Editorial

On Tuesday, just a few hours before Edward M. Kennedy died, one of his Senate friends and occasional allies was meeting with constituents at a town hall meeting across the country in Sun City, Ariz. The audience’s admiration for John McCain was unmistakable. They nodded. They applauded. They voiced support, and they listened attentively – as long as McCain was detailing the flaws of President Barack Obama’s health care reform plan.

Residents of the Pacific Northwest can be forgiven if they don’t share the confidence and enthusiasm that a lineup of state and federal officials showed last week when they announced the latest agreement about cleaning up radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. They have been hearing optimistic promises for 20 years, and yet the expected completion date for the cleanup is now further off than ever.

To our readers: This commentary from Friday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch appears in place of the staff-written Spokesman-Review editorial because of staff vacations. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the Spokesman-Review editorial board.

All over the country, Americans are in full voice about health care. If not health care, then greenhouse gases. Or stimulus spending. They are demanding accountability of their elected political figures. They want to be heard. They say “we the people” a lot.

Washington Post, Aug. 12: “In ancient Rome, the gladiators went into the arena with these words on their lips. ‘Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.’ … Let us begin the Olympics.” On a sunny July day in 1968, Eunice Kennedy Shriver spoke these words at Chicago’s Soldier Field to an assembled group of 1,000 intellectually disabled athletes and 100 fans from 26 states and Canada. They are now the official oath of the Special Olympics.

The idea of a four-year medical school in Spokane has tantalized civic leaders here for years, but the chances have never looked better. “Chance” is the operative word, but the picture will be clearer in a few months, when two committees involving the University of Washington School of Medicine and Washington State University complete a feasibility study regarding medical education in Spokane.

Those raucous town hall meetings that resemble hockey brawls without referees may leave you feeling that elected political figures can’t have a constructive discussion with disgruntled constituents. Not so.

Democracy is not a parlor game. When competition among ideas brings core values into conflict, emotions will boil over sooner or later. That’s regrettable, but it’s no justification for abandoning the open-government principles that make democratic systems possible in the first place.

Corrections officials in Washington say they don’t have much of a problem yet with cell phones in the hands of inmates. That’s not much comfort, given the experience in other states with a problem that has accelerated dramatically. In Texas, prison officials reported retrieving 3,000 contraband cell phones in 2008. In Maryland, the figure was a relatively modest 1,000, but it represented a 71 percent increase in just two years.

Whom do Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer think they’re kidding? In a column for USA Today on Monday, the House speaker and majority floor leader described recent disruptions at numerous town hall meetings as “un-American.” Actually, unruly public conduct is so ritualistically American that communications expert Deborah Tannen wrote a whole book about it: “The Argument Culture.” Argument, not discourse, has become the American default strategy for dealing with controversy, Tannen wrote.

When the Spokane City Council voted to clear the Envision Spokane initiative for a vote of the people, Councilman Mike Allen said, “I’m pretty confident I know what that decision will be. I do not support it, but I support the initiative process.” That’s fair. Initiative gatherers had done their part; now it would be up to voters.

This commentary from the Los Angeles Times is presented in place of the customary Spokesman-Review editorial. As soon as the images of former President Bill Clinton alongside North Korean leader Kim Jong Il appeared, it seemed certain that freedom was at hand for two American journalists captured in March and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor on charges of hostile acts and entering the country illegally. Surely Clinton would not have agreed to make the trip to Pyongyang without a prior deal for their return. And yet this was North Korea, notoriously unpredictable, sometimes underhanded, and apparently holding the reporters for purposes of political blackmail. Anything could go wrong. Fortunately it didn’t, and we are thrilled with the pardon and release of Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

The guiding force for school board members in the coming years will be the basic education reform adopted by the state Legislature last spring. Where in the past the district valued stability, it must advocate change and have the courage to stand up to defenders of the status quo. The irony is that the incumbent in the Position 4 race looks to be best-suited to help shepherd those changes.

The big news in the race to join the Spokane Public Schools board is that there are six candidates vying for two seats. It’s the first contested primary in the district in 16 years. The race is shaped by another momentous event: After three decades of wrangling, the Legislature has made major additions to what constitutes basic education in Washington state. Those changes will have an impact on just about every major decision school board members make. Voters have three thoughtful and knowledgeable candidates for Position 3: Deana Brower, Heidi Olson and Jeffrey Bierman. All three vied for an appointment to the position last year, when board member Christie Querna stepped down. Bierman was selected.

When Congress adopted the “cash for clunkers” program, it was supposed to be evaluated for possible improvements after the first $1 billion was spent. Should the rules be changed? Is the process too cumbersome? Was it worth the expenditure? This discussion was to begin on Nov. 1, but the program burned through the money three months early. Obviously, the program is more popular than Congress imagined, but it’s still worth asking whether it ought to be continued or tweaked. Dealers are already complaining of long delays in getting vouchers approved.

Of the half-dozen candidates in the District 3 City Council primary, three of them merit serious consideration. The incumbent is Nancy McLaughlin, a fiscal and social conservative who was elected four years ago. She and her husband run a construction and remodeling business. She has made employee compensation at City Hall a top issue, voting against the last three contracts. The city’s budget suffers from a structural deficit, because it pays out more than it brings in. The chief reason is labor costs, which account for the lion’s share of the budget. Her votes and advocacy have helped shine a spotlight on this.

The race for Mike Allen’s seat on the Spokane City Council has attracted a crowd, but we think it boils down to two candidates who have the credentials and principles for the job. One is Allen, who was appointed to a council vacancy in 2008 and didn’t plan to run for the office once the term was over. The other is former Councilman Steve Eugster, who declined to seek re-election in 2003 after a stormy four years. So, for both of them, this campaign signals a change of heart.

Voters sorting through the menu of legislative candidates in the rural and conservative 9th District will need a better measuring stick than political philosophy. The differences just aren’t great enough to be helpful. Less regulation, fewer mandates, lower taxes. State Rep. Steve Hailey offered those preferences a year ago when he won the district’s House seat. So did former Rep. Don Cox when he was appointed to serve out the term after Hailey died.

Suppose the Board of Spokane County Commissioners offered you a tax cut, enough to shave almost a penny off the cost of a latte and scone – or 2 cents or more on a large pizza and a couple of soft drinks. What would you be willing to sacrifice in return for that windfall? A little law enforcement, maybe? How much public safety would you give up to solidify those savings?