November: The Jeff Recommends

If you live in Washington State, you have received your ballot and voters' guide (two voters' guides if you live in King County). And you've pulled out the handcart and brought the voluminous amount of paper into the house and put it right next to the gas bill you've been meaning to put in the post.

Now here's the thing - don't forget it (don't forget the gas bill, either, but do you need me to tell you that?). This year they need to be mailed by the 2nd of November, which means some of you will think of it as a WHOLE MONTH away rather than less than two weeks. I know you. I think the same way, and never fail to be surprised by the tyranny of the calender (sure, it gives us an extra day every four years, but in FEBRUARY. How about an extra day of summer instead?).

Here are Grubb Street's endorsements for the ballot, based on the long march through the initiatives and the previous primary. I may come back to some of the points later, time permitting, but I want to get these down for those who are voting right now, dammit.

I'm not alone in telling you how to vote - here are some other guys, and I will update as I go along. To my surprise, I find myself agreeing with the Seattle Times more often than the Stranger.
The Seattle Times is the local paper of record, and represents the more traditional voting blocks.
The Stranger is the snarky hipster weekly, and its endorsements are NFSW, but they gets major creds for inviting people that disagree with them onto their blog
Publicola is lefty and urban in its outlook, but unlike the Stranger gets out beyond the Seattle city limits and actually thinks about Olympia.
The Seattle Weekly has woken up and finally realized that its uptight Seattlelite market actually cares about politics, but have yet to get into the endorsement biz. Their blog, however, is starting to pay attention to politics.

Here goes (you might want to dig through previous entries to get past the snark):

I-1053 (Tim Eyeman hearts the oil companies) vote NO
I-1082 (BIAW hearts big insurance) vote NO
I-1098 (Bill Gates and his Dad want to pay taxes) Vote YES
I-1100 (Costco wants to keep the Stranger staff drunk) Vote NO
I-1105 (Smaller distributors want to keep the Stranger staff drunk) Vote NO
I-1107 (Beverage companies want to avoid taxes) Vote NO

R-52 (Cute Puppy wants to repair schools) Vote YES
Amendment 8225 (Redefine interest calculation to let the state take advantage of Federal loans) - Vote YES
Amendment 4220 (Allow judges to deny bail under narrow conditions) Vote YES
NOTE: On 8225 and 4220, I had some crackerjack jokes set up for them, but they haven't gotten a lot of attention so I'm running their descriptions straight.

King County Amendment 1 - (Revise charter's preamble to put business on same level as environment) - vote NO
King County Amendment 2 - (Remove duplication of effort in Public Disclosures) - Vote YES
King County Amendment 3 - (Allow Sheriff to negotiate collective bargaining, but not for important stuff like wages or benefits ) - Vote HUH? (OK, NO)
King Count Proposition 1 - (Cute Puppy wants to keep cops, firemen, and rest of the government) - Vote YES (but is really suspicious of the Cute Puppy right now).

US Senator - Patty Murray
US REP, 9th District - Suzan DelBene

State Senator, 47th District - Claudia Kauffman (Note: I want to point out, if I don't get a chance to mention it elsewhere, that challenger Joe Fain has run a textbook perfect campaign. But even recognizing the organizational skills, Fain takes credit for one of the dumber moves for local democracy - making King County Board positions non-partisan, allowing candidates to hide affiliation. But that's a rant for another day).

Representative, 47th District, Position 1 - Geoff Simpson. (Note: Yeah, that surprises me, but the potential combo of I-1053 requiring a supermajority for raising fees or closing loopholes PLUS any candidate who swears never to raise taxes is a bad combo).

Representative, 47th District, Position 2 - Pat Sullivan.

State Supreme Court Justice Position #6 - Charlie Wiggins

District Court, Southeast Electoral District: Note - these are races you haven't heard of and most of you couldn't care, yet these are the ones where the fewest number of people will determine the winner. The good news is checking with Voting For Judges, and a little googling shows that all four men are qualified, sober, and capable.
Position #3 - Darrell E Phillipson (incumbent)
Position #6 - David Tracy

I don't do endorsements for races with a single candidate (sarcastic hat-tip to our state for letting Supreme Court justices being determined in the primary). As I know more, I will post it.

More later,