Broken Democracy

Over the past two years I have been involved in trying to tighten regulations on a certain form of placer mining here in Washington State.  Currently, miners can take a machine called a suction dredge (pictured above) and suck up stream beds, spewing out the sediment which includes residual toxic materials such as zinc, copper, mercury, downstream.  Many of the miners mine areas which are designated critical habitat for fish species listed endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act.  And the miners do this for a few flakes of gold which they claim they do as a hobby (but many of them admit they are actually supplementing their income...let's just say the story changes from hobby to income depending on the argument they are making).

In order to change the regulations, which are promulgated and "enforced" by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), we need to change the current laws which the legislature, in the1990s, wrote in broad language requiring WDFW to "go light" on mining regulation.

Working with a broad coalition of groups, we proposed several modest changes (modest in comparison with what is happening in our neighboring states, including Idaho): a study to determine the effects and cumulative impacts of this form of mining, a license fee for the miners (since they pay absolutely nothing now), and a moratorium on allowing the miners to mine with suction dredges in streams that are listed as critical habitat for Endangered Species Act listed fish species in Washington State.  This is the second year we have introduced legislation.  Last year our bill went no where.

From what we understand there are about 1, 500 miners in Washington State.  The current population of Washington State is 7, 062,000 (over 7 million people).  Those 7 million people pay over 200 million dollars every year in restoration projects for salmon, steelhead, and Bull trout (the three main species listed under the Endangered Species Act).  And those 7 million people expect their state legislators to work for the majority of the people, not for a loud, bullying minority of folks whose selfish desire to destroy streams for small flakes of gold.

This past legislative session, we managed to get a hearing in front of the Washington State House of Representatives Agriculture and Natural Resource Committee for our modest bill.  The miners who are very internet savvy, knew about the hearing instantly, and between Facebook and their web sites, alerted their members.  While we have talked to thousands of people about this issue, and believe a large majority of Washingtonians agree with us, the miners outnumbered our supporters in the hearing room.  On top of it, only one Democratic Member of the House stayed for the hearing, while the minority (the Republicans) all stayed and asked softball questions to the miners.

The miners intimidate.  The bully people through the Internet.  The carry guns when they are mining and both Federal and State enforcement officers have told us they are nervous and scared of running into the miners when they are out in the field.  The miners refuse to comply with Federal laws requiring them to notify the US Forest Service when they are mining on our Federal land.  And we have watched videos where the miners admit they don't pay taxes on the gold they collect off of our Federal lands.  They are a small minority who control the majority.

Clearly, democracy is broken.  In today's Seattle Times there was this article which implies that the only way to bring about the change a majority of people may want is to circumvent elected officials.  People wonder why conservationists sue and sane gun law advocates use the initiative process, it's because loud and intimidating minorities "own" our democracy.

We have tried to work with the system we have and have gotten nowhere.  Meanwhile, streams and rivers in Washington continue to be torn up by miners.   It's been over a decade since salmon, steelhead, and Bull trout were listed as endangered or threatened.  The recoveries have been slow if non-existent because everyone is scared to take the steps necessary.  Tightening the regulations on suction dredge mining is small step.  It is low hanging fruit in terms of helping fish survive.  It's what the majority of people in Washington State want, it's what we have committed billions of dollars toward solving.  So, it may be time to figure out how to leave the broken democracy and find a way to give fish a chance.

Showing Up to Vote

Here in the Northwest, as well as California, whether candidates showed up to vote has become an issue. One candidate for Seattle mayor and another one for county executive missed some elections. Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay didn't register to vote until 2002, and now she is running for governor of California (like many women, perhaps she didn't want to admit she was eighteen until 2002).

This is really a bogus issue. While it says, perhaps, something about busy schedules, complicated lives, and probably more about the complexities of voting in this country, it doesn't say anything about whether one candidate is qualified to be mayor or not. Certainly our democratic ideals are offended when someone wants to be elected and yet hasn't managed to vote in every election. But then what does it say about the guy (and of course there is one in this election) who has wanted to be mayor ever since he was in high school? Of course, he is the guy who hasn't missed voting in an election. Do we really want to elect someone who is that hard wired to get "one office?"

Certainly voting is important. It's an amazing privilege not many people in this world get to experience. Being committed to democracy is the first required qualification in running for office in America. But, whether you voted doesn't qualify you for an elected office.

And, by the way, what ever happened to keeping these things confidential anyway?

Group Think

Yesterday there was a short piece in the local paper about a candidate for city council. While he seems like a qualified individual, what concerns me is that he currently works for the City. And this is a disturbing trend. That people whose only or major life experiences have been in government seem to dominate the policy-making side.

Another current Seattle City Councilwoman, Sally Clark, prior to her appointment then subsequent election, had also only worked for the City of Seattle. Several of the candidates for local office are government employees.

And in our state capital, the governor, who has been in government in some form or fashion for a very long time, only appoints Olympia insiders to commissions and other positions. For instance, the Wildlife Commission is now dominated by current employees of the University of Washington, the Washington State Department of Health, and numerous retirees of various governmental positions.

I tend to think that having outsiders, people who come from life experiences other than the government, is vitally important for our democracy.

But what concerns me is it seems people from life experiences other than government are not running for office. Perhaps with all the news pressures, the 24/7 media, the no holes barred bloggers who feel no shame in exposing every little detail about a candidate, perhaps those things are barriers to well qualified people running for office.

However, if we end up with a government run by only insiders, our democracy will continue to whither.

Media Closures, Layoffs and Democracy

Today's big news is local.  The Seattle PI, a Hearst owned newspaper, is going to either be sold or shut down.  We'll know more in 60 days.  However, as they say in the media business, sources say the likelihood of sale is nil, therefore the PI as we know it is essentially gone.

The PI is now in line with other venerable media outlets, such as the Detroit Free Press which recently announced it was scaling back it's home delivery of a physical newspaper, and media giants like CNN who laid off almost all of it's environmental reporting staff.   And of course, there were the huge layoffs from National Public Radio.  Just goes to show a huge endowment from Joan Kroc didn't insulate NPR from the economy!

Among media folks, there is a lot of speculation, blaming, and frustration over the demise of newspapers and news media in general.  Much of the finger pointing goes toward the Internet and the so-called democratization of "news."  Blogs such as Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Politico, which are essentially news aggregators, are believed to be the enemy of institutions such as The New York Times and yes, even the Seattle PI.  

Seattle has always thought of itself as a big city, and went through significant teeth-grinding when it thought the PI was going under in the early 1980s.  Backroom deals were hashed out by city fathers (think lots of cigar smoke and cognac at the Rainier Club) to keep both newspapers in business.  It was felt that having two newspapers reflected a sophistication, a sense that Seattle was a cosmopolitan city.  

While I have not been a big fan of either newspaper, and was ecstatic when I realized I could read both of them on-line for free, I do think this epidemic of layoffs, newspaper closures, and scale backs is, well, not a good sign for America or democracy.

Ok, here is my second qualification: I am also not a big fan of what has been termed "mainstream media."  Oh, I read a lot of it, listen to NPR, rarely watch TV news, but I do all of that with a large dose of cynicism.  I have not been a fan for a long time.  I suppose because having been involved in politics and being around reporters who, being frank here, are the best drinking buddies with politicians, the idea there is "objective" mainstream media is a crock.  And the so-called paper wall between income and reporting?  I can give you dozens, if not more, examples where that wall is a figment of someone's imagination.  

But, having said that, I am very concerned about the demise of these institutions.  I don't think  I need to go through the litany of great things much of the mainstream media has done: Pentagon Papers, Watergate, Arms for Hostages, current reporting on the economic melt down....think about this and add to this list yourself.  Quite frankly, Huffington Post  can not even begin to think about providing us those kinds of journalistic bomb-shells.  For whatever mainstream media has gotten wrong (the run-up to the Iraq war for instance) there have been hundreds of events they have gotten right, or close enough to right that we were able to peek into the abyss and see the muck.  

At a time when government is about to go through a huge expansion of it's role as well as it's power, even greater than with President Bush, when corporations are forced to consolidate, when financial chicanery impacts each of us, we need more watchdogs not less.  We need people who are not afraid to ask, probe, make nuisances of themselves, not accept a press release or former colleague who took a high paying job telling them what is up.  We need scientists, economists, psychologists, poets, willing to examine and write about the world around them.  And we need news not just from the glamourous capitals of the world, but from down the street, the next state, or a small town in the Midwest.  

There is a lot of fear right now.  No one knows if they are going to lose their job.  Boeing, the Seattle PI,  Aloca, Washington Mutual, the list goes on of layoffs, reductions, hiring freezes.  Now, more than ever, we need courage, a willingness to write, to report, to explain.  We need fearlessness, an ability to withstand the anger people share in the comment sections (have you ever noticed the vitriolic crap that gets written in the comment sections of these web sites?  Scary).  Most of all we need an understanding that abandoning news, or allowing media to write it's own obituary, is the worst thing for democracy.  Our information then becomes a battle between garbage fed by government, corporations, or some publicist versus someone like Ariana Huffington deciding whether she wants to argue with the press release or not.  It become superficial and all about ego and power.  And no one other than those well connected people participate.  That is not democracy.

So, if the PI goes down, I say we all take up pens and paper, make press credentials, and hit the streets.  It's our duty.