The state Senate has passed legislation aimed at preventing online sex ads that feature minors. The House should follow suit without delay. State Senators approved a number of bills Wednesday aimed at combatting sex trafficking and I'll write more about them later in the day. But the biggest deal was passage of Senate Bill 6251, a tough, and I believe unprecedented, hammer against online ads selling sex with minors. Here's a story that captures the Senate vote.

In this Times editorial last month we argued that it is important to deal with the commercial advertising of underaged prostitutes.

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, has done impressive work putting Washington state at the forefront of legislative and law enforcement efforts. SB 6251 is especially fine work because it promises to regulate commercial advertising that sells young girls and boys for sex but doesn't appear to infringe upon free speech protections. In addition to editorials, I've written columns about the horrors of sex trafficking and what can be done to combat it. Here's one.

My latest column encourages people of color to engage in the education reform debate. While I use charter schools as an example, reform-inspired changes to federal, state and local education laws go beyond autonomy in some public schools.

According to OSPI, most of the budget cuts coming in our state will directly impact students of color and students in poverty, at the same time that we're in the bottom 5 states in the nation for how well our public schools are addressing the needs of students of color. This 2008 state report gives a sense of the challenges facing our state's educational system. U.S. Census figures point to Washington as one of the fastest browning states in the nation. We're in the bottom 5 states in the nation for how well our public schools are addressing the needs of students of color.

diversity CNN reports that nationwide, more than 1.6 million public school students attend nearly 5,000 publicly funded, independently operated charter schools. As of 2008, African Americans made up 15 percent of students in traditional public schools, versus 29 percent of those enrolled in charter schools.

The lack of diversity in the education reform movement may be a product of geography. This story references battles in East Coast cities where traditional civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and the United Negro College Fund are facing off on opposite sides of the charter school battle.

Debate about charters suffers from the lack of an updated view. The UW's Center on Reinventing Public Education offers one here. It is worth reviewing the Stanford study and asking what's changed since then.

A few surprise, last-minute votes in the state Senate turned final passage of a bill legalizing gay marriage into a resounding victory, 28-21. Wow, what an impressive vote. Read our editorial about what happens next -- and what should not happen next.

The state Senate will take an historic vote Wednesday to legalize same-sex marriage. Here at the end of the long run-up of legislation and politics, it seems reasonable to remind people that The Seattle Times has supported same-sex marriage since 2000.

The story of how we arrived at our decision is fascinating and follows the demographics of public attitudes toward this issue. Younger people don't get what all the fuss is about. They support same-sex marriage by considerable percentages.

Back in summer 2000, Mindy Cameron, editorial page editor, and Jim Vesely, the associate editorial page editor, convened a meeting with Publisher Frank Blethen and the 5th generation of Blethens, then in their 20s and early 30s.

This editorial and explanation from Cameron explains the way we arrived at the conclusion that marriage equality was the only sensible way to go.

As the Senate prepares for its vote, this round of opining on our end bears repeating.

The Seattle Times editorial page's spotlight on higher education's imperiled future continued Thursday with a live chat on seattletimes.com. Participants included college students along with Elson Floyd, president of Washington State University and Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, vice chair of the Washington state House higher education committee and member of Ways & Means Committee. Relive the discussion in the window below.

The chat picked up from Wednesday's Town Hall, "Six Presidents: An Unprecedented Conversation on Higher Education Funding in Washington," moderated by Seattle Times Editorial Page Editor Kate Riley and Times business columnist Jon Talton. Here's a great wrapup from that event.

The discussion among the presidents of Washington's four-year institutions and leaders from Microsoft, Boeing and REI lent credibility and depth to an issue that is often passed over in favor of debate about funding for the K-12 system. The presidents were clear that heavy state regulation and unreliable funding are their biggest challenges. The business leaders drew clear links between an educated populace and a strong economy. The event's ticket proceeds went to benefit the College Success Foundation scholarships (seati.ms/wgOCYa). These efforts are part of the Times' Greater Good campaign, a year-long public service effort in support of the state's higher education institutions

We held a live chat Tuesday with state Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, and state Sen. Cheryl Pflug, R-Maple Valley. We talked about their decisions to support gay marriage legislation, especially now that there are enough votes in the House and Senate to pass this fair-minded legislation.

My column on Iran, "Political posturing and Iran: What does it have to do us?" came out on the same day as Mark Helprin's column in the Wall Street Journal, "The Mortal Threat from Iran." Helprin portrays Iran as a kind of cancer that has to be irradiated out, by war. His plan for Iran is:

Massive ordnance penetrators; lesser but precision-guided penetrators "drilling" one after another; fuel-air detonations with almost the force of nuclear weapons; high-power microwave attack; the destruction of laboratories, unhardened targets, and the Iranian electrical grid; and other means, can be combined to great effect.

State Sen. Cheryl Pflug, a Maple Valley Republican, joins lawmakers in both parties ready to step up and vote for marriage equality.

In the months ahead, the public will hear a lot about same-sex marriage. The takeaway point is that now two Republican senators have the guts to stand on principle, even if that might upset some in their party. This should be a bipartisan vote and now it seems it will be.

Read our Wednesday editorial praising Pflug for her courage and conviction on an important issue.

First, Gov. Chris Gregoire announced last week that she would introduce and back gay marriage legislation. Then, Sen. Steve Litzow, a Mercer Island Republican, said he would vote for same-sex marriage. And now Pflug. Progress!.

First, Gov. Chris Gregoire came out in favor of legalizing gay marriage. Now a state lawmaker from Mercer Island, Steve Litzow, has become the first Republican in the Senate to take a bold stance. Check out the Seattle Times editorial commending his decision.
No doubt, the Legislature convening Monday will be consumed with budget woes and other weighty issues. But do not listen to those who say there is no time to do right by gay and lesbian couples. If other lawmakers come to the same reasonable conclusion as Litzow, Washington will become the seventh state in the country to act on an important civil rights issue.
Litzow's announcement makes him a leader. Others should listen carefully to what he has to say -- and then follow.

Washington’s minimum wage has been the highest in the country for the past decade and has just risen to $9.04. Economic theory says a minimum wage higher than a natural market wage will produce unemployment, particularly among the unskilled or people who would be considered a risky hire. Has it happened? I was thinking about that when I saw a bar chart on the Remapping Debate web page.

The chart, here, ranks states by a figure for “underemployment,” which it defines as officially unemployed (not working and looking for work), plus those employed part-time and wanting full-time work, plus “other marginally attached” workers plus those wanting a job but discouraged from looking for work.

Joni Balter, Seattle Times editorial writer and columnist, and State Sen. Ed Murray had a live chat Wednesday to talk about Gov. Chris Gregoire’s pending announcement supporting gay marriage. Murray, a Seattle Democrat, is the Senate’s leading budget writer who has worked for equal rights for gays and lesbians for most of his career.

Insiders say Gov. Chris Gregoire will hold a news conference Wednesday to publicly support a measure to legalize gay marriage in Washington.
This is fantastic news that could put Washington at the forefront of states --- it would be the nation's seventh -- supporting fairness and equality for all residents.
The Seattle Times editorial page has supported gay marriage since 2000. The latest push by state Sen. Ed Murray and state Rep. Jamie Pedersen to stop working around the edges and grant full legal rights to same-sex couples makes a ton of sense.
Our editorial a few weeks ago explained our thoughts clearly.
Lawmakers in Olympia have much work to do on the budget and cannot get distracted by a big battle about social issues. But this idea cries out for action -- and does not cost much.
Legislators can fuss and fume about how busy they are. But they are not too preoccupied to stand up tall and do what's right for all Washingtonians
Big points for Gregoire for giving this issue a hefty and needed push.
There is a name for this sort of thing: momentum

The federal case against Bert Sacks, the Seattle activist fined for violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act, was dismissed Dec. 28—and Sacks is not too happy about it.

Sacks wanted a jury trial. He wanted to argue in public court that in the 1990s the U.S. government had committed an act of terrorism by destroying Iraq’s water purification plants during the first Gulf War and using economic sanctions to block their repair. Sacks cited UNICEF and other sources that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children had died from the effects of unclean water and no medicine. In Sacks’ view, they had been killed by the United States as surely as if our government had bombed them.

Remember it? The 67-56 point frenzy will be hard to forget. The University of Washington Huskies lost to the Baylor University Bears in game that was all about offense, and, apparently, player safety. Viewers could easily conclude that tackling was banned by mutual agreement.

In recent days, Seattle Police Chief John Diaz has changed his tone regarding irrefutable Department of Justice findings that police have to change the way they use force.

Diaz's first response smacked of full-on denial. How much sense did it make for him to question DOJ's methods and analysis? The result will end up being the same.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn clearly told the chief the city would take a different approach.

In an editorial, we advised Diaz to embrace the changes coming with him at the helm -- or not.

Restoring public trust in the police department is essential. Diaz will have to be forceful, open minded and willing to get to the root of the problem. A relatively small number of officers overdo and misuse force and trample on people's constitutional rights.

The next steps involve a more enlightened approach to officer training, relying heavility on de-escalation techniques and other steps to restore relationships with the community.

Overall crime is down in the city, but public trust of officers has tanked precipitously.

Civil disagreements with Lynne Varner and Bruce Ramsey, members of the Seattle Times editorial board is a weekly feature of the Ed Cetera blog. Bruce and Lynne often disagree on major issues in our community, state and nation -- Bruce tends more conservative and Lynne more liberal. Today's topic: payroll tax cuts. .

Lynne Varner

Bruce Ramsey

Lynne Varner: Bruce, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are playing a game of political chicken with the lives of working Americans. By refusing to approve the Senate's extension of payroll-tax cuts, they've prioritized politics over policy.

Sen. Patty Murray lays out the local impact of political brinkmanship in the House: “House Republicans’ refusal to pass this compromise means that in Washington state over 3.5 million families will see their taxes go up on January 1st by an average of $1,130 next year... 40,000 unemployed Washington workers will lose unemployment insurance in less than two weeks ... and 4,000 Washington state doctors who provide Medicare to seniors and the disabled will lose out on much of the government support that makes that care possible."

Happy holidays!

(Murray's reference to Medicare refers to a portion of the Senate deal postponing a scheduled cut in reimbursement rates for doctors who treat Medicare patients.)

A tip of the glass to Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, for smartly and bravely crossing party lines to back the extension. She was joined by six other grownups in the House GOP. The freshman from Camas explained her vote with a logic escaping her party: "I know that families in southwest Washington are struggling to make ends meet, and I wanted to eliminate any of their fear that this relief wouldn’t be in place January 1,” Herrera Beutler said in an email relayed through her spokesman to Seattle Times' D.C. correspondent, Kyung M. Song

Nearly the entire Senate -- including almost all of the Republicans -- voted to prevent 160 million working Americans from receiving a tax increase on January 1st.
Democrats & Republicans working together is apparently an alien concept in the House. GOP leaders in the lower chamber say they're not opposed to a payroll tax cut per se, but as bargaining chips go, this one works. This Washington Post article refers to a Republican lawmaker's description of the payroll-tax cut showdown as "high-stakes poker."

President Obama's response to the poker reference was appropriately withering. "He's right about the stakes, but this is not poker. It's not a game. . . . It's not a game for the average family who doesn't have an extra 1,000 bucks to lose. It’s not a game for somebody who’s out there looking for work right now, and might lose his house if unemployment insurance doesn’t come through."

Consumer spending drives the American economy and the GOP's tactics could have a chilling effect.

Bruce Ramsey: Lynne,all political parties like to give away free stuff, and the Democrats are accusing the Republicans of blocking the flow of goodies. What else is new?

Does the Social Security tax cut make sense? People say, "It puts money in the hands of the people, who will spend it." You allude to that when you say, "Consumer spending drives the American economy."

Partly. In restoring growth, investment spending is what matters more. Anyway we got into this recession because people borrowed too much and spent it. I think the drag on the economy is debt, and giving people 2 percent more of their gross pay is not going to do much about that. And if the Social Security system runs short because Congress has cut the tax, the government will have to increase its debt.

I've enjoyed the Social Security tax cut. But is it good policy? It feels like quack medicine, along with the rebates I got under Bush, Clinton and the rest of them. I'd rather the federal government balanced its books.

Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Susan Enfield plans to leave the district in June rather than seek the top job permanently - nine months after being appointed as interim.

The board planned to consider the superintendent post in January. With Enfiield planning to leave at the end of the year (and the fact that national searches are huge, costly undertakings, the board has already begun writing the RFP for search firms. Update: The board's executive committee met and set a three-week timeline for getting proposals back from search firms.

Enfield's decision not to seek the job permanently is disappointing. Who knows if she could have gotten the majority of votes from the seven-member board, but the sad fact is she didn't try. Her resume was thinner than most big-city superintendents. Before Seattle, Enfield had never held the top job in a school district. But she had strong potential and was certainly competitive enough to be considered among candidates for the job.

Great piece in the Christian Science Monitor on superintendent searches. Particularly the part about how we set ourselves up for failure in our quest for the perfect superintendent.

Starting fresh is overrated. The district loses momentum each time the top leader leaves. A new superintendent comes in with their own ideas, priorities and plans. No superintendent comes in and promises more of the same, even if the same is what the public signed onto.

Seattle's school system faces challenges typical of most urban districts. Buit there is something more and darker at play here. In a city of affluence and high education, the lines of opportunitiy run along a racially and socially-economically stratified continuum. The number of nonprofits like the Gates Foundation or leaders like Enfield who have tried to address this before throwing up their hands and leaving is worth noting.

Enfield sort of gets at this in the final lines of her letter announcing her departure.

"While we may hold different opinions on how to best serve our students, we must remember they are counting on us to fulfill our mission of ensuring that they are prepared for college, career and life. It is essential that we discipline ourselves to keep this mission and our students at the forefront of all we do, and not allow adult issues, egos and politics to stand in the way."

Information in this blog post, originally published Dec. 16, 2011, was corrected Dec. 21. A previous version gave an incomplete picture of Enfield's professional background. While, Enfield's only superintendent-level experience before Seattle had been as Deputy Superintendent of Evergreen Public Schools in Vancouver, Washington, she had worked in an urban setting before: Director of Teaching and Learning for Portland Public Schools.

Seattle Times editorial page editor Ryan Blethen is leaving that post to head up the newspaper's new-product development efforts.

Blethen will assume his new job, director of new-product strategies, effective Jan. 1, the company announced Thursday. The new editorial page editor will be Kate Riley, now the page's associate editor.

Read the story here.

To the self-absorbed textaholic driving on a Los Angeles freeway last weekend, almost hitting the car in which I was riding, I offer this: We both know you had no idea what you were doing as you stared at a text message and pretended to drive your car.

The evidence is abundant that a long list of electronics in the car are not safe, along with other in-car behaviors that should be managed diferently, applying makeup, settling disputes between children, incessant eating. All of it.

The National Transportation Safety Board came out swinging this week against texting and talking on a cellphone, even the hands free variety.

So what was the reaction in Washington state where Sen. Tracey Eide led the charge for our state's current law which bans holding a cellphone to one's ear?
Too hard to do.

I like the convenience of using down time driving to and from work by checking in with friends and relatives as anyone. But the truth is, and many of us surely realize it, talking and driving are a dangerous mix. We may not have the fortitude to do anything about it, but the NTSB is right.

One way to get in the mood for State Budget Monday, Nov. 21, is to pick up a copy of a new auditor's report showing the state essentially wasted $500,000 on cellphones for state employees. In a government grappling with a $2 billion deficit, that's not a lot of money. Still, the state is in no position to fritter away cash on needlessly expensive phone plans and phones used less than 30 minutes a month or not at all

Money is tight for everything from education to health care for the working poor.
The auditor reviewed the use of some 22,000 cellphones assigned to 89 agenices and found a ton of waste. The research was conducted after public officials heard California saved a lot of money by reviewing its cellphone policies.

Earlier this month, Gov. Chris Gregoire ordered state agencies to slash phone costs as the state faces another shortfall and another round of cuts. That sounded at first like she was working the margins, but the auditor's report shows real money can be saved by ending expenditures on items seemingly as piddling as cellphones.

Nov. 11, Veterans' Day, is the day tin 1918 the great powers ended World War I, a war America has almost forgotten. When I was growing up in the 1960s, it was only 20 years after World War II, and it was all over popular culture. We had dramas on TV like "Combat!" and "Rat Patrol," and comedies like "McHale's Navy" and in the theaters we had pictures like "The Longest Day," "The Great Escape," "King Rat," etc. World War II was alive. World War I was dead, forgotten. It was boring, and furthermore pointless. It was started over the shooting of some archduke in Sarajevo, and what American would care about that? And what did we care whether the Germans beat the French or the French beat the Germans? There are answers to those questions, but not very satisfying ones.

My dad, who was a teenager in Portland at the time, said it a great relief when the war was over. They celebrated four days early on the "False Armistice," and on Nov. 11 had to celebrate all over again.

Nov. 13 is another anniversary, as is noted on Historylink.org: the 160th anniversary of the landing in 1851 of the Denny Party at Alki Point--the first people from the United States to settle in Seattle. A reader calls and suggests that it be proclaimed "Seattle Day," and celebrated as such. Maybe, though it crowds Thanksgiving, and it is a gloomy time of year. If I were founding Seattle, I'd do it in the summer. But Denny did it on Nov. 13, and his act led to our town. Lift a stein to him.

I was able to reach Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco Wholesale, after the election. I had written a column about Costco contributing $20.9 million to pass Initiative 1183, to privatize the state liquor stores, while its competitors had contributed essentially nothing. I had argued that it would take Costco years to earn the money back, and had gone beyond the realm of a business investment to a personal crusade. But in writing that, I hadn't been able to reach him.

He hadn’t read the column. He was in Arizona. He agreed that the $20.9 million was more than just a business investment. It was a matter of principle, he said, against monopoly and for the consumer. Also, Washington is Costco’s home state. It’s not Safeway’s or Kroger’s or Walmart’s.

“We’ll probably never break even on this,” he said—a stronger statement than I had made.