Public Periscope
Back to the minors
Looks as if Ross Perot’s Reform Party can kiss its status of major party in Washington state goodbye. Mike The Mover will not be on the general-election ballot for U.S. Senate next month even though he topped the three-man field for the Reform Party. … Most of the news media, including The Spokesman-Review, have been reporting that The Mover would advance because the Reform Party, like the Democrats and Republicans, is a major party. But the secretary of state’s office says that’s not the case. State law requires any candidate - Democrat, Republican, Reform or Space Cadet - to get at least 1 percent of the total vote in the primary election. But the Mover has only .63 percent, and the vote total for all Reform candidates in the Senate race was just more than 1 percent.
Even some folks in the secretary of state’s office had been saying The Mover would advance. As spokesman David Brine noted, this problem never has come up with Democrats or Republicans, who always manage at least 1 percent of the vote. Now, without a candidate in the Senate race, the Reform Party has no way to collect at least 5 percent of the vote in a statewide election this year, a state requirement for retaining the title of major party.
Speaking of the Reformers
Former Senate candidate Steve Thompson and a small band of Reform Party faithful picketed a local TV station Friday to protest the coverage (actually the lack of it) that television and radio have given to third-party candidates. “All viable candidates should be heard from in order to provide the public with an educated electorate,” Thompson said. … Of course, there are those who would argue that viability is a concept best argued by candidates who at least make it into the single digits.
Do we need a recount?
State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt’s plea for bucks for congressional candidate Brad Lyons may have had some folks scratching their heads last month. Lyons’ chances look good, Berendt said in his Sept. 4 letter, because of the 5th Congressional District’s crowded four-man field. Trouble is, by then it was only a three-man field. … Reform Party candidate Jon Michael Yeager dropped out of the race almost as soon as he got in, canceling the check for his filing fee the day after he had written it. … Berendt said the appeal was drafted weeks earlier while Yeager’s status still was in doubt. “It was an oversight” that the letter was not rewritten before being sent out.
A shut and open and shut case
The door to the Spokane County commissioners’ meeting room was opened and closed to citizens so many times last Tuesday that it created a breeze Hurricane Georges might have envied. … First, county attorney Jim Emacio insisted a progress report from state auditors could be delivered to commissioners in private and even chastised a reporter for arguing that the public can’t legally be excluded from a discussion of potential county employee wrongdoings. … He reversed himself after checking with the state attorney general’s office. Then the meeting was canceled because auditors wouldn’t talk in public. … So auditors gave a closed-door report to Commissioner Kate McCaslin, who shared the information with her two colleagues during an executive session. Neither of those meetings violates the law: There was no quorum at the first, and the commissioners discussed whether to punish an employee at the second.
This sidebar appeared with the story: CATCH THE CANDIDATES Wednesday: 4th Legislative District House candidates John Kallas and Lynn Schindler and county commissioner candidates Phil Harris, Phil Kiver and Kathy Reid at the Building Owners and Managers Association, 11:50 a.m., Cavanaughs Inn at the Park, $10 for lunch. Friday: County prosecuting attorney candidates Jim Sweetser and Steve Tucker and District Court candidates Harold Clarke and Jim Reierson in taped televised debates, 8:30 p.m., “Spokane This Week,” KSPS-TV Channel 7.