Tuesday morning will include the Associated Press’ annual legislative preview in Olympia. It will include comment from party leaders in the House and Senate. Last year, and most years, it included the governor. This year will not. It was supposed to, but then the Associated Press issued this:

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) _ Gov. Chris Gregoire is out of state, but her office won’t say where she is.

Gregoire was set to be the keynote speaker Tuesday at a pre-legislative session forum sponsored by The Associated Press, but her office canceled Monday afternoon. Legislative director Marty Brown will stand in for Gregoire at the forum.

Spokesman Pearse Edwards said that Gregoire will be making an announcement Tuesday morning, and that no further information would be released before then.

Joe Turner at the News Tribune in Tacoma had much to offer on his blog, including this:

One of my sources said he couldn’t tell me where Gov. Chris Gregoire is now, but assured me she would still be my governor in March. “She’s not going to take Bill Richardson’s place as Commerce Secretary. So you can kill that story.”

We had speculated on the cabinet position, but I never thought Commerce was a fit. She had always dismissed the idea of anything in the Attorney General’s office, as had Obama’s people.

In the newsroom we wondered if her cancer was back.

Most likely, in my book, is another thing Turner offered:

Another source speculated that Gregoire has lined up a big chunck of federal money for Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct, and she’s going to announce it Tuesday. (And it would have to be a big chunk because that project keeps getting more and more expensive.)

At Monday morning’s county commissioner meeting, all three commissioners were displeased with the proposals put forward by Washington State Ferries as to how it will deal with the long-term outlook. The most recent proposal could mean Bremerton is down to one boat, night service could be eliminated there and in Kingston and passenger service will be left to locals to pay for.

Commissioner Steve Bauer said it amounts to another unfunded mandate. It’s not truly a mandate, because the state would be saying you can have the service if you want, but you’ll have to pay for it. Nonetheless, you might be hard pressed to find many on this side of the sound who think the service isn’t a critical part of the infrastructure.

New commissioner Charlotte Garrido said the state has been treating the ferry system as a “postcard,” not a critical highway element. She also faulted the state for contending it needs ferry money to pay for highway work, when ferries are technically part of the state’s highway system too.

More to come.

Looking at the earlier post with the list of how the different congressional districts, the predictable thesis that the Sixth district would be more conservative than the First bears mostly true.

On 985, 1000, Sutherland-Goldmark, Gregoire-Rossi and Obama-McCain that proved true.

Two races, I thought, were worth mentioning.

In the Bergeson-Dorn race, partisanship did not matter at all. The districts had the same result.

In the Insurance Commissioner race, I might have guessed partisanship would have played a bigger role than it did. I’ve heard some conservative displeasure with Kreidler. Overall, though, the race did not generate much heat. And when there is a referendum on the incumbent and there’s been little out there to throw him or her out, voters tend to stick with the one they know.

Thanks to Dave Ammons at the Washington Secretary of State’s office, we have information about the November General Election broken out by Congressional District. I’ll post these now, but save my own comments for later. Look at these numbers and let me know what you think is interesting about these results.

Gardner here.

I’m on vacation for the rest of this year.

Happy Holidays.

After compiling an earlier story on what the General Election told us, I received an e-mail expressing surprise that I didn’t mention how the county commissioner’s race between Democrat Charlotte Garrido and Republican Tim Matthes played out commissioner-district-by-district. The writer made the case that Garrido lost in her own district and in Central Kitsap, but won the South district seat by winning an overwhelming margin in North Kitsap and Bainbridge Island.

It is a common complaint that Kitsap County looks more liberal than it is, because voters in Bainbridge Island skew the results. While there is no question that the island tilts to the left, I question whether you can discount the results of an entire county because one part of it leans a certain direction. Islanders, much to the chagrin of some who do or don’t live on the rock, are part of this county, as much as those right-leaning folks who live in Silverdale or in South Kitsap.

George Will pointed out in a column dismissing arguments by Hillary Clinton’s supporters in the Democratic primaries — when they argued that had Democrats used the same rules as Republicans, then their candidate would have won — that rules are a “pesky nuisance.”

“She (Clinton) may think, or at least would argue, that when she was 12 her Yankees really won the 1960 World Series, by standards of “fairness,” because they trounced the Pirates in runs scored, 55-27, over seven games, so there.

Unfortunately, baseball’s rules – pesky nuisances, rules – say it matters how runs are distributed during a World Series.

The Pirates won four games, which is the point of the exercise, by a total margin of seven runs, while the Yankees were winning three by a total of 35 runs. You can look it up.”

Consider our conversations here and again over here about the Electoral College.

Nonetheless, it is an interesting question to pursue, if true that Garrido lost in the district she will now represent. It will add fuel, certainly, to those who would like to see the race for commissioner be decided more like a congressional race. In other words, you vote for your own rep to represent you against those dimwits in the other districts.

For those of you still wondering, the speculation was indeed true. Matthes won handily in the South, by a few points in the central district and lost by a ton in the North, which includes the island.

In District 2, the district making up the southern part of the county, Matthes received 53.7 percent of the vote to Garrido’s 46.3 percent.

In District 3, the central, Matthes received 52 percent to Garrido’s 48.

In the North and Bainbridge, Garrido received 56.7 percent of the vote, while Matthes received 43.3 percent.

This discussion should not occur without an exploration of voter turnout. The North district has about 7,500 more registered voters than the South district and about 8,500 more than the Central district. Turnout in the north was 89 percent. In the South and Central it was about 85 percent.

If voters in the South and Central had voted at the same rate as their fellow Kitsapers in the North and on Bainbridge, it would have narrowed the margin by about 600 votes. That wouldn’t have been enough for Matthes to win or to spark an automatic recount, but Matthes would have lost by less than a percentage point, instead of by just under 1.5 percentage points.

Matthes supporters can still argue that they lost because of the skew from the North and Bainbridge, but the case would be stronger had voters in the South shown up at the same rate those in the North and on the island did.

The county offices are closed. Snow, ice, rain, something like that.

Then again, you didn’t want to go there anyway, did you?

I”ve got at least one more post coming. It will have some interesting stuff for you politics watchers. Until then, Apollo says, “Merry Christmas.”

Kitsap County commissioners approved the county’s $328.3 million budget for 2009 today.

The final budget was 848,029 higher than the preliminary budget, largely because of higher than expected capital project funds and real estate excise tax revenues.

The budget does include lowered expectations for interest income.

The 2009 funding plan calls for pulling $1.2 million out of reserves as an “anti-recessionary measure,” said Shawn Gabriel, the county’s administrative services director.

The approval came at a Tuesday afternoon meeting that had originally been scheduled for Monday night.

Gabriel went to commissioners with a proposal before the meeting to reduce the expected fuel costs from $3 per gallon to $2.50 or $2.25 to help make up a $159,709 gap from the preliminary budget to the final one.

Josh Brown, county commissioner, said he was initially reluctant to lower the gas price to $2.25, which Gabriel said would lower the county’s budgeted cost by $141,000.

Reducing it to $2.50 is projected to knock off $96,000.

Gabriel said the board would have two options if prices rose above the benchmark set by commissioners. One would be to do a budget amendment to take more from reserves. The other would be to tell departments, with some exceptions, to live within the budgeted fuel costs.

Steve Bauer, county commissioner, cited Bremerton’s efforts to reduce consumption, “and we haven’t even talked to our departments about that.”

Other adjustments were made with the district court to make up much of the rest of the gap.

If you want to see the entire list for Democrats, go here. If you want the list of Republican committee leads, go here.

On this Page I’ve include our local reps only.

23rd
Sherry Appleton
Vice Chair: State Government and Tribal Affairs
Health and Human Services Appropriations
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Christine Rolfes
Vice Chair: Ecology and Parks
Education Appropriations
Environmental Health
Transportation

26th
Jan Angel
Local Government & Housing (ranking Republican)
(The GOP has only released the list of ranking members.)

Larry Seaquist
Early Learning and Children’s Services
Vice Chair: Health and Human Services Appropriations
Ways and Means

35th
Fred Finn
Audit Review and Oversight
Ecology and Parks
Environmental Health
Technology, Energy and Communications
Transportation

Kathy Haigh
Chair: Education Appropriations
Ways and Means

The county commissioners plan to finalize approval of the county’s budget on Tuesday. It was planned for Monday night, but you’ve seen the roads.

Word is the commissioners asked for even more cuts from each department. When it comes to money lately, it’s rare we hear much in the way of anyone having plenty.

Oregon Public Broadcasting had this from former Washington governor Gary Locke:

“I guess I’m more concerned about the fact that no one from the Pacific Northwest is going to be a member of his cabinet. We have a lot of great people here from the state of Washington and in fact the Northwest whether Oregon and Idaho.”

Locke specifically mentioned former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber and Washington Congressmen Jay Inslee and Norm Dicks.

Locke says the absence of Northwest voices on the Obama cabinet is a loss for the region.

One person I called yesterday for Friday’s state budget story was Olympic College President David Mitchell. He sent me a note saying he’d respond when he saw what the budget meant for Olympic specifically. He called back today.

Like others, the 6 percent cut in the budget did not surprise him. If anything, the surprise was pleasant. “We were bracing for much higher,” he said. Community and technical colleges made out better than the big colleges.

That, Mitchell said, was a reflection that community and technical colleges train people to get to the work that is available. “In hastening economic recovery, our mission is workforce development, getting people back to work. I think that message was really heard.”

The college has been preparing for the cuts by not rehiring where there are vacant positions. Mitchell also said the college will look at programs and make more cuts strategically, not across the board. The emphasis will be on saving programs that are in high demand and making cuts where enrollment is low.

And the school probably won’t need to cut enrollment. Those enrolled, however, will pay 5 percent more for tuition if the budget goes through as planned.

It has been requested more than once that we get the documents showing the signed agreements between the Port of Bremerton and any research institutions. I made the request and the port sent me the following documents, which are in a PDF format.

Here’s one.

Here’s another.

The News-Tribune expounded on an item from Roll Call that painted an unflattering picture of U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair. They’re saying he had “a snit fit last week when the cafeteria in the Longworth House Office Building ran out of wheat bread.”

The governor will introduce the state budget at 9:30 a.m. It will be televised on TVW.

Political geeks are like baseball geeks, always examining numbers to try to find the juicy nuggets on which to make some kind of prediction.

The Democratic leaning site Swing State Project has an entry looking at Washington legislative districts, measuring whether they are more Democratic or Republican than the national average. The 26th District gets an “R+1″ because it voted 1 percent more Republican than the rest of the country in the presidential election. Obama still won in the district, but it was closer there than it was in the rest of the country.

Meanwhile the 23rd District was 6 points more Democratic than the country and the 35th District was even.

The blog’s authors found something in the 26th to be worth noting.

Democrats will also be defending two senate freshmen in 2010 in districts that have an R+ PVI (although that Obama won): Derek Kilmer in the 26th and Chris Marr in the 6th. These are the two districts where the GOP picked up Democratic-held open House seats, so these races will bear watching.

Photo from the capitol Monday. (STEVEN GARDNER | KITSAP SUN)

On Monday my employer graciously allowed me to go witness and cover the electoral college process at the state capitol. In it I witnessed everything related to it. They didn’t fill the room, which represents most everyone’s concern or lack of concern about the event. The mood depends largely on what happened on Nov. 4 and whether the people in the room are voting for the winner or the loser. Finally, you have a mix of supporters and non-supporters, even among the electors, reflecting the mix of emotions there are broadly about the process.

You can see video done by The Olympian. In that piece is a legislator who wants Washington’s electors to vote in proportion with the national popular vote. The story from the Olympian also shows that at least one elector wants the electoral college eliminated.

Americans generally have mixed feelings about the electoral college. If you see the comments following my story, you see Tom Rosendale supporting a plan that would allocate electors based on how voters in their districts went. That idea is discussed here on a site that supports a national popular vote. The site is against the congressional plan, but includes information I was looking for, namely what would have happened in 2000 and 2004. Bush still would have won, by bigger margins.

It seems that any change is designed to ensure that the electoral college better reflects the popular vote. The change Washington legislators are proposing would have states allocating electors based on the national numbers. If we went to that, though, why wouldn’t we just go to the popular vote anyway, rather than adopting something that only cosmetically leaves the electoral college in place.

The Associated Press reports:

And while it wasn’t officially announced, a transition official said Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado was Obama’s choice to run the Interior Department, which oversees oil and gas drilling on public lands and manages the nation’s parks and wildlife refuges. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting Obama’s announcement.

State Rep. Sherry Appleton, D-Poulsbo, filed a bill for the upcoming legislation that would allow those with no-contact orders against them to be able to get a discharge order if they who have done their time and paid their fines. What that would do is give back voting rights and jury service rights back to people who have committed misdemeanor acts, she said. Those who have committed class B or C felonies already have this right, she said. This bill would extend it to those who have committed lesser crimes.

The bill reads:

The legislature finds that restoration of the right to vote and serve on a jury, for individuals who have satisfied every other obligation of their sentence, best serves to reintegrate them into society, even if a no-contact order exists. Therefore, the legislature further finds clarification of the existing statute is desirable to provide clarity to the courts that a certificate of discharge shall be issued, while the no-contact order remains in effect, once other obligations are completed.

Appleton also filed a bill that would move the February special election date from the first Tuesday to the second and would reduce the deadline to file for a special election from 52 days to 45. It would also remove special elections from March and May. That bill would also strike the election from being held on the same day as the presidential primary in presidential election years.

She also has a bill to exempt some security plans for civil detainment from public records requests. She said this bill is so inmates can’t make public records requests to know how law enforcement officials would try to capture them should they escape.