Results tagged “robmckenna”

According to the Daily Weekly, Nickels is "moving forward" with his decision to ban guns on city-owned property despite opposition from citizens and state government leaders alike, and the ban could go into effect as soon as May. As the Weekly's Don Ward points out, the constitutionality of Nickels' ban will almost certainly be tested in court; critics of the mayor's executive order (including Seattlest) are looking to state law regarding legal possession of firearms to soundly trump any city law forbidding someone with a license to carry a gun on city property. We predict (read: profoundly hope) the ban will in fact be found unconstitutional. It would also be nice if all this uproar provokes productive dialogue about how to effectively counter and prevent gun violence in Seattle without blatant disregard for state law.

Two weeks after a gunman at Folklife injured three people, Mayor Greg Nickels announced his plan to ban guns from all city-owned property. Yesterday, Wash. State Attorney General Rob McKenna (defending his office against challenger John Ladenburg in November's election) released an official legal opinion concluding that Nickels does not have the authority to order the prohibition.

The Seattle Times and City Club sponsored yesterday's debate between Rob McKenna and John Ladenburg, which was hosted at Seattle University as part of the school's Social Justice Week program. Times crack reporter Bob Young reports on how it all went down. We'll cut straight to the important part: neither are for legalization of marijuana, and in fact McKenna wants to reclassify pot as a "more serious drug" thanks to BC growers' potent strains.

WORDY SHIPMATES: Sarah Vowell's finally here to read from her book about the thought-life of Puritans such as John Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson, and Roger Williams. She's "not interested in the whole person," says Vowell in a recent interview with Seattlest Editor MvB. Take Roger Williams: "I'm mostly interested in what he thought about religion, government, community, Indians and how much Roger Williams was getting on his nerves. I don't really give a hoot what he had for breakfast or how he felt about his mom." This is one reading we feel more than comfortable recommending!

Yesterday, Faith Ireland and Robert Utter, two former state Supremes, officially filed suit against the BIAW and said they intend to sue Dino Rossi. They claim Rossi was too hands-on in 2007 with what's supposed to be an independent BIAW PAC. If he, as a candidate, coordinated with the PAC in any way, the PAC would be limited to spending $2,800 on a race they've spent $2 million on in 2008. Rossi says: "If what they were saying were true, which it isn't, there would be no problem with it being true..." Yikes. It's a tough campaign season for the BIAW, which is also being sued by Republican AG Rob McKenna for inappropriate touching of worker's comp funds, among other things.

Though the political news of the day is most certainly McCain's ploy to "suspend" his campaign and delay the first presidential debate as well as the VP debate in order to concentrate on the economic crisis, there's other news out today about the plight of Republican candidates this year. According to the New York Times, Washington State Democrats are suing to force Republican candidate for governor Dino Rossi to list his party affiliation on the ballot as "Republican" and not "GOP" which apparently polls higher.

According to an email we got from the Washington State Democrats today, the state's Attorney General, Rob McKenna, laid out a plan for Dino Rossi to beat Christine Gregoire in November for state delegates at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. In short, according to McKenna, McCain-Palin needs to carry Washington by 10-12 points. "If he fails to carry it by ten or twelve points, Dino doesn't win." Maybe it's scary thoughts like that which convinced the state's Republican party to put out only a "vaguely worded press release" when their booth got trashed at Bumbershoot this weekend.

The good news? Washington State has drastically cut back on its consumption of fuel, returning to consumption rates last seen when LBJ was in the White House. The bad news? The gas we do use costs a hell of a lot, and that's not going to change any time soon.