1. Yesterday afternoon, Gov. Chris Gregoire signed a bill that requires Washington’s 11 Electoral College votes to be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationwide, rather than to the candidate who gets the most votes in Washington state. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Joe McDermott (D-34, W. Seattle), only goes into effect if enough other states—meaning an electoral-vote-count-majority of states—pass similar legislation.

Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey—worth 50 electoral college votes—have already passed the same law. Washington brings the grand ECV total to 61—209 shy of the 270 necessary to make the so-called "National Popular Vote Pact" meaningful.

"Gov. Gregoire signed a bill that means every vote counts and every vote makes a difference,” McDermott said, obviously alluding to the Election-2000 outrage that inspired his bill.

I'm only bringing all this up so I can run a priceless video clip of state Rep. Doug Ericksen (R-42, Ferndale) trashing the bill on the House floor earlier this month. He nearly gets gaveled down twice.

Remember when PubliCola was trying to come up with the "Republican Legislator of the Year." I wouldn't bestow the honor on Ericksen, but he definitely gets the "Obvious Republican of the Year" award. (We've been enjoying Ericksen's  outbursts all session.)

Speeches like this one (it starts at the 40:33 mark) capture Rep. Ericksen at his best. "To give up our sovereignty," he pontificates, "[is] to say that we will allow these other states to determine who gets to vote in our election to pick the President of the the United States."

(Ericksen, who looks something like Nicolas Cage, says he has a beef with Maine and Vermont, where convicted felons—"Axe murderers, child rapists, drug pushers"—are allowed to vote.)



And check out Ericksen's "F.U." reaction when he gets gaveled down at the 41:15 mark. Class act.

He also gets pretty agitated when people start laughing at him.

I guess it was a bad session for Ericksen on voting rights issues. He also voted against a Senate bill—currently awaiting the governor's signature—that will automatically restore convicted felons' voting rights after they've served their time.  (We highlighted this bill—which is partly an effort to address the disproportionate gap between minorities and non-minorities who serve time—in our round up of civil liberties legislation earlier this month.)

2. Back in 1997, my former boss at the Stranger , Dan Savage, was totally right about something called I-677.

I-677 was a gay rights initiative that a group called Hands Off Washington put on the ballot. Their initiative would have extended workplace protections to gays and lesbians. To the surprise of many, Savage, a gay rights icon back then too, objected to the initiative. His argument : It'll get trounced, which will make it much more difficult to pass a gay rights bill in the legislature.

He was right. I-677 got trounced (60-40) and gay rights stalled in Washington state for a decade.

I remember crowding around my desktop computer in 2005 with Amy Jenniges (a gay  Stranger news reporter), Sandeep Kaushik (a Stranger news reporter who'd done some amazing reporting on the gay rights bill that year) and Dan—listening to the vote as the gay rights bill went down in flames. Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-35, Shelton, Bremerton) didn't vote with his gay-friendly party because, he said, his district had spoken against gay rights. In 1997. Sigh.

The gay rights bill finally passed the following year and despite threats from the social conservatives to mount a popular campaign to repeal it ever since, that has not happened. Tim Eyman failed to gather enough signatures to even put a repeal on the ballot.

I'm only bringing this up so I can urge  Savage to surprise his fan base once again. There's bluster from the right this year about running an initiative to repeal the recent domestic partners legislation that makes gay and lesbian couples equal under the law. Savage should chill about it and even welcome the group to go ahead and bring their anti-gay rights initiative to a vote. He should do this for the same reason he opposed bringing the pro-gay rights initiative  to a vote 12 years ago: It'll get trounced.

As we saw yesterday when Sen. Arlen Specter's announced that he's switching parties (pre-saged here in Washington in 2006 and 2007 with GOP defections of our own ), the hard right is out of synch with the times. Gays should be psyched about this initiative.

When it loses this November, it'll be that much easier to pass a gay marriage bill in the legislature. Hurry up guys, get those signatures.