Impeachable
Frank Chopp makes no bones about where he stands on George W. Bush. “I’d definitely support impeaching the president,” the state’s Speaker of the House told constituents March 17 at a 43rd District meeting. “He’s one of the worst excuses for a president I’ve ever seen.”
The applause was immediate. It was only an opener, however, for the Seattle Democrat to explain why he’s squelching a House vote on a resolution calling for an impeachment investigation. Chopp said, in essence, that U.S. Sen. Patty Murray wanted it killed.
In a meeting with leading legislators, Murray “urged us strongly not to do it,” said Chopp, who controls what items the House votes on. The senator’s rationale, he said, was that the legislature shouldn’t interfere with Democratic Party’s effort to win the White House in 2008.
—Cydney Gillis
Electable
If you want something done right, elect a person to do it, don’t appoint them.
That’s one of the reasons Toby Nixon, a former Republican state representative from Kirkland, is pushing King County Initiative 25, which makes the job of county elections director an elected position and creates a new, independent Department of Elections by the fall of 2008.
Nixon says the initiative, which was filed March 8 by a group called Citizens for Accountable Elections, is based on recommendations made by two different county task forces that looked at the vote-counting mess of the 2004 governor’s election. The group is now facing a 90-day window to gather the 55,000 signatures it needs to put the measure on the fall ballot.
Nixon will give a talk about the effort at a meeting of Washington Citizens for Fair Elections on March 27, 6:30 p.m., in Room 107 of the University Heights Center, 5031 University Way N.E., Seattle. For more information, go to www.accountableelections.org.
—Cydney Gillis
Miami Prize
Florida’s Miami Workers Center, a grassroots community organization, has won a major victory in its seven-year campaign to reverse the city’s destruction of low-income housing.
When the city demolished the Scott Carver Homes, 1,129 families were displaced. Community activists responded by establishing the shantytown Umoja on government property nearby. The Miami Dade Housing Agency has since become so notoriously plagued by corruption and mismanagement that the federal government has threatened to step in and take over the agency.
In an effort to stave off the federal takeover, agency officials sat down with community representatives and granted their demands, including one-for-one replacement of demolished units, and the right of displaced people to return to safe housing in their communities.
—ronni tartlet
For copy of actual issue, go to https://www.realchangenews.org/2007/03/21/mar-21-2007-entire-issue