Tag Archives: Washington Legislature

Updated — Chinese flag on Washington capitol campus

On Friday some activists got on their iPhones and agreed that on Saturday they’d throw on their Wolverine work boots to beat tracks down to Olympia to protest the “communist” Chinese flag flying on the capitol campus.

I first learned of the controversy from a Facebook thread started by Mason County Republican Party Chairman Travis Couture, who asked, “So can someone please explain to me why the hell we are flying a communist Chinese flag at our capitol? (Rhetorical) We cant have a ‘Christmas’ tree or a Gadson flag but we can have a communist flag?”

As for the tree question, that call is made by the Association of Washington Business, because it’s their tree and it’s part of a fundraiser they’ve been doing for kids for 26 years, according to this story from the (Spokane) Spokesman-Review.

Gateway Pundit and Fox News declared that “patriots” removed the flag.

The governor’s office answered that the flag was up because there was a delegation visiting from China and that the flag was removed after they left. The same was done earlier this year when delegations from Austria and Finland were here. On Monday the flag of Scotland was raised in honor of Tartan Day.

The video in one of the links above shows the flag being lowered, with a couple of Gadsden-flag bearing witnesses and a voice on one of the videos saying, “This is what happens when America speaks.” That the activists had anything to do with the flag’s removal is questionable, but not completely clear to me. First of all, it looks to me that the state staff removed it, not some roving gang of patriots. The guy has a specific tool to lower the thing. It all looks quite orderly. Jaime Smith, a spokeswoman for the governor, said it was state personnel that removed it. But she also told Huffington Post, “Our state’s Department of Enterprise Services was going to lower the flag shortly after that anyway.” The “anyway” in that statement makes me wonder if even if the protesters didn’t remove it themselves, if the lowering was expedited by the complaints. She clarified in an email to me later that, “The flag would have been lowered anyhow, was my point to HuffPo.”

China makes products we use, like boots, phones, most of our shoes, other clothing and even, according to one Amazon reviewer, Gadsden flags. (That’s the one with the snake and the “Don’t Tread on Me” mantra.) We as a nation also owe China, or the Chinese, a lot of money. I can’t argue whether it’s a good idea to fly any other nation’s flag at our capitol campus, but if you’re going to, how do you decide which nation to exclude?

And obviously I don’t know what kind of phones the protesters use or the boots they wore, but they might want to check the labels, even on those flags.

UPDATE: I asked state officials from the governor’s office and from the Department of Enterprise Services some additional info. Some on Facebook are asking about flag protocol.

Smith sent me a list of other nations’ flags that have flown in the same place for the same reasons. Here they are.

Austria 2015
Finland 2015
Germany 2014
Peru 2014
United Kingdom 2014
Japan 2013 and 2014
India 2013
Italy 2013
Canada 2013

We also received a detailed explanation from Smith on the flag’s placement and the criteria for when a foreign flag gets raised.

“We fly the flag of a foreign country in the Flag Circle when a high level government representative of a country recognized by our government meets with a statewide official. Countries like Iran and North Korea are not recognized and we would not fly their national flag under any circumstance.

“The US government formally recognizes countries. A state does not. In 1980 the United States formally recognized the People’s Republic of China.

“International flag standards and the flag code of the United States specifically state that the flags of sovereign nations need to be flown from separate staffs and at equal height. No national flag should be higher than any other national flag. State flags and banners are different.

“When the US and other national flags are flown together, the U.S. flag should be in the position of honor and to the right of other flags. We orient our flags to the north steps of the Legislative building as the prominent feature of the most significant building. So looking at the flags from the steps, the U.S. flag is always to the right and a foreign flag is to its left. If you look at the flags from the Temple of Justice, however, it looks backwards. The flags have been oriented in this way for more than 20 years. With the flags in the conference room they are oriented to whomever is speaking at the podium, so to the speaker’s right, but audience’s left.”

Regarding the lowering of the flag, I’ve got a second person saying it was state staff that removed the flag during a normal course of duty. Linda Kent from DES sent the following.

“DES received an email Friday afternoon from the Governor’s office informing us that the Chinese ambassador had departed, and that the flag could be taken down. The email also contained a reminder that the Scottish flag should be put up by Monday morning.

“In the past, there has not been a specific time frame for flags to come down. Basically the building and grounds crew works the changing of flags in between other duties on the Capitol Campus.”

I agree with one critic who said we have bigger issues to worry about. My reason for diving in has much to do with Fox News’ coverage, which was shown Monday on the show “Fox and Friends.” The coverage obviously involves no original reporting and seems to rely solely on the accounts offered on sites like Gateway Pundit. Somehow I expect more from the news organization with the tagline “Fair & Balanced,” and the one that can legitimately brag that it is the most trusted news network in the nation.

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Linking teacher pay to legislator pay to boost science instruction and overall teacher pay – updated

A bill that would link elementary school science teacher pay to what Washington legislators earn got a Tweet from the News Tribune’s Jordan Schrader and a short mention in Crosscut, but nothing more. Why? One reason is because there is no way the bill will pass, and the bill’s author acknowledges as much.

State Rep. Larry Seaquist, D-Gig Harbor, introduced House Bill 2655, “Setting the salaries for members of the legislature,” on Jan. 23. The bill would require the Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials to set legislator pay at the same level as the “average elementary school science teacher.”

Right away, there is one problem with the language of the bill. Technically there is no such thing as an “elementary school science teacher.” Patty Glaser, Bremerton School District spokeswoman, said elementary school teachers certify as generalists. There is another issue that Central Kitsap School District spokesman David Beil pointed out, that because of declining enrollment the district hasn’t been hiring any teachers in any discipline.

All that aside, Seaquist introduced the bill to make a point. He said there has been an impetus to “start kids sooner in science.” So he is looking at, for example, a Central Washington University graduate with a bachelor’s degree in education, but then a master’s degree in something like biology, as a good fit in an elementary school. “We want to go in the direction of highly qualified technical teachers, bringing real science to schools,” he said. “We all know we want to go there.”

One problem, he said, is the pay the state and local districts offer teachers.

The average pay for a fresh-out-of college teacher with just a bachelor’s degree is $34,188, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Add that master’s degree and the average starting pay jumps to $41,716. That’s not far from what legislators receive, $42,106 for what is technically a part-time job. But Seaquist points out that a legislator who lives more than 35 miles away from the capitol is also entitled to a $90 day per diem to handle living-away-from-home expenses.

Seaquist makes the additional point that even the near $42,000 starting teachers with master’s degree make does not compare with what they would make in the private sector. I used an automated salary calculator on payscale.com to come up with an estimate that a brand new research scientist would be paid $55,000 annually right out of college. That same program estimated the pay would be around $80,000 after five years.

When I first talked to Seaquist he was clear his bill wouldn’t pass, but that it would get a hearing. And that’s what he wants most, for legislators to be compelled to talk about teachers’ salaries.

“What I’m trying to do is add to the weight of the argument that we have to be fully funding our schools, as the court says,” Seaquist said. “I’m really concerned that the Legislature is not standing up to fully respond to the court’s order.”

That order comes from the Washington Supreme Court’s McCleary decision, which declared that the state was not fully funding education as it was constitutionally required to do. The court gave the Legislature until 2018 to reach full funding and in mid-January determined that the Legislature’s first attempt to get there in 2013 was too small a step.

Seaquist would not limit the pay discussion to science teachers, but did so in this bill to illustrate how people with skills that are in high demand are underpaid in Washington schools. “I’m using the example of these high-demand, much-in-need teachers to point out that all of our teachers are underpaid,” he said.

UPDATE: Seaquist wrote to say he has asked the committee chairman to not schedule a hearing on the bill. He said he was mindful of the “rapidly growing workload” of the committee and asked it to be pulled.

Nonetheless, there are still two points he would make, and I’ll quote, “… a) our teachers are underpaid and b) we are having a hard time recruiting elementary school teachers with subject matter expertise, especially in the science and math areas. Although the school district gave you the technical answer “we don’t have elementary science teachers” the fact is that we are rapidly moving to STEM education in our elementary schools and these hands-on, research Master’s degree teachers are very valuable. I visited last summer at CWU’s ed school where they are developing new approaches to developing these teachers.”

So while the current reality is that elementary school teachers are generalists, Seaquist believes there will be a call for more elementary school teachers with a science background of some kind. This bill was designed to get legislators discussing that, even if he never expected it to pass.

And to answer one question, this is not the first time I’ve seen a legislator propose a bill knowing full well it would not pass. Talking about things is some of what legislators are paid to do. A bill can be akin to an idea in a brainstorming session, something that doesn’t get accepted on its face, but can be the spark for the ultimate solution.

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Your legislator voted

This week Washingtonvotes.org issued its “Missed Votes” report. In the past we’ve had legislators miss votes for health reasons. A few years back one legislator — state Rep. William Eickmeyer, D-Belfair — had back pain so bad he’d lie on his back in his office and wait to hear from House Speaker Frank Chopp if he needed a vote.

Most votes are not close, as illustrated here. When this report comes out each year we all look at the sheer numbers, but it’s also good to look at the margins on each vote. That’s why on the chart below you’ll see the closest vote each legislator missed.

Those with double-digit misses on the list of the 10 Kitsap legislators during the most recent session were because of multiple votes on single days the legislators missed. Many of Sherry Appleton’s misses were at a time when her mother died or she was attending her mother’s memorial services. Jan Angel only missed votes during a special session in May 2011. Kathy Haigh’s misses were in April 2011.

Not one missed vote would have changed the ultimate outcome. In some parts that’s because legislative leaders know better than to allow a vote when the outcome is in doubt.

Here is the graphic of Kitsap Legislators during the 2011-12 legislative session.

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A glimpse at the effort

Chris Dunagan’s story about the Legislature’s help with cutting the cost of the purchase of 7,000 acres in North Kitsap has behind it a tremendous lobbying effort taken on by legislators and citizens just to get the bill heard in the state Senate.

Those involved shared e-mails. Someone shared with us the exchanges of e-mails and I’ve done the work to pretty much show them to you in the order they happened. I took out the names of the 67 people who were CC’d on the e-mails, in large part because we would love to continue receiving e-mails like this in the future if someone finds a string that illustrates a story like this. I found out a couple of years ago that legislator e-mails are not public record. There are local officials in the mix here, so all these e-mails would be public record, if you’re interested in doing a record request through the county or city of Poulsbo.

We’re including the e-mails to tell a story of what was happening behind the scenes, the events illustrated in the following part of Dunagan’s story:

Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, said the bill got hung up because it appeared to affect only a small group. But, with the clock winding down, lobbyists from timber companies, environmental groups and local governments joined together, along with many local supporters. They pushed Senate leaders to move the bill to a vote, which was unanimous in the Senate after only one dissenting vote in the House.

“It took teamwork,” Rolfes said, “but it was very easy to say that everyone wants this.”

Jon Rose, who is spearheading the land deal for Pope Resources, said the legislation shows how people can make things happen when they need to.

“This was one of the best examples of a diverse group of Kitsap County residents coming together for a positive result,” he said, “and I would like to see more of it.”

The evidence follows.

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Democrat makes bid for Angel’s seat

A Gig Harbor teacher announced she is running for the Legislature in the 26th District and will challenge Jan Angel for her seat. Karin Ashabraner, a Democrat who teaches U.S. History to 8th graders, made the announcement Wednesday.

The Position Two race is expected to be a rematch between Larry Seaquist, the Democratic incumbent, and Doug Richards, a South Kitsap fire captain.

Ashabraner’s press release follows.

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