What is it with the idea that people are un-biased? We, as Knute indicates are all biased. Our biases may not be visible, but they are still there. When my son went to high school in Tacoma, people asked if he was afraid of the other black students. (A largely black school.) His answer and we are Irish white; no, I am more afraid of the Asian students. They were the predominate gangs of the era and the most violent. The bias against blacks was amazing and not admitted to by our liberal friends. My personal biases are against whiney do nothings. I know this, my wife reminds me of this. I cannot stand the Mayor and his anti everything attitude. Trying to tell people that they are to be, or strive to be un-biased, is like telling the sun to rise in the west, it is not going to happen. If we recognize our biases and admit to them, we as a people can adjust to them and not be so arrogant as to claim un-bias in our opinions. The Muni League may have good intentions, but they are fooling themselves if they think there is no bias in their organization.

Are there any actual card-carrying Republicans in the Muni League?

Imagine that - suggesting that candidates should be evaluated for their revolutionary potential!? I for one am very happy that the Muni League is actually making evaluations that help lay people decipher all the BS - will they run amuck with the treasury? Our taxes? The facilities and programs in which we have already invested? The Muni League helps me understand the basic character and skills needed for good government. I like the idea of good government.

When I do decide I want to vote for a revolution, I would not look to the muni League for advice. I'd go to Freemont and stand by the Stalin statue - or the troll.

"Meyer says the no one ever rated 'Not Qualified' has won elected office." Maybe this holds true within Seattle city limits, but Meyer is forgetful, if not disingenuous. The Muni League gave Chris Roberts a rating of 'Not Qualified' in his 2009 bid for Shoreline City Council, and not only did he win, but he won by the widest margin of any candidate running for City Council, unseating a 10-year veteran of the Council, Ron Hansen. Furthermore, they found themselves in the awkward position of having to retract Mr. Hansen's rating because in their "job interview" process they failed to take note of a widely known controversy surrounding his questionable accounting practices and the cancellation of his license by the State Board of Accountancy.

This year, they have bestowed a rating of "Very Good" on Patty Butler for the 32nd LD Senate Seat, yet they held back publication of her Questionnaire online until they could add a note stating that it contained a "factual error" with respect to the dates of her service in the State Legislature. She blatantly misrepresented the dates: the questionnaire said she served from 2007-2009, rather than the factually accurate 1997-1999. This was no simple typo, yet the Muni League appears content to slap a band-aid on it and move on.

Are they biased? Of course they are! Sloppy in their vetting? Evidently so.

Relevant? Not so much as they seem to think they are.

Mossback's argument that the Muni League's ostensibly neutral evaluations are affected by the larger political trends is irrefutable, as the Nickels, Mallahan and Derdowski examples all demonstrate. But as for his assertion that the Derd was effective, I think that clearly was not the case. The Derd was too liberal for the other Republicans but lacked the courage to make the leap to the Democratic side, thus offending both camps. The R's considered him a traitor and D's saw him as unreliable.

Derdowski's isolation had disastrous consequences for his constituents on the Sammamish Plateau. His tenure coincided with the requirement mandated by the Growth Management Act that King County designate all lands either urban or rural and stuff enough population increase into the urban growth area via zoning densities to meet adopted forecasts. The county council was thus faced with distributing a lot of future population density that nobody wanted but had to be allocated somewhere.

And the answer was....dump it on the Derd. Brian's political isolation allowed the rest of the council to gang up on him and allocate a disproportionate share of future growth to the transportation-challenged and environmentally fragile Sammamish Plateau. The rape of the Plateau was truly one of the great failures of civic vision in recent local political history. And it was made possible by Brian Derdowski's political ineptitude. I suspect that was what the Muni Leaguers were looking at when the "not qualified" rating was handed out.

Back in the paleolithic era, when I was on the Pierce County Charter Review Commission, we heard testimony from several people who were advocates of "good government." They were all about process and seemed to have (on the surface) very little interest in policy. However, it soon became apparent that if you scratch a Good Government Guy, you find a Big Government Guy. I started to wonder if some of these folks would have been just fine with Hitler sending the Jews to Auschwitz, so long as he had a town hall meeting to discuss it first. I became very dubious of people who preach process over policy. A meddlesome, intrusive, overbearing government is still all those things no matter how openly it got that way. I'm much more concerned with whether a candidate is going to respect my Constitutional, civil and human rights than whether he attends "stakeholders' meetings" or presents Powerpoint "mission statements" along the road to serfdom.

Speaking of the primary ballot, of the 11 races on mine, 6 are uncontested, and the results of 3 more are a foregone conclusion. Only the two contested Supreme Court races (Rumbaugh vs. Johnson; Chushcoff vs. Wiggins vs. Sanders) offer any real choice.

Whether or not the Municipal League is biased (I would tend to agree with Seattlelifer — we're all biased; what sets us apart is how we deal with that bias), this speaks more to the irrelevance of endorsements — theirs or others' — than anything else. It's unfortunate.

I don't get it - one organization does the work to try to remove as much bias as possible, and that makes you hate them, Knute? I guess we can't all be perfect (and the Muni League should probably soften their "no bias" message to "we do the hard work of removing as much bias and human error as possible).

Thousands of hours of volunteer labor go into creating those ratings. I don't think we can discount the civic engagement piece, either - scores of young people who benefitted from an unprecedented window into the political process thanks to the Muni League over the years.

The Muni League has always had a bias in favor of young, glib first-time candidates for office and a bias against longtime office holders. It's a rite of passage for local politicians to win the coveted "outstanding" ranking in their first run for office, then drop down to a "very good" or "good" after gaining a term or two of experience.

Excellent and insightful analysis, Knute.

I have stopped paying any attention to the Muni League. There ratings are all over the board and they offer no explanation why they rate one candidate one way and another candidate another way. I agree that any rating system of political candidates is inherently biased. The Muni League's ratings seem completely subjective.

What I have found is that, despite a handful of odd outcomes (out of how many rating that the League has done over the years?), the League usually follows its rubric fairly well. There has to be some sort of rubric, and I have yet to see an alternative proposal that makes more sense than what the League uses.

I would be only slightly more surprised to fire up Crosscut and see an editorial blasting Microsoft's hiring managers for showing bias toward job applicants with good grades, positive performance reviews, etc.

Mallanan = "Outstanding"

Muni League = "Joke"

Mr. Berger's complaints about the Muni League are something of a straw-man agument -- as others have noted, of course they're biased. Everybody is. Meanwhile, in response to dbreneman, I'm not sure how believing that government has a positive role to play in society equates to "big government," let alone Hitler and death camps. Government has no exclusive franchise on ineptitude, or did the mortgage meltdown somehow escape your attention? That was decidedly not the government's fault.

"No one could argue Derdowski wasn't experienced; he was also effective (and was one of the council's least partisan Republicans)..."

Like the Muni League, your bias is showing too.

The Muni League does have some explaining to do about that ridiculous Mallahan rating. I don't blame Knute for building a column around it.

They might also explain how they were fooled into rating McGinn: "Good."

Nobody gets it right all the time.

Did I say that? All I said was that "good government" types frequently don't care what government does. They don't really care if government is a force for good or a force for evil. They're fine with government doing just about anything it wants, so long as there's a meeting.

As far as the mortgage meltdown goes, a major player in that was the quasi-governmental Fanny-Fred, which was a darling of, and enabled by, several powerful congressmen. The creation and bursting of the mortgage bubble may not have been exclusively government's fault, but if you're doing root cause analysis, the hand of government has left fingerprints all over that mess.

Good take on the Muni League, Knute. Over the years, mine has been a little different. Even assuming the Muni League DOES rate candidates accurately according to their criteria, to a voter who cares about the issues, about policy, their ratings are irrelevant.

I'd much rather have an Adequate or even Not Qualified public official working FOR the issues I care about than an Outstanding official working AGAINST my issues. And I think most voters would feel similarly, when they stop to think about it.

The Muni League has many good supporters and volunteers who are sincerely working on behalf of the public...but the organization has an institutional pro-establishment bias which should be wider known. Thank you Knute for taking this on, but you better not run for office around here soon!

Many organizations rate candidates, but their ratings reflect those organization's political goals, and everyone knows it. The problem with the League is that the ratings are passed off as pure and unrelated to a political agenda. But the League does have a political agenda, even promoting ballot propositions like King County's recent so called "non-partisan" charter amendment.

Opposition to the Muni League's bias is nothing new. Some very effective politicians like my friend Bruce Holland (former Legislator and County Assessor) performed wonderfully in public office for years and always refused to participate in interviews with the League. A number of respected political leaders have expressed their distain for the League, especially privately. I have even known of periodic efforts to "stack the League" with selected partisans.

When I was rated in 2003, one (and I seem to recall 2) of the League's Board were former opponents of mine! I wasn't going to do the interview at all, but an earnest young person from the League talked me into it. The interviewers were apparently shocked at some of my answers, like when I questioned the so called "emergency" budget problems at the County and offered information and perspectives that they hadn't read in the local papers. All the Kool-Aide hadn't prepared them to understand discordant facts and analysis. I never expected a favorable rating, but they really went over the top that year. Even my opponent newspaper the Eastside Journal opined that the League showed that it was "unqualified" to rate candidates.

I won't take your readers time to defend myself against the effectiveness charge. Any examination of my record would reveal numerous pieces of landmark legislation and accomplishments....and also many bad proposals that I fought against and sometimes helped defeat. As to courage...well "woofer", whoever you are, you aren't qualified to pass judgment on that.

I do want to respond to "woofer's" gross misrepresentation of the reality on the Sammamish Plateau, however. In 1992 King County adopted a land use plan that delayed development until certain road projects were completed to serve the area. About two years later, the developers managed to get an ordinance passed to rely on a weak traffic concurrency program, and lifted the zoning restrictions that we had adopted in 1992. Councilmember Larry Phillips, to his credit, now calls that the worst vote that he ever took, and at the time I argued that the County's concurrency program had many flaws (A position that was vindicated later through a Supreme Court Case and a Federal Whistleblower case recently concluded).

When that ordinance passed, and it was obvious that Sammamish was going to get inundated, I focused my attention on helping the people of Sammamish incorporate their own City and preserving Section 18 and stopping a cross-plateau freeway (yes, freeway). I knew that incorporation campaigns win if they can make the County look bad, so rather than defending the County, I supported incorporation. The criticism of the County rubbed off on me, and helped create the mythology that "woofer" apparently believes. By the way, "woofer", you must not get out much if you think that Sammamish is unique in its problems coping with unreasonable development.

There's a lot more that could be said about growth management and land use in Sammamish and the region. I've spent my entire life resisting unreasonable development and promoting sustainable economics and environmental protection. If you need help doing the same, call me at 425-378-0999.

Brian Derdowski
Bellevue
King County Councilman 1990-2000

I, for one, remember the good work Brian Derdowski did on the County Council, and think woofer got it all wrong with regard to how the Sammamish Plateau got screwed.

Thanks, Brian!

So who pays attention to the MuniLeague anyway? The people donating to the candidates? Doubtful. The candidates mothers? Naturally. The news media? Unfortunately.

The MuniLeague is worthless and tired. Time to put it and it's so-called nonprofit status out of work. The salaried people are there for the jobs, and that's a profit motive, equal to or greater than a company with a profit drive who would fire those liberal lamebutts.

dbrenemen: I got your point immediately and thought that was an excellent observation. Policy is substance.

T.M Sell: Scares me that writers like yourself seem to accept that mostly government can do no wrong.

Brian Derdowski: Thanks to you and the council for your Sammamish policy. I logged and cleared many lots in the plateau for multiple builders. Good jobs, good money.

dbrennaman, you are a rebel without a clue, as usual.

The mortgage meltown was not "As far as the mortgage meltdown goes, a major player in that was the quasi-governmental Fanny-Fred, which was a darling of, and enabled by, several powerful congressmen. The creation and bursting of the mortgage bubble may not have been exclusively government's fault, but if you're doing root cause analysis, the hand of government has left fingerprints all over that mess"

It was purely caused by greed, computer modeling trust that shouldn't have been placed (ie, stupid bets), and the huge money grubbers of the likes of Goldman Sachs who sold to and bet against in the SAME TRANSACTION their own clients.

Does the term eating your young mean anything new to any of you? That is the sole cause of the mortgage meltdown. The rest was just ants on the pig-pile.

common1sense: Wouldn't you agree that if the bankers who wrote those mortgages could be held at least partially responsible, many would not have been written?

What is your point?

The Muni League in the 2009 Shoreline City Council re-election campaign was notified in May that an incumbent's CPA license had been revoked, the Muni League went on nevertheless to give that candidate a "very good" rating.

The Muni League was provided a copy of the Board of Accountancy letter, yet they failed to act. In late September they were provided with a copy of the Superior Court case upon which the Board of Accountancy based its decision to suspend, then ultimately revoke said candidate's CPA license; it took them nearly a month to determine that his rating should be "withdrawn."

Next act in the saga: when challenged on these facts, the Muni League first asserted said candidate was unrated. When confronted with the evidence that their own website stated the rating was withdrawn, they claimed it was because they did not receive the material until just before the general election, which I know to be false since the file was retrieved in August and the Muni League took their own sweet time deliberating.

Another drama: I have seen so-called press clipping the Muni League has used as "evidence" letters to the editors opposing candidates supporters have written alleging misdeeds that are unsupported by the official record, these letters have been posted on the Muni League website as if they were fully vetted investigative pieces written by a journalist.

Other disturbing trends: the Muni League has failed to fully investigate the backgrounds of candidates. One candidate they gave a high rating to was found to have used her position as a substitute teacher to pressure students into volunteering for her campaign, the Muni League failed to act. Another candidate has a bankruptcy filing and other irregularities that could easily be found with a simple background search, but the Muni League doesn't do these evidently.

On Facebook you will find the staffers of a great many politicians, if the Muni League process is so transparent and unbiased, why are there so many established politicos infiltrating their process?

The Muni League is sham. All one needs to do to understand how it works is to take a look at the board of directors and the composition of the committees, it is dominated by corporations and real estate developers. Therein lies the reason Mallahan received an "outstanding," he was rated by other "captains of industry."

As an unincorporated King County resident for many years, I can attest to Brian Derdowski's efforts to rein in sprawling growth in the unincorporated areas in the 1990's. He was one of very few on the County Council's Growth Management committee who asked hard questions about the questionable deals King County struck with Weyerhouser/Quadrant and other huge timber land owners, and opposed the fast-track ordinances to expedite their urban planned developments in the rural areas. I'd vote for him again in a heartbeat!

Couldn't agree with you more Mossy. We at the county Labor Council are proudly biased in our assessment and endorsement of candidates. While our goal is to maintain an open mind our bias will naturally favor our principles of economic and social justice. We do this with the understanding that not all the citizenry share our principals. Just like notion of objective journalism, objective endorsement processes are easier said than done.

Couldn't agree with you more Mossy. We at the county Labor Council are proudly biased in our assessment and endorsement of candidates. While our goal is to maintain an open mind our bias will naturally favor our principles of economic and social justice. We do this with the understanding that not all the citizenry share our principals. Just like the notion of objective journalism, objective endorsement processes are easier said than done.

revenant beat me to it in terms of noting that now-Shoreline City Councilmember Christopher Roberts got elected despite being rated "Not Qualified," but their point seems to imply that Roberts got elected in spite of the rating, i.e. voters did the opposite. If they were a Shoreline voter, they would be aware of the blitz of negative ads sent out in mid-October by an "independent" group that sprung out of the woodwork and did not disclose its financiers, though rumors said it was ex-councilpeople who disagreed with Mr. Hansen when they were on the council together. The only two known members of this group were front people who were largely unknowns. With Mr. Hansen having no time nor the money to counter these claims, they stuck. Also, voters tend to turn out politicians who have a hint of anything unethical...a hint was all it was to most voters until the negative ads were poured on in media-poor Shoreline. An additional factor in Mr. Roberts' favor was his youth, 31 vs. his 69-year-old opponent. These were the primary factors for the result, as they are in most instances, and not the Municipal League rating. Put another way, Councilmember Roberts would've been elected even if his rating was "Outstanding." At least this election cycle the interviews and ratings were completed in advance of the elections and the ratings received some publicity; a few years back, interviews for candidates in the primary were done after those who were only in the general election, the result being that ratings were released after the primary election, with some of the candidates already defeated!

this article makes no sense; talk about relativism gone wild!!!!

"biased against candidates who don't know anything about the issues".
"biased against people who want to overthrown everything and reinvent everything every four years."
"biased against people who pick fights with everyone over everything."

Wow, what horrible biases to have!

mebbe the author thinks endorsements and rankings should be drawn out of hat, to remove all biases.

Ron Hansen had his CPA license suspended in 2001 by the Board of Accountacy due to a Snohomish County Superior Court case in which he failed to properly account for the funds for YEARS in a trust after repeated demands.

Ron Hansen continued to use the CPA designation after his CPA license was suspended, abcs, for which the Washington State Board of Accountacy REVOKED his license.

The Political Action Committe, abcs, to which you refer, did nothing but inform Shoreline voters of the facts behind Mr. Hansen's sordid history.

There is no disagreement behind what Ron Hansen actually did, see this link for the proof:

http://www.cpaboard.wa.gov/ConsumerProtection/lic_cert_suspensions_2009.shtml

Hansen, Ronald, Edmonds. January 16, 2009.
Violation: As co-personal representative of an estate, borrowed money from estate funds for personal use without authorization; failed to provide a timely accounting of an estate to the successor co-personal representative of the estate; failed to comply with a court order; and continued association of the CPA title with Hansen’s name after the suspension of Hansen CPA certificate and individual and firm licenses in April 2001.

@abcs "...though rumors said it was ex-councilpeople who disagreed with Mr. Hansen when they were on the council together."

You should stop repeating rumors as if they were fact, if you don't know, then don't repeat it. The books were examined per PDC rules on October 28, 2009 for said political action committee, and names were taken by opposing political action committee members. The books were found to be in order.