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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Jim Camden

Jim Camden

Current Position: correspondent

Jim Camden joined The Spokesman-Review in 1981 and retired in 2021. He is currently the political and state government correspondent covering Washington state.

Email
jimc@spokesman.com
Phone
(509) 879-7461

All Stories

News >  Spokane

Town hall meetings set for Washington state budget

OLYMPIA – With the state facing a possible shortfall of $2 billion in the next budget cycle, the governor’s office will hold town hall meetings around the state on the budget this summer and early fall. Gov. Chris Gregoire said Tuesday she’ll send the head of the Office of Financial Management to explain the tight budget and give residents “a full appreciation of the trade-offs” for potential cuts.
News >  Spokane

Poll gives Rossi good and bad news

Washington voters are worried about the economy and unhappy with the jobs their elected leaders are doing, a new statewide survey says, and the U.S. Senate race on the November ballot is close to a dead heat. But for Republican Dino Rossi, expected to enter the race against three-term incumbent Patty Murray this week, the latest Washington Poll has good news and bad. Only half the voters surveyed are happy with the job Murray is doing, and less than half say right now they plan to vote for her in November.
News >  Spokane

Small parties’ chances of success improving

A study by the National Institute on Money in State Politics concludes third-party candidates have a very tough time getting elected. Some might say that’s as surprising as a study of National Weather Service data that concludes it rains in Seattle. But the institute’s study – which covered 2001 to 2009 – puts numbers to something people inherently know. It could cause a person to pause before becoming a candidate outside the two major parties, even in a year in which many people say the two-party system isn’t working very well (or at all).
News >  Spokane

Rossi’s still mulling Senate

SEATTLE – Dino Rossi tiptoed up to the starting line for a run for the U.S. Senate Friday evening, telling a crowd of fellow Republicans the nation was at a crossroads with mounting debt and a potential loss of freedoms. He didn’t actually get into the starting blocks, but he seemed to have his track spikes laced up.
News >  Spokane

Test your constitutional knowledge

A proposed ballot initiative would require all Washington schools to teach the relationships between Declaration of Independence, the U.S. and state Constitutions and for students to pass a test on those topics before graduating from high school. Think you already know those topics? Take a quick test:
News >  Spokane

Kennedy’s Spokane speech postponed

A speech at Gonzaga University by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Thursday to help raise money for two environmental organizations was indefinitely postponed Wednesday.
News >  Spokane

Geithner talks exports in Western Washington stop

TACOMA — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner got a Washington state trifecta Tuesday, experiencing three things for which the West Side is best known: Boeing. Microsoft. And rain. In an effort to emphasize the importance of exports to the nation’s fledgling recovery, Geithner planned a tour of the Port of Tacoma, specifically a large, outside area where Caterpillar tractors are lined up to be shipped to China. It was a great backdrop for a prepared speech in which he discussed an upcoming trip to China to talk about more-open trade and stronger laws that protect the intellectual property of U.S. manufacturers.
News >  Spokane

Mount St. Helens: The blast that shaped a region

MOUNT ST. HELENS NATIONAL VOLCANIC MONUMENT – Whether he’s talking about cottonwoods or huckleberries, salamanders or elk, ecologist Charlie Crisafulli discusses life’s return to the blast zone in almost poetic terms.
News >  Spokane

Tapeworm initiative feeds on voter vexation

OLYMPIA – Anyone doubting 2010 is an extraordinary year in the body politic should consider two numbers: 77 and four. The first is the record number of proposed initiatives filed with the secretary of state, which swamps the previous record of 60 in 2003. There are initiatives to cut taxes, raise taxes, restrict federal powers, end state programs, legalize marijuana, criminalize martial arts weapons and force schools to do a better job of teaching the Declaration of Independence and the state and federal constitutions. Oh, and trade George Washington’s face on the state seal with a tapeworm.
News >  Spokane

List reveals taxman’s discerning sweet tooth

OLYMPIA – Tax protesters with a sweet tooth, rejoice. Even after the sales tax hits candy on June 1, you’ll still find plenty of sweet treats that are tax-free. But unless you know what’s in your favorite candy, you may have trouble figuring what’s on the state Department of Revenue’s list of taxable treats. The department’s preliminary list is just out, and in each of the following pairs of items, one is taxable and one is exempt. Guess which is which:
News

New candy tax is a grab bag of exceptions

Tax protestors with a sweet tooth, rejoice. Even after the sales tax hits candy on June 1, you’ll still find plenty of sweet treats that are tax-free. But unless you know what’s in your favorite candy, you may have trouble figuring what’s on the list of taxable treats.
News >  Spokane

‘Never say never’ Rossi is the talk of pundits and pollsters

OLYMPIA – The favorite game among the political “experts” these days is Will Rossi Run? It’s sort of like Trivial Pursuit without the board, but the cognoscenti award themselves colored wedges by ferreting out clues as they roll the dice and run in circles. No winners yet, except maybe the polling firms, which are cleaning up.
News >  Spokane

Republican revolution sequel no sure thing

History doesn’t really repeat itself in politics. But old tactics in a new year sometimes produce similar results. That’s what Republicans hope for and Democrats hope to avoid this fall in national congressional elections: a repeat of 1994, when voters tossed out Democrats and handed the reins of Congress fully to Republicans for the first time in 40 years.
News >  Spokane

State ceremony honors slain police officers

OLYMPIA – State officials marked the deadliest year for law enforcement in generations Friday with bagpipes and drums, prayers and speeches, and the posthumous awarding of seven Medals of Honor. Law enforcement officers from cities and counties around Washington joined state troopers and Royal Canadian Mounties in donning dress uniforms and marching past the state Law Enforcement Memorial on the Capitol campus. Bagpipers played “Amazing Grace,” a bugler played taps and a line of seven state troopers fired three volleys.
News >  Spokane

Court: Libraries can filter the Web

OLYMPIA – Public libraries do not have to turn off their Internet filters for adult patrons who want to view pornography on library computers, the Washington Supreme Court said Thursday. The state’s highest court said the constitutional protections of free speech weren’t violated by Internet filters at the North Central Regional Library District that blocked pornography and other materials the library determined were inappropriate.
News >  Spokane

Gregoire signs budget bill

OLYMPIA – Gov. Chris Gregoire signed a new spending plan Tuesday designed to close an estimated $2.8 billion gap in the state’s operating budget with what she called a “fair mix” of cuts, federal money and new taxes. Before the ink was dry, the Republicans’ top budget expert criticized it as relying on taxes rather than needed government reforms, and an analyst for a conservative think tank said the state was placing too much trust in Congress to come through with money for medical programs.