Friday Quote
"And that’s how a constitutional crisis gets virtually ignored while a cute baby seal grabs front page headlines." - horsesass.org
The constitutional crisis at hand is that Washington State Pulic Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark is battling state Attorney General Rob McKenna at the Supreme Court level over a Superior Court decision that gave an Okanogan utility company the right to condemn state land in order to build a new power transmission line in Methow Valley. Goldmark wanted McKenna to appeal it, McKenna declined, and now Goldmark is taking him to the Supreme Court to force him to do his job.
If this story just jumped off the page and hit you in the face you're not alone. Until late last week we had NO idea that this was going on. And it's pretty dang significant. Thankfully a good friend directed us to the HorsesAss post about how the media was failing in reporting on this story. Excerpt:
"On the one hand, reporters in Olympia know state government really well, but politics… not so much. Oh, they think they know politics, because they hang out with legislators, but considering the odd fact that legislators don’t really drive politics in Washington state, this actually puts the Olympia press corps at a disadvantage. Then you have the Seattle reporters, who tend to kinda get the political stuff, but don’t really know the ins and outs of state government… at least not as well as the Olympia full-timers.
Oh… and our state’s few remaining experienced environmental reporters… the journalists most likely to be assigned a story that appears to concern natural resources…? No offense intended, but they really don’t know politics or state government."
That said, it's hard to find information on what's going on. From the sounds of it Goldmark has done his homework on this one but finds himself with few backers in his corner. So without a rallying cry of support for Goldmark and a highlighting of what McKenna is doing is wrong, this issue will continue to be lost on people.
Here is a link to information Goldmark has put on his website. We'll continue to follow the details of this story.
