OLYMPIA — The Legislature starts the second half of the special session with the pace it maintained through most of the first half… if standing still can be said to be a pace.

While much of the rest of the state returns from its three-day weekend, legislators have at least a four day weekend. There is nothing on their schedules in or around the Capitol. The Senate has a pro forma session — where a couple of members are on the floor for a brief run-through of routine business — at noon Wednesday. The House may have a session on Thursday.

It's likely there will be more politicians in Spokane today than in Olympia.

Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell each have public events — Murray's is on early childhood education and Cantwell's is on an item of the farm bill that helps farmers and school nutrition programs — and state Rep. Marcus Riccelli and state Sen. Andy Billig are joining a group at the Health District Building to talk about the recent ricin investigation.

Remember how Congress moved almost like greased lightning to keep stop the slowdown in commercial flights that the sequester was going to cause?

And remember how the jaded among you said that was just because they were getting to leave on recess, and didn't want to face delays as they flew home for the break?

Well, turns out there's some dough left from the money the FAA moved around to keep air traffic controllers off furlough, and it's going to help the little airports like Felts Field. And gee, they almost never fly into the little airports…at least not outside of campaign season.

Read more inside the blog.

WASHINGTON — Powerful Congressional voices on transportation issues, including Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, admonished the Federal Aviation Administration for plans to shutter control towers nationwide as a result of federal spending cuts, including Spokane’s tower at Felts Field.

 Cantwell joined six of her colleagues on Capitol Hill to sign a letter insisting the agency look at other options to comply with mandated federal spending cuts. The signees warn the closures, which would hit 149 towers under contract with the FAA, could have air safety ramifications that have not yet been looked at closely.

 “It is deeply troubling that the agency seems intent on proceeding with the closure of key air traffic control assets absent adequate safety data and study,” the legislators wrote in a letter delivered to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA Administrator Michael Huerta on Thursday.

 The Felts Field tower was scheduled to close April 7, but the FAA delayed those plans until June 15. The Senate Commerce Committee plans to hold a hearing next week to press officials on the affect federal budget cuts would have on air safety. Huerta will be among those testifying.

 Cantwell was among several Commerce Committee members who signed the letter, along with Committee Chairman Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.

Sen. Maria Cantwell will be the chairwoman of the Indian Affairs Committee in the new Congress.

Democrats announced their expected committee assignments for next year, which are essentially done deals for everything but a pro forma vote at the beginning of the session. Cantwell has been a member of Indian Affairs since coming to the Senate in 2001, and will be taking over that panel, as well as remaining on Commerce, Science and Transportation; Energy and Natural Resources; Finance; and Small Business and Entrepreneurship. 

She will be the first woman to lead the Indian Affairs Committee. Washington has more than three dozen tribes within its borders, although not all are federally recognized.

Democrat Maria Cantwell easily won a third term in the U.S. Senate in the statewide vote, but is running only slightly ahead of Republican Mike Baumgartner in Spokane County. If trends hold, Baumgartner's home county would be the only Eastern Washington County she carries.

Click here for a look at the statewide map.

For a closer look at the Spokane County map, click on the PDF document below

Documents:

One of the dozens of e-mails in today's Inbox had this tantalizing subject line: “Cantwell/Baumgartner tied in Social Media Buzz”

A nice person from a public relations firm said she had some data on that race that might interest us: “According to a new media index from Temple University and LexisNexis, Maria Cantewell and Michael Baumgartner are in one of the tightest races in the country. The candidates are tied in social media buzz, as well as print and broadcast media mentions of the candidates.”

Wha-what?? as Scooby Doo might say.

To read the rest of this item, or to comment, go inside the blog.

About 150 gathered for U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s campaign rally this evening in Spokane at the Lincoln Center.

There wasn’t much we haven’t heard on the trail before, so here are a few miscellaneous thoughts:

— The Democrats appear enthused about the race for Congress. Sure, it’s still somewhat of long-shot for them and Democrat Rich Cowan did not come near to raising the $1 million he said was his goal when he began his campaign for the seat in Washington’s 5th Congressional District.

But he’s not Daryl Romeyn, who was the party’s nominee two years ago and who was not embraced by the party. Cowan has raised enough to advertise on TV and he even got a mention recently in the Capital Hill newspaper, Roll Call.

Joe Biden and Paul Ryan aren't the only debate on the schedule tonight for Washington voters.

In a sense, they are the opening act for Jay Inslee and Rob McKenna, who will debate in Seattle at 9 p.m. (Although some people might argue the governor's debate is more like the second movie at the drive-in double feature, the one many people don't bother to stay up to watch all the way to the end. But it's all about personal preferences.)

The debate is such a huge deal in Seattle that it is on most of the city's broadcast stations, and most are supplying a moderator or questioner to the show. In Spokane, KREM-TV is carrying it.

Ryan v. Biden is a 90 minute event, which starts at 6 p.m. local time. McKenna v. Inslee is scheduled for 60 minutes.

Speaking of debates, what is likely to be the only debate of the U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Maria Cantwell and Republican challenger Mike Baumgartner occurs Friday, also in Seattle at KCTS-TV, the public television studio. The Spokesman-Review will be there for same day coverage on the web and print coverage the next morning. It will air in Spokane next Tuesday, on KSPS-TV, channel 7.

The folks at KSPS worked mightily to bring a second Senate debate to Spokane, but the Cantwell people have so far only agreed to one debate, total.

There's a precedent for Cantwell agreeing to a late debate in Spokane. That happened in 2000, in her run against incumbent Slade Gorton, when no one was sure until the last minute whether she'd appear at a Rotary-sponsored debate. Her campaign said no, then it said yes, but she almost didn't make it because fog was delaying flights that morning at Spokane International Airport.

If something similar happens this year, it may not appear on the tube. Late commitments are hard to work into a television schedule.

Washington Democrats got together recently to give out awards, and the prize for “Rising Star” went to former legislative and congressional aide Marcus Riccelli, a current candidate for the state House of Representatives.

One might think that Democrats might want to hold off on proclaiming stardom until Riccelli actually beat Republican Tim Benn for that seat — imagine something akin to the political equivalent of the Sports Illustrated cover jinx — but apparently they believe the 3rd Legislative District is blue enough that winning the primary makes him a sure bet in November.

To mark the occasion, two of his former bosses, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and state Sen. Lisa Brown, performed a Saturday Night Live “Weekend Update” style tribute to Riccelli. While it has a few good lines and cute bits — notice the big map behind them is a state map — it makes clear that Cantwell and Brown should not quit their day jobs.

But wait a minute. Brown actually did quit her day job as Senate Majority leader, and the dominoes that fell, with Rep. Andy Billig running for her seat created the opening that Riccelli is trying to fill. So cancel that. Let's just say that when Brown figures out her next career, it probably won't be in standup comedy.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell raised more than three times as much money for her re-election campaign in the last quarter as her Republican challenger, state Sen. Mike Baumgartner, raised in his effort to unseat her.

The Cantwell campaign reported last week she had raised more than $1 million in the three-month reporting period that ended Sept. 30. That brought her total to about $11.5 million for this election cycle, and she has about $2 million on-hand for the last five weeks of the campaign.

The Baumgartner campaign said today he had raised almost $312,000 in that same three-month cycle, which would bring his total contributions for the campaign to slighly over $1 million. Totals for expenses aren't yet available, a campaign spokeswoman said.

The two U.S. Senate candidates are scheduled to  debate on Friday at the studios of Seattle's public television station, KCTS-TV. The debate will be taped, and will air in Spokane on KSPS-TV, Channel 7, on Oct. 16, after the second presidential debate. It's the only debate in the U.S. Senate race scheduled thus far.

Early last week, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Mike Baumgartner may have raised some eyebrows by endorsing I-502, the ballot measure that would legalize marijuana for adults in Washington. Later in the week he offered up another surprise.

He backed a tax increase. Seriously. A Republican. Not making this up.

Baumgartner said he would support a 1 cent per gallon tax on gasoline, provided the money went to a special fund for veterans care. The Spokane Republican made the statement after a visit to Joint Base Lewis McChord’s Madigan Medical Center, and said would help ensure returning troops get the care they need.

“Equally important, this small tax will remind each and every American every time they fill up at the pump there is still a war going on with nearly 70,000 troops in harm’s way,” he said. “War isn’t free.”
With the way the price of gas fluctuates these days, drivers might not notice an extra penny. But the no-new-tax crowd probably would. He may get a nasty-gram from them.

Maybe he’ll get a chance to talk about it later this week in the one debate he has scheduled with Democratic incumbent Maria Cantwell. That debate will air Oct. 16 on KSPS-TV.
  

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell's re-election campaign was crowing about two bits of good news for her:

Federal Election Commission reports filed this week showed she raised more than $1 million fo the third quarter of this campaign year. And a new poll by Rasmussen Reports shows her with a 20-point lead over Republican challenger Mike Baumgartner.

Rasmussen also has President Obama up by 11 points over Republican challenger Mitt Romney, and Washington's gubernatorial race in a virtual dead heat, with Democrat Jay Inslee at 46 percent and Republican Rob McKenna at 45 percent. (Editor's note: Earlier versions of this post had the numbers for the governor's race reversed.)

A spokeswoman for the Baumgartner campaign says they expect to have a figure for third quarter contributions by Friday.

State Sen. Mike Baumgartner, who is running for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Maria Cantwell, today announced support for a state initiative that would legalize marijuana for personal use in Washington.

The Spokane Republican said it was time for a new approach to the nation's drug policy, and called Initiative 502 a “thoughtful step forward.” Time spent as an advisor to a counternarcotics team in Afghanistan convinced him that drug cartels are gaining from the United States approach to criminalizing marijuana for adults, he added.

“By failing to regulate and tax marijuana in a responsible manner, we are allowing billions of dollars to flow into their coffers,” he said. “And American lives are put in danger at  home and abroad.”

Cantwell supports the state’s medical marijuana law, which is already in conflict with federal drug regulations, but said she does not support I-502. In a statement released by her campaign, she said it should not be “legalized for recreational purposes based on concerns from law enforcement”.

“Whatever the result, I will honor the will of the voters’ decision in November,” she said.

Baumgartner said the states should have more independence to experiment with drug laws. . .

To read the rest of this post, click here to go inside the blog.

Break out the giant scissors. We're having a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the North Spokane Corridor.

Make that another ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Today at 11 a.m., the powers that be will be holding a “Celebration of Progress” for the much-discussed roadway, a thoroughfare so deeply ingrained in the Spokane mythos that Mike Lowry once said that the oldest politician was the one who could claim the oldest date when he first made a speech mentioning what was then called the North-South freeway.

The celebration is to mark the opening of the northern half of the corridor. So that would be the North North Spokane Corridor, presumably.

This being an election year, the celebration will include politicians, including Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who disagree on many things, but not on whether the roadway deserves federal money.

It's at 11 a.m., where the corridor intersects with Parksmith Road. For directions, go inside the blog. (One interesting thing to note in the directions: “The event cannot be reached from the North Spokane Corridor. You must use Market Street.)

Let's hope the scissors have been sharpened, because nothing ruins a good photo op like a ribbon that refuses to be cut.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell will debate her Republican challenger, state Sen. Mike Baumgartner, at least once this fall.

The Cantwell campaign announced it has agreed to an Oct. 12 debate in Seattle at KCTS, the public television station. It will be taped, and shown on other public television stations around the state. The station and the League of Women Voters of Seattle, which are co-sponsoring the debate, will each provide a moderator.

Up to this point, the Cantwell campaign had been, to say the least, noncommittal about debates. She'd do some unspecified number, at some unspecified time, her spokesman said last month.

This, of course, has frustrated the Baumgartner campaign, whose candidate once proposed a debate in each of Washington's 39 counties, but later pared down the challenge to 10, spread around the state.

The Cantwell campaign remains noncommittal about more debates, saying in the announcement press release it “continues to review a number of outstanding invitation” but insists it is happy to fit the Seattle debate into her busy schedule.

“While Senator Cantwell's  focus remains squarely on fighting to pass legislation like the Veterans Job Corps Act and an extension of the sales tax deduction, she looks forward to discussing her record of tireless advocacy for Washington jobs, from apples to aerospace, along with her vision ot grow jobs and boost Washington exports in the future,” spokesman Kelly Steele said.

Baumgartner has something else in mind besides some salutory comments about Cantwell's “tireless advocacy.”  Responding to the fact that she had finally “conceded that she has a responsibility to Washington's voters” to debate, he suggested in a press release the debate start on another area: foreign policy.

“She needs to explain her record in the Middle East and her support of the war in Afghanistan,” he said.

Baumgartner is still pushing for more debates, but with days falling off the calendar toward the Election, he's winnowed it down to a total of three: one in Spokane and one in Southwest Washington to go with the Seattle debate.

Flag placed in a name of a victim of the 9/11 attacks at the Ground Zero memorial in New York.

Sept. 11 is traditionally a day for politicians to reflect on their thoughts and remembrances of that day in 2001.

Today was no different. Inside the blog are some comments from local office holders about the day. You can read them by clicking here.

Some people think Clint Eastwood's 12-minute schtick with an empty chair at last week's Republican National Convention was great theater. Others think it was bizarro sad.

Your opinion may depend on your political leanings.

Republican Mike Baumgartner, the state senator from Spokane hoping to  unseat U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, is apparently a fan. So much so that his campaign is staging its own Eastwood moment on Friday, announcing that Baumgartner will debate an empty chair at  the Spokane Republicans Breakfast Club.

Baumgartner has been frustrated for months at Cantwell's refusal to commit to debates. At one point, he proposed one debate per county, which would be 39; he has since lowered the number to 10. Last week, her campaign said they would debate, but declined to say when, where or how many times.

So at 7 a.m. Friday at the Riverview Thai Restaurant, 1003 E. Trent, he will debate an empty chair, the campaign announced this morning.

“Participating in a debate during an election campaign is a civic duty of a public servant. It is admirable this empty chair is willing to serve the voters of Washington so graciously and without hesitation,” Baumgartner said in a press release.

This strategy is not without risks, of course. Suppose, for example, the empty chair were to win the debate?

Democrat Rich Cowan and Republican Mike Baumgartner seem to have a shared problem of getting the incumbents they want to unseat to debate with them as many times as they want. Or at all.

Cowan, who is running for the U.S. House of Representatives against Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers, proposed 10 debates, one in each county for Eastern Washington's 5th Congressional District. McMorris Rodgers agreed to two, both in Spokane. One would be sponsored by Greater Spokane Inc., the other by KSPS-TV, which has handled a 5th District debate for years, even in those elections when no one else cared to.

Baumgartner has proposed 39 debates, one in each county of Washington state, against Democrat Maria Cantwell. So far, Cantwell hasn't agreed to any, although there are several invitations pending.

In replying to Cowan's letter requesting 10 debates, McMorris Rodgers used Cantwell as her leverage in accepting two: “I contemplated following the lead of our junior senator and only schedule debates with my opponent when she has scheduled debates with hers.”

But folks in Eastern Washingo deserve to hear a discussion of the issues, so she was agreeing to the GSI and KSPS invitations. “Additionally, if you are able to encourage Senator Cantwell to debate Mr. Baumgartner in all 39 counties, I would be happy to debate you in all 10 counties located in the 5th Congressional District. We could arrange our debates in tandem with senate debates as well.”

A spokesman for the Cantwell campaign said she has dozens of invitations for a variety of forums, debates and editorial boards, as well as “a large chunk of September” that will be taken up by the Senate's work schedule.

“We will debate,” Kelly Steele  said, but there's no commitment at this time on how many times, when or where. That will likely become clear in early September, he added.

This leaves us at Spin Control pondering the question of which is stranger: Ten debates in Eastern Washington, which would essentially be one a week between now and the election? 39 debates across the state, which would essentially  be one every other day between now and the election? Or one candidate conditioning her debate schedule on her opponent convincing a candidate for another office to debate an opponent of another party?

Feel free to weigh in, in the comment section.

U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers has decided to debate her Democratic opponent twice before the November election.

After this month's primary, Democrat Rich Cowan challenged McMorris Rodgers to debate him in each of the 5th Congressional District's 10 counties. After her town hall meeting on Thursday in Spokane, McMorris Rodgers said that she responded to Cowan in writing by agreeing to his request - but only if Washington's Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell agrees to debate her Republican rival in all 39 of Washington's counties.

So, in orther words, her answer was no — though it's worth noting that her decision to debate twice is twice as many as she agreed to in 2010.

OLYMPIA — U.S. Senate candidate Mike Baumgartner said Wednesday he never apologized to a Seattle reporter for suggesting the reporter “(bleep)” himself, even though his campaign released a statement Tuesday quoting the Spokane Republican doing just that.

“It went out before I'd seen it,” Baumgartner said of the press release that contains a direct quote of him offering an apology to Josh Feit of PubliCola. Later that day, Baumgartner told a Seattle television station he wasn't apologizing.

Campaign staffers said there was an “internal glitch” in communication in preparing the press release.

In a phone interview with The Spokesman-Review, Baumgartner attempted to clarify the on-again, off-again apology to Feit over an e-mail the candidate sent the reporter on Monday night after a question-and-answer item appeared on the Seattle-based blog.

The item was an expansion of Baumgartner's position on abortion for rape victims, coming on the heels of a Missouri Senate candidate's comments over the weekend that women rarely get pregnant from a “legitimate rape.” Baumgartner called U.S. Rep. Todd Akin's comments ignorant and inexcusable, as he had in an earlier press release issued that day. The blog item noted that Baumgartner also opposes abortion in cases of rape. He said he believes rape victims should be treated with compassion and empathy, but that life begins at conception so he opposes abortion on those grounds. Extremists on the abortion rights side of the debate are not questioned about their positions on late term abortions or blocking parental notification, he added.

The article went on to quote Baumgartner as saying his campaign isn't about the culture wars but about jobs and ending the war in Afghanistan. That tracked with comment in the campaign's press release on the Akin comment, that he wished everyone would “call a truce in the culture wars and get back to finding real solutions needed to balance our budget and create real job growth.”

Late Monday, Baumgartner sent Feit an e-mail with a picture of him standing next to a Navy SEAL who had recently been killed in Afghanistan. He suggested Feit “take a good look and then go (bleep) yourself”, using an all-too-common Anglo-Saxon word.

Feit posted the photo and e-mail's contents on PubliCola.

Baumgartner said he considered the e-mail personal and a followup to an ongoing personal discussion he'd had with Feit about Afghanistan. Feit wrote that's not the case, that the Afghan war comments came during an on-the-record conversation about the Akin situation, which was “the news of the day.”

 By late Tuesday afternoon, the Baumgartner campaign was clearly scrambling to put out an official response to the back and forth. His spokeswoman sent out a press release quoting Baumgartner as apologizing to Feit. It also said he believed the news media don't want to talk about the men and women being killed in Afghanistan and Cantwell's stance on the war.

Baumgartner later told KIRO-TV on camera that he wasn't apologizing, and that Feit had it coming.

Spokeswoman Jami Herring said Wednesday the campaign discussed a range of responses that included an apology for the strong language. Asked if Baumgartner saw the press release with a direct quote from him before it went out, she replied “We thought he had, apparently he did not. We got the quote wrong.”

Herring and Campaign manager Dan Bisbee called the press release “an internal glitch.”

In an interview Wednesday, Baumgartner repeated his contention that the news media isn't spending enough time holding members of Congress from both parties responsible for backing poor strategy on the war in Afghanistan. He believes the initial decision to invade Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was correct, but more recent expansions of the war are the wrong strategy and the United States should withdraw troops from the country as soon as possible.