Jim Camden

A total of 55 attorneys – including a former judge, a former county prosecutor and Gonzaga law professors – have volunteered to help defend protesters arrested in Riverfront Park in a July 4 confrontation with police. Interest in joining the case has grown to the point that there are more than three times as many defense lawyers as defendants, who have been dubbed the Spokane 17.

The Spokane City Council may have broken the state's open meeting law on Monday night while it was trying to figure out how to assure voters that the city would keep track of the money from a bond issue voters are being asked to approve for parks and pools, a state attorney said Tuesday. As the council seemed about to deadlock over what kind of committee it should set up, Council President Joe Shogan called a recess. But rather than leave the dais, council members gathered in groups and continued to talk, presumably about the issue.

The Spokane Park Board will set up an advisory committee, but not an oversight committee, to keep an eye on the price of projects connected to a $43 million bond issue voters will be asked to approve in November. That distinction may be more semantic than real, but it divided the Spokane City Council on Monday night.

Prosecutors in Minnesota say Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is seeking special treatment by trying to withdraw his guilty plea in a sex solicitation sting and "playing games" with the state's court system by pleading guilty, then trying to withdraw the plea because of political fallout. In arguments filed Monday in Hennepin County, Minn., prosecutors called on the court to deny Craig's bid to withdraw his guilty plea. "Denial of the defendant's motion prevents further politicking and game playing on the part of the defendant in relation to his plea," they wrote.

Fueled in part by support from development interests, Dennis Hession has raised more than three times as much money as Mary Verner in the race for Spokane mayor. Since they finished first and second in the August primary, the incumbent mayor has picked up more than four times as much as his challenger, a city councilwoman. Hession has collected more than $176,000 in contributions for the 2007 campaign, including a recent $2,500 check from the Community Builders Trust, a political action committee that represents the Spokane Homebuilders Association, which backed Councilman Al French in the primary.

The Air Force should keep four rescue helicopters at Fairchild, the Senate Appropriations Committee said Wednesday. The committee passed the 2008 Defense Appropriations bill, with a line that says the panel "encourages" the Air Force to keep the four UN-1N Huey helicopters and the 30 people who fly and service them at the West Plains base, where they are assigned to the Survival School.

Sen. Larry Craig could have grounds for withdrawing his guilty plea to disorderly conduct in an airport restroom, even though he signed statements admitting to the allegations and saying he was making no claim of innocence, Minnesota legal experts agree. He might not be able to get that guilty plea withdrawn before his self-imposed deadline of Sept. 30, when he has said he intends to resign if he can't clear his name. And if he is successful, he could face trial on that misdemeanor and an even more serious charge of "interfering with privacy," the gross misdemeanor that was dismissed in exchange for his guilty plea.

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig will set up a defense fund and seek donors willing to help him cover the costs of fighting his conviction in Minnesota and an ethics complaint before a Senate committee, his staff said Thursday. How or when the fund would be set up is still being determined, and whether it will collect enough to cover expenses is unknown.

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's support among his GOP colleagues around the country began eroding Wednesday as he was asked to give up leadership posts on key Senate committees. Meanwhile, two Republican senators – presidential contender John McCain of Arizona and Norm Coleman of Minnesota – called on Craig to resign, as did two GOP House members, Reps. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan and Jeff Miller of Florida.

An outside attorney from the U.S. Justice Department will be asked to investigate whether anyone involved in the River Park Square development project broke federal corruption laws.

Former New York mayor and current presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani will make a campaign stop in Coeur d'Alene next week to raise money at a $500-per-person reception at Kidd Island Bay. Giuliani will appear at the residence of John Magnuson on Lake Coeur d'Alene in the late afternoon and early evening of Aug. 23.

President Bush's suggestion that Congress spends most federal money for roads and bridges on certain members' pet projects – and the rest of the country just gets "what's ever left" – shows the president doesn't know how the federal transportation money works, Sen. Patty Murray said Thursday. On a swing through Eastern Washington during the congressional recess, Murray fielded predictable requests for federal help to fix local roads and bridges. She told about 35 people in the auditorium of Sadie Hilstead Middle School in Newport on Thursday morning that her staff would work with them to "see if there's any help" for replacing the Usk Bridge over the Pend Oreille River.

The United States needs to bring the world community to the negotiating table – and convince Iraqi factions that such a table exists – to have any hope of making progress in Iraq, Sen. Maria Cantwell said Tuesday. "You have to be for the hard slog of diplomacy, not just the hard slog of deployment all the time," Cantwell said during an interview with The Spokesman-Review editorial board.

Local candidates have a problem this summer. It's called the primary. Tradition says Washington state voters don't start thinking about politics until after Labor Day. But last year the Legislature decided to move the primary from the third Tuesday in September to the third Tuesday in August.

In most elections, candidates for office in the city of Spokane face a basic question about police: Are there enough of them to do the job? Candidates might argue yes or no, but the debate centers mainly on the budget. This year, however, police and politics collide in a different way, as candidates are being forced to discuss how police are doing their job.