Spin Control: Ancient history and modern lawmaking

OLYMPIA – Slogging through stories of budgets and taxes, the average reader might think Olympia is a dreary, humorless place. Some days it is about as gray as the fog that rolls up from the South Puget Sound.

But not always. Take last week’s House Judiciary Committee debate on a bill to allow you to sue someone who gains unauthorized access to your webcam and watches you doing something without your permission. Serious stuff, to be sure, but committee staff took the extra step of explaining a key computer term for software that makes such misbehavior possible, a Trojan horse.

“The term is derived from the story of the wooden horse used to trick defenders of Troy into taking concealed warriors into their city,” the bill analysis – obviously written by someone who knows Homer isn’t just a character on “The Simpsons” – said in explaining how such malware gets into someone’s computer.

Good job at providing historical context, Rep. Brady Walkinshaw, D-Seattle, said before the committee gave it a unanimous vote and moved on to the next bill, which involved a delay in returning firearms that have been seized by police.

“I’d like to take the Judiciary Committee back to the Peloponnesian War, if I may, for a second,” Rep. Matt Shea, R-Spokane Valley, said in raising objection to that bill. “The lesson learned out of that is that things can change very quickly.”

Some might argue the lesson was how to spell Peloponnesian. For those a bit shaky on Ancient Greek history, that was the war between Athens and Sparta some 2,500 years ago. Same general area as the Trojan War; quite a bit later.

On voting registration

Last week’s column about Oregon’s new law that automatically registers residents as voters when they get or renew a driver’s license prompted some readers to conclude Spin Control is against more voters.

To be clear, we’re opposed to finding ways of registering more voters who have so little interest in voting they won’t take advantage of already easy steps to register, just for the sake of saying the state has registered more voters. Some will vote, several readers pointed out. If that’s the gold standard, Washington could say anyone who isn’t registered could show up at the county elections office on Election Day, show proof of citizenship and residence, and get a ballot.

Not suggesting that’s the way to go, as merely mentioning such a plan might cause Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton to call and question my sanity.

The Legislature is considering a bill to make voter registration a bit easier, matching the deadline for online sign-up and the deadline for in-person sign-up at 11 days out from the election, which provides ample time for processing the registration. That’s a reasonable idea.

That bill and some other tweaks to the electoral system were heard last week in the Senate Government Operations Committee. Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, wanted to know when was the last time the state prosecuted someone for registering to vote when they weren’t eligible, which is a felony. Not in anyone’s memory, elections officials said; they don’t question eligibility unless another voter files a challenge, which is rare.

The only way to fix that is to wipe the voter rolls clean and have everyone show proof of citizenship when they go to re-register, said Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn. “I don’t think it’s going to pass in this Legislature.”

Nor should it. Ever.

Say what

“Being weird has never stopped us from passing a bill,” House Judiciary Chairwoman Laurie Jinkins said, countering a suggestion that the Patent Troll Prevention Act should be rejected.

Rep. Drew Hansen hadn’t objected to regulating against mythical creatures, but argued that the bill was weird because the lawsuits it would allow for bad-faith claims about patent infringement were covered by federal law and could already be handled by consumer protection standards. The bill passed out of committee 12-1, with only Hansen voting no.

Coming this week

The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee will hold a hearing Monday on House proposals to raise the minimum wage to $12 by 2019 and require most businesses to offer sick and safe leave. Expect a showdown between parties, business and labor groups, conservatives and progressives. In other words, a standard debate over a hike in wages.

The House Appropriations Committee holds a hearing Monday on Democrats’ $38.8 billion operating budget for 2015-17, with a likely committee vote Tuesday and a floor debate later in the week. The Republican-dominated Majority Coalition Caucus is expected to release its counter spending plan later in the week.

Gov. Jay Inslee will take action on the WSU med school bill in the first half of the week, then will be in Eastern Washington on Thursday.