Senate offers tribe ‘regret’ for killing
Drum beats and tribal chanting echoed through the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday, as members of a Canadian Indian tribe accepted an “expression of regret” from state lawmakers for the mob killing of a 14-year-old Canadian boy more than a century ago.
In 1884, according to a Senate resolution passed Monday, an angry American mob calling itself the “Nooksack Vigilance Committee” crossed the border into Canada. They were hunting for Louie Sam, a young member of a Canadian tribe known as the Sto:lo Nation. They suspected the boy of slaying a Nooksack shopkeeper.
The boy was in the custody of a Canadian deputy, who the mob apparently overpowered. They seized the boy and hanged him.
After a protest by the Canadian government, U.S. federal officials asked the Washington territorial government to investigate and ascertain who was in that lynch mob. And despite the fact that the mob members “openly bragged” about their participation, territorial officials claimed that they were unable to figure out who’d lynched the boy.
Canadian undercover detectives sent into Washington Territory subsequently determined that Louie Sam hadn’t murdered the shopkeeper. But according to the Senate resolution, the detectives “failed to follow up with the evidence that they had gathered.”
Louie Sam’s friends and neighbors were so afraid of further cross-border attacks that they permanently abandoned their border village, according to the Senate resolution.
The resolution notes that both the territorial and Canadian governments failed to do their jobs and expresses sympathy to Sam’s family.
Lt. Gov. Brad Owen called the lynching “a terrible injustice.” The resolution, he said, “is meant to further ensure that such a tragedy will never be forgotten or repeated.”
Accepting the resolution from Owen was Grand Chief Clarence Pennier, who is the tribal chief of the Sto:lo Tribal Council. “I want to lift up my hands to you,” he said, doing so. “It makes our families feel good.”
Park fees dumped
The Senate voted 40 to 5 on Wednesday to torpedo the $5-a-day parking fee at state parks. Both Democrats and Republicans are eager to do away with the unpopular fee. Democrats have argued that the fees discourage low-income families from using the parks; Republicans argue that taxpayers have already paid for the parks. (That’s admittedly a bit of a generalization – there’s considerable crossover in the two sides’ arguments.)
But parks supporters argued against kissing off the $3 million a year that the fees raise for things like graffiti-scrubbing, maintenance and cleaning restrooms.
One of the few voices against lifting the fee was Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle. Thirty-seven other states have similar park fees, he said, and Washington already has a budget-minded pass for families: for $50 a year, they park as much as they want at as many state parks as they want.
Four years from now, he predicts, the state will reverse itself.
“I bet you $100 to one I’m going to be right,” Jacobsen told the lawmakers who voted to do away with the fee. “You’re going to be wrong.”
Startling moments
It was a big surprise in the Senate – and an unhappy one for some Democrats – when lawmakers agreed to several Republican-backed amendments to a bill involving health care coverage for employees of small businesses.
House Bill 2572 provides for a state subsidy for some small employers to get health coverage for low-income workers.
But Republicans, who are used to losing out to the majority Democrats in both the Senate and House, seemed startled Wednesday when several of their amendments passed.
Among them:
•Taking away a requirement that the subsidized plan be at least equal to the state’s Basic Health Plan. This, Republicans say, would allow for cheaper coverage.
•Allowing the subsidy to be applied to health savings accounts.
•Allowing a business tax deduction for employers’ health care premiums.
•And allowing insurers to offer health plans with less than the full slate of state-required coverages, which amounts to a major compromise.