John Webster

Soon, Congress will make a big scene about campaign finance reform. Again. But the states, those laboratories of innovation, have a better idea: Quit pretending to clean up politics with more and more regulations. Instead, try freedom. Try disclosure. Make campaign finance data available instantly to the public, by computer.

What if politicians who oppose government investment in cities could see into the future, when projects they resist bear fruit? Obviously, most boo-birds would become cheerleaders and plans like the one to expand public convention facilities in Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver would sprint for the end zone as if billionaire Paul Allen himself was carrying the ball. Alas, in the real world of legislative politics, cities have to struggle like Super Bowl linemen to win state aid.

While Bill Clinton huddled with his legal and political spinmeisters, plotting more splitting of semantical hairs, his place in history was being written elsewhere - by the standup comedians, the coffee shop tongue waggers and a horde of salivating journalists. He's in trouble. This time, not even his charm - possibly his downfall, as well as his strength - can save him. Only the truth can. The arguments in Clinton's defense are these:

Regulators in the Commonwealth of Virginia admitted this week they let a day care center stay open in spite of appalling lapses: Its employees went home early, leaving a 14-month-old alone in a crib. The baby's mother had to smash a window to retrieve her infant from the darkened building. The center allowed young children to play the bloodthirsty video game "Mortal Kombat." It failed to call 911 when a child had a seizure. Parents interviewed by the Washington Post said they like the facility in spite of its "mistakes." Children all over America will experience more of the same if Congress approves President Clinton's proposal to create a $21 billion program subsidizing and promoting day care. As incidents like the one in Virginia show, day care, even regulated day care, is an exercise in parental denial and considerable risk.

Why go to all the bother of writing laws and government policies if they vanish right when the people need them? Take planning and zoning laws, for instance.

Costco parking lot. Saturday. High noon. Two cars head for the same parking place. One gets there first. The other driver explodes, pounding on his horn, shouting, shaking his fists in the air. His children are with him. Watching. Learning.

Clyde Ballard sits in the eye of a political hurricane. And he can let fly with some pretty good gusts of wind, himself. As Speaker of Washington state's House of Representatives, this courtly, likable gentleman from East Wenatchee has been a case study in why term limits are a bad idea. Drawing on skills and knowledge from 16 years in the Legislature, Ballard has united inexperienced, fractious colleagues to enact significant legislation - such as last year's welfare and juvenile crime reforms. People who live a long way from Ballard's handsomely paneled Olympia domain are better off as a result.

Do judges have the right to freedom of speech? A case heard last month by the Washington State Supreme Court could answer the question. If the answer is no, it will be a sad day for voters, who are entrusted by law with the right to elect judges.

It was his heart, the doctors said. Well, sure, it was his heart. Denny Ashlock had one of the biggest hearts in the county. His generous, tireless devotion to our community, and to causes well beyond it, could only come from a great and loving heart indeed.

What prompted airline passengers this year to haul aboard more carry-on luggage than available storage spaces possibly could accommodate? Some airlines appear to think it's the passengers' fault. So, they're cutting back the amount of luggage passengers are permitted to carry. And, unlike the old limits, the new ones might be enforced. The airlines are mistaken. They're attempting to cure a symptom because they're too cheap to cure the disease. Instead of shouldering responsibility they are blaming the customers, who merely have been responding to the real problem - mediocre service. There are cattle trucks more commodious than some of the cram-jammed, overbooked airliners that sit parked in line for takeoff at the nation's overcrowded airports. When it comes to moving parcels from place to place, airlines could learn even from U.S. Postal Service, which is modernizing to make delivery faster and more reliable. Then there's FedEx and UPS, which track shipments by computer and guarantee timely delivery. But airline passengers, obviously, have concluded that they cannot trust airlines to deliver checked-through luggage on time, in one piece or even to the right destination. That's why they're stretching the carry-on limits. That's why some folks even FedEx their luggage. Reasons for this are as obvious as the overbooked flights, the delays and connecting flights scheduled so close together that luggage can't keep up with passengers. Airlines and the federal government simply have not improved services or airports enough to keep pace with customer demand. The solution won't come from mere regulation tinkering, although there might be partial relief in consistent enforcement of existing carry-on rules. The solution will come when one airline, and then another, sees a competitive opportunity in the current headaches. Fly with us, these airlines will say, and we'll guarantee your check-through luggage arrives on time and in good shape, and we'll pay you if it doesn't. We'll track it by computer, as UPS does. We'll save you the hassle of sprinting through huge airports with heavy carry-ons flopping against your legs. We'll stop overbooking flights and scheduling them too tightly. We'll provide better service than our competitors do. OK, airlines. Who'll go first?

Eastern Washington University needs help, and Gov. Gary Locke has moved decisively to provide it. Locke named three well-qualified trustees to Eastern's board. Each appears to have an open mind about the university's future as well as the analytical ability to help shape it.

Gov. Gary Locke, that big-spending Democrat, wants to raise the gasoline tax. Braaaaaack. Republican legislators, those short-sighted tightwads, don't want to improve our potholed, congested roads. Neener neener neener. If the preceding rhetoric is all the people of Washington are going to get from the upcoming legislative session, why have a legislative session at all? The two political parties could just prepare the usual attack ads and go straight to their fund raising for the fall campaigns.

... And speaking of high-profile issues, the City of Spokane and the state Department of Ecology are on their way to settling a doozy. Kathryn Kelly, a scientist hired by the city to study health effects of the waste-to-energy plant, had an affair with Phil Williams, a top city official who oversaw the plant. That cost Williams his job. Next came allegations Kelly worked as a lobbyist and friendly consultant for some hazardous waste burning projects - so friendly that project critics say she recommended some damaging data be downplayed.

Congratulations to the Spokane County commissioners and other stewards of the county's finances. Five years ago, the county's reserve funds had fallen to $517,000, so low that Wall Street analysts threatened to downgrade the county's AA bond rating - a move that would have cost taxpayers plenty. Since then, a combination of good fortune and hard work has turned things around. The county ends this year with $4.4 million in reserve - double the amount budgeted at the beginning of the year. And, next year's budget aims to keep the reserve at $4.4 million, which is close to the $5 million reserve the budget enjoyed in 1990, before hard times hit.

First, the good news: Fudge is still safe. But do be careful around meat. 'Tis the season for our busy, pizza-to-go culture to dust off the old home cooking skills.

Judging by the toxic talk that follows any attempt to raise the pay of Spokane's city administrators, these top jobs must have been filled in the dark of night by vicious, inhuman 'droids who have no actual families to support. But if our readers are willing to set aside for just a moment the ugly tendencies to slime public servants and resent anyone who possesses a high-paying job, we would like to suggest that even city officials deserve a regular raise. Tonight, the City Council considers a two-part proposal for the compensation of City Hall's top 18 employees. First, they'd all get a 1.9 percent raise. Second, they can get a merit raise of up to another 1 percent, based on a supervisor's evaluation of their performance. The merit system is new. It would create a healthy incentive for excellence in these demanding, important posts on which we all rely.

What difference does it make, if the American people think sleazy White House fund raising was irrelevant because all politicians are guilty of it? It makes a lot of difference because the American people need, and world stability requires, trustworthy leadership.

Phil Altmeyer devotes his career to picking up the hurting human fragments of blown-up marriages. But he'd rather prevent these social disasters. Last night, he and thousands of others gathered in the Spokane Arena to begin the work of strengthening marriages.

After last year's ice storm, few of us take our usually reliable electricity for granted. We shouldn't take the affordability of our region's electricity for granted, either.

It was springtime in the Palouse and a father sat with his little boy in the warm sun, watching a Cougar baseball game. Look, said the father. That man in the white sweatshirt is the Cougars' new football coach. His name is Mike Price. He wants his players to be good students as well as good athletes. Being of the age when boys collect baseball cards and autographs, the youngster crept up to the coach and tugged shyly on the great man's shirt. Price turned around, smiled at the tongue-tied little figure before him and signed the youngster's mutely proffered hat. Then he bent down low and solemnly shook hands. The boy is taller now and the autographed hat collects dust among the souvenirs of childhood. And for Mike Price, the same generosity that noticed the hope in a 10-year-old's eyes has built a champion football club out of unlikely players in an unlikely place. Price is the Pac-10's coach of the year. A squad of athletes whom the pollsters underrated and the richer, fancier schools passed by is going to the Rose Bowl. His latest quarterback, plucked from the plains of Montana, is a candidate for the Heisman Trophy. All 26 of the Cougar football team's seniors are on track, academically, to graduate in the spring. There was something universal in Saturday's Apple Cup victory. While many of the nation's high and mighty, lavishly endowed football programs take it for granted that they will play in a bowl game, for the Washington State University Cougars, Rose Bowl 1998 will be a Cinderella story come to life. For 67 frustrating years the Cougars have scrubbed the cellars of Pac-10 football. Their facilities are plain, their recruiting budgets modest and their coach has the second-lowest base salary out of the top 25 teams in the nation. But their coach has one more thing. Mike Price's disciplined optimism - his positive thinking was a butt of jokes in darker years - builds winning teams out of unsung young men who walk onto the field without even a scholarship or a recruiter's inducements, in some cases. The character Coach Price brings to his work has earned him the loyalty of his players. Quarterback Ryan Leaf declared Saturday night that Price "could be making a half-million dollars in Minnesota, freezing his butt off, but he's loyal and sticks by his word and his players. ... I love the guy, and that was for him today." Now, everyone for miles around is a Cougar. Including this writer and father, who still appreciates the moment when Price took the time to indulge a little kid. Sure, football's only a game, but every once in a while it gives you enough hope to think that a nice guy can finish first. Go Cougs.

Almost forgotten amid this fall's campaigns was the person to whom Spokane's form of government looks, above all others, for leadership: City Manager Bill Pupo. Spokane faces a daunting list of challenges. During his first year in the job, Pupo has shown the grit required to tackle them.

Good for John Talbott. In his maiden speech as Spokane's mayor-elect, Talbott praised, accurately and by name, each of the council members with whom he soon must serve. More words like these, and actions, too, will be needed on all sides to dispel the paralyzing resentment and suspicion that city-bashing created in this community we call home.

The rapids and falls at the heart of Spokane are a treasure. Around them we've built a beautiful park and a downtown that needs investment to stay healthy and attractive. Over them, of necessity, we have built bridges. One of those - Post Street's - has to be replaced. The bridge was built in 1917. Steel reinforcing it has rusted and chunks of concrete have rotted away. "Seats" where its vertical support beams meet the bridge deck have fallen off. As a result, heavy trucks and buses have been banished from the bridge.

Should US West be allowed to increase its telephone rates? This evening (see details in Glenn Blackmon's column on this page), the state Utilities and Transportation Commission invites public comment on the question. But the issue is bigger than whether residential phone bills will go up by $2.60 a month.