said it last night when I saw the news [of the collapse, apparently]. I said, this is going to be [Governor] Inslee standing on the grandstand and saying, ‘See, this is why we need to pass the transportation package,’ and then the rest of the country will start saying look, our infrastructure is collapsing. But you could strike a brand-new bridge with a semi-truck and it will come down. I am just beside myself about how idiotic we have become."[49] In other words, if the Governor points out that collapsing bridges call for remedial action, that’s merely political posturing; having the country take note of our inability to provide safe transportation is no big deal.

The notion that we ought to build bridges that don’t fall down when bumped (not, apparently, a rare occurrence) is as foreign to him as to Eyman. The idiocy lies in sacrificing public safety on the altar of tax avoidance.

Westneat ended with this observation: "I have never bought the left-wing line that Republicans actually want government to fail. But they don’t seem to be trying all that hard to make it work." There is ample evidence that many Republicans want government to fail, or at least to shrink to the point of insignificance, but he’s certainly right that this is good example at least of indifference to making it work.
___________________________
46. http://mynorthwest.com/?sid=2281751&nid=651
47. http://mynorthwest.com/646/2283862/Antitax-crusader-says-blaming-him-for-I5-bridge-collapse-is-ghoulish-and-crass  
48. http://blogs.asce.org/govrel/2013/05/21/washington-state-report-card-released-today/  
49. http://washingtonstatewire.com/blog/inslee-warned-of-minnesota-style-freeway-bridge-collapse-on-monday-just-before-i-5-disaster/