Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

Congrats to David Brewster's Crosscut for doing a second story on gay issues in a month. That's more than The Weekly would have done in a year while he was running the thing.

The latest story is by Austin Jenkins, "the Olympia-based political reporter for Northwest News Network, a consortium of public radio stations in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. He covers Northwest politics and public policy as well as the Washington Legislature."

It's a good story about the influence of philanthropist/activist Tim Gill on Washington politics. But we're just slightly less than thrilled to see it because we saw the same story somewhere else several months ago. Where? Right here and here. That was February.

Unlike our story, Jenkins doesn't show the actual influence of the Gill group on Washington races, but he does add some quotations by folks who didn't comment for our story.

Washington state Sen. Ed Murray, an openly gay Seattle Democrat, says the gay lobby has traditionally focused on national races. But after the 2004 election, that started changing.

"In the last presidential election, the gay community had its clock cleaned," admits Murray, referring to the eleven states ? including Oregon ? that passed ballot measures banning gay marriage.

Murray and Guerriero say after that election, the gay community swung into action. Murray explains it this way: "What's going on is there's sort of a fairly low-grade, under-the-radar conversation that's going on in the gay community about investing at the state level."

...and...

The fact the Gill effort in Washington and Oregon is only now [???, ahem...] coming to light ? six months after the election ? concerns one defeated Republican. Former House member Toby Nixon says it's a sign the current campaign finance disclosure system may be inadequate.

"If there was some way in more real time during the campaign to find out that this kind of considered effort was going on, maybe a more effective response could be mounted," says Nixon.

But another defeated Republican, Luke Esser, a former state senator and now Washington State Republican Party Chair, refuses to bash the out-of-state money that came into his district. "I think it's incumbent upon Republicans and those who are not in favor of the gay marriage agenda to be ready to raise the money they need to win elections in the future," Esser says.

It's a story worth repeating and Jenkins tells it well, but really now... there's a thing out here sometimes called "the internets" and something on those "tubes" called, by some "the Google" or "the Technorati". Amazing things. You should try them out. We also understand that Brewster and his crowd of ex-Weekly-ites at Crosscut like to see themselves as arbiters of what is good and proper in journalism and much more, but really, now. Wouldn't you consider this kind of thing unseemly if it were done without attribution by someone else?

Labels: legislature, politics, tim gill, Washington

If the domestic partnership bill becomes law this year as expected, there will no doubt be celebratory gatherings in Seattle and other cities as there was last year when the civil rights law finally passed.

If it happens, we could expect to see at the Seattle gathering most members of the legislature's informal gay caucus along several pastors and rabbis from Religious Coalition for Equality There would also be the by-now standard parade of executive directors from an alphabet soup of agencies. One name that we probably wouldn't hear and one face that we certainly wouldn't see is that of reclusive Denver philanthropist and former software entrepeneur Tim Gill. We won't hear from him, but if the bill passes, he might deserve as much credit as any of those who take the podium during the celebration.

Gill is profiled in a long article in the current Atlantic Monthly. Former Washington Blade editor and now blogger Chris Craine reflects on his importance to gay politics here and here.

The Atlantic mentions that Washington was one of nine states where Gill targeted contributions in local legislative races that he thought could tip the balance of state control to a more gay-friendly majority. According to the article, the consultants at Gill's action fund compiled a national list of "seventy races in which a key antigay candidate was vulnerable or the outcome of a race was likely to affect control of the legislature."

The article doesn't explain how the Gill Fund affected state races, especially not the ones here in Washington. But a search of Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) records tells more of the story.

In Washington, Gill gave moderate contributions to six candidates, according to Public Disclosure Commission records:

Candidate	Dist/Chamb	DP Spon?	Gill contrib.
Oemig, Eric	45-S	Y	675
Tom, Rodney	48-S	Y	675
Kilmer, Derek	26-S	N	675
Seaquest, Larry	26-H	N	675
Eddy, Deborah	48-H	Y	675
Green, Tami	28-H	N	675

That's an interesting list of candidates. All of them also recieved donations from Equal Rights Washington (ERW) PAC. Five of the six got contributions from Washington Won't Discriminate (WWD), a group that was formed to counter an expected initiative to invalidate last year's civil right law. After the anti-rights initiative failed to get on the ballot, WWD disbanded and distributed the money it had raised to candidates.

Rodney Tom was one of the candidates endorsed by both ERW and SEAMEC, the Seattle Metropolitan Elections Committee. He's a former-Republican turned Democrat who voted for the LGT civil-right bill when he was in the house and ran against conservative Republican Luke Esser for an open senate seat.

Like Tom, Oemig was ran as a Democrat in an eastside district that had long sent only Republicans to Olympia. In its endorsement of Oemig, the PI noted that Oemeg's GOP opponent "votes against the district's interests on too many important issues, including transportation, school funding and gay civil rights."

Oemig eventually won the seat that had been relinquished by Bill Finkbeiner, a Republican who shocked his caucus in 2005 by casting the deciding vote that allowed the LGT civil rights bill to squeak through despite votes against it by a few Democrats.

The election of Tom and Oemig, along with Derek Kilmer's victory in Kitsap County helped the Democrats gain a more solid majority in the senate. Although it's still not certain to pass in the upper house, it's unlikely the domestic partnership bill would have made it through this year without that extra margin.

Without the extra margin of tolerance that the election of Tom, Oemig, and Kilmer provide, the GOP might, instead, have been able to push through its marriage-discrimination amendment this year.

It looks like Gill picked just the kind of tipping-point candidates described in the Atlantic article.

"The strategic piece of the puzzle we'd been missing -- consistent across almost every legislature we examined -- is that it's often just a handful of people, two or three, who introduce the most outrageous legislation and force the rest of their colleagues to vote on it," Gill explained. "If you could reach these few people or neutralize them by flipping the chamber to leaders who would block bad legislation, you?d have a dramatic effect."

All of the candidates that Gill backed in Washington won in tight races. All of them defeated an opponent who had been a vocal opponent of equality of rights.

But still, whatever the significance of the candidates Gill contributed to, $675 is barely enough to make a ripple in campaign funding. It might print a small stack of yard signs or a few stacks of campaign brochures, but it isn't significant by itself. Both Tom and Oemeg won razor-thin victories, however, which means that even small infusions of cash might have made a difference.

An oddity in the contribution figures for those six candidates demonstrates the kind of networking described in the Atlantic article: Most of the candidates on Gill's list also show $675 donations from the same group of six out-of-state donors. In each case, those out-of-staters donated only to candidates on Gill's own list. Some of them donated only to four or five of the Gill-supported candidates.

We've combined the donations of those six out-of-staters into the "Gill group" column in this table. It also shows amounts donated by the Equal Rights Washington (ERW) PAC, by Washington Won't Discriminate (WWD), and by Vashon Island donor George Heidorn, a retired Microsoft engineer, who is one of ERW's largest donors.

Candidate	Dist.	Spn.	Gill group	Heidorn	WWD	ERW	Total
Oemig, Eric	45-S	Y	4725	1400	1400	1400	8925
Tom, Rodney	48-S	Y	4725	1400	1400	1400	8925
Kilmer, Derek	26-S	N	4725	1400	1400	1000	8525
Seaquest, Larry	26-H	N	4725			700	5425
Eddy, Deborah	48-H	Y	3375		1400	700	5475
Green, Tami	28-H	N	4050		700	700	5450

Here's more background on four of the contributors that we've identified as the "Gill group" in this table. WWD, ERW PAC, and Heidorn all donated to a far broader list of legislative candidates.

$4725 tips toward a significant contribution amount for any candidate. When combined with donations from other LGBT-supportive donors, the amounts given by that group of out-of-staters begins to give financial teeth to the "gay agenda" that right-wing groups have often propped up as more powerful and significant than it usually was.

Labels: HB1351, philanthropy, politics, SB5336, tim gill, Washington

Tim Gill seems to be doing in political activism the same kind of thing he did over a decade ago in software development. He brings to the table a different "model" of how things should be done.

In software development and technology, the "first mover" is often thought to have a built-in advantage. The first developer to release a new product defines the market. Seattle-based Aldus was the first mover in a then unheard of product class that came to be called "desktop publishing." The PageMaker program from Aldus created a new must-have tool and began to change entire industries.

But PageMaker eventually lost its market-leading position to a newer startup, Quark, founded by Tim Gill in Denver. Quark's XPress stole the thunder from PageMaker.

It's impossible to summmarize that whole geekey market fight in many paragraphs, let alone a few sentences, but one way that Gill and Quark managed to take control of the publishing desktop was by looking at the issue from a different perspective, by creating a different model of the process of creating a page for publication.

Aldus founder Paul Brainerd had worked with mainframe-based newspaper production equipment. He brought that model of page creation to the desktop. Gill, on the other hand, appears to have observed how "creatives" built up a ads and posters on a lightboard using x-acto knives, waxed paper, lines made from rolls of colored tape, and sometimes press-on type. Gill's Quark XPress came much closer than PageMaker to being a model on the screen of that kind of creative process.

Brainerd's model was "desktop publishing." Gill's initial model was "desktop layout."

Designers and layout technicians responded by insisting on XPress as their tool of choice and eventually made it the market leader, making Gill very rich in the process. (Of course, Paul Brainerd didn't do so badly himself as any politician in Washington could tell you when they watch his money pore into causes and candidates.)

The market leaders in political giving are organizations like megachurches or the NRA on the right or, in queer politics, HRC or ERW in Washington. They are large organizations with boards expensive fundraising processes, and complex rules on how to spend the money raised.

The model Gill has created is a different kind of beast. It seems to be more like the informal email chains that can develop when a group of friends talk to each other about politics. Rather than building a big organization that must spend as much time begging for money as it does lobbying, Gill's group apprears -- for now at least -- to be a more informal group that does the research to kick-start one of those informal email chains. The Gill Action Fund didn't contribute any money to Washington campaigns, but it does appear to have done the research and generated the relatively informal email chain.

What's unique about Gill's emails, however, is that they go to people who have a lot of money.

Two of the six in what we've called the "Gill group" don't percolate to the surface in Google searches, but bios of the others show that they clearly belong:

Jon Stryker: A Michigan billionaire architect who inherited his vast wealth from the medical equipment company founded by his grandfather. Stryker's Arcus Foundation actively supports lesbian/gay civil rights issues. Its mission: "[C]ontributing to a pluralistic society that celebrates diversity and dignity, invests in youth and justice and promotes tolerance and compassion."

Henry van Ameringen: His father founded the International Flavors and Fragrances Company. van Ameringen is a major donor to New York LGBT and HIV organizations through his self-named foundation.

Esmond Harmsworth: The Boston literary agent Literary agent gave the notable sum of $25,000 to Fair Wisconsin, a group opposing a marriage-discrimination amendment on the 2006 ballot in that state. (The amendment passed.)

Weston Milliken: In its 2005 annual report [pdf], the Gill Foundation describes the West Hollywood business consultant as a philanthropist who has matured "from a reactive check writer to a collaborative and strategic giver."

The California business consultant directs about 90 percent of his philanthropy to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth initiatives. "The idea is to teach people how to lead and be effective at what they are doing in life," he says.

Labels: philanthropy, politics, tim gill, Washington

Those looking at this blog through a feedreader might not have noticed the Bump promo on all of our pages. But don't let that stop you from getting tickets now to the biggest party of the year in Seattle.

Tickets cost $40 now and will be $50 at the door of EMP on the night of the show/dance/party. You can also get more special treatment with a VIP ticket for $50 ($60 at door) or a Platinum ticket for $125 (limited availability).

The excitement continues after-hours at Chapel [see map] from 2am to 8am.
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The Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival kicks off next Friday, Oct. 13, and runs through Saturday, Oct 28. A full festival pass costs $175. Most screenings cost $9 with special screenings from $15 to $25. Early birds can get a deal on the first screening of the day for only $7.

A number of ticket-purchase options are available.
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Pride Foundation holds it annual Equality 5k Fun Run/Walk & Kid's Dash this Sunday at Seward Park. Registration opens at 8:30 am. Even better: You can register online now. The run, walk, and dash start at 10 am. A pdf-format pledge form [pdf] for the race is available online.
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Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus is selling entertainment coupon books as a fundraiser. If you don't know somebody peddling a book, you can buy one online (the SLGC group number is 860494) or just send a donation directly to the group.
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The Pride Foundation and the Denver-based Gill Foundation [as in Quark] sponsor a regional OutGiving conference this weekend in Seattle. "The conference is a solicitation free event open to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allied individuals who are interested in increasing the effectiveness of their philanthropy with a local focus." (In other words, they won't be asking for money but will help participants learn how best to give money.)

The event opens tonight with a reception at a centrally located Capitol/First Hill home. The conference events run from 8am until 5pm tomorrow (Saturday, Oct 6) at the Olympic Hotel (Fairmont) downtown. Registration cost is $75 for one or $125 for two. Email aubrey[at]pridefoundation.org.

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Labels: Gay events, gay organization, philanthropy, tim gill