local news
Debt
Saving Medicare
districts. Interestingly enough, they are
defining the tone and direction of debate on
a number of critical policy issues.
Rep. Robert Aderholt’s (R-AL) 4th
Congressional district is a quaint and very
white collection of small-town main streets,
peppered by small cities like Decatur and
Gadsden. It’s 5.1 percent Black make-up,
compared to the 90 percent of the popula-
tion that is white, makes it the district with
the lowest African-American population in
Alabama.
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), one of the more
vocal and controversial card-carrying mem-
bers of the Tea Party Caucus, hails from
Georgia’s 10th Congressional district where
the 19 percent Black population is a promi-
nent fixture in the life of small cities like
Athens, Evans and Augusta, but not enough
to completely offset the routine challenges
of post-Jim Crow era life in a district 76
percent white.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett’s (R-Md.) very rural
6th Congressional district sits in a state
where 30 percent of the electorate is African
American. Yet, in places like Garrett,
Allegany, Frederick and Carroll Counties,
the population is barely five percent Black
against the district’s 92 percent white make-
up.
The list continues with sparsely populated
rural towns and suburbs with little diversity,
tucked away from the population centers of
major U.S. cities that represent the over-
whelming majority. But, passion and grass-
roots planning makes up for the deficiency
in numbers. These are places where only 16
percent of the American population resides
as opposed to the massive 84 percent con-
centrated in urban areas.
Yet, based on the latest numbers in
Congress, it’s that very population calling
the shots in the debt-ceiling debate.
In Congress, some run farms and ranches
or unsuccessful small local businesses; oth-
ers are very well-to-do and wealthy, or in a
position of proving to less endowed con-
stituents that, yes, they are down with “the
people” (one reason behind constant refer-
ences to old, dusty documents like the
Constitution). Stuff can’t move unless
some rural hickness representing a
Congressional district of “guns and reli-
gion” — as Candidate Obama once sur-
mised — says it can.
It’s an odd composition considering tea
party members represent 11 percent of the
entire U.S. Congress, including both House
and Senate chambers. But, at this stage,
they are running the show, particularly in
the House Republican majority where the
tea party faction represents a solid quarter
of the entire GOP caucus. As drama unfold-
ed throughout the week, Boehner found his
leadership under siege and questions
mounting about whether or not he’d be
around any longer.
“The problem with the Speaker is he’s
busy making deals,” admitted a sweaty sen-
ior Republican staffer walking towards a
House office building one morning, “while
his caucus is falling apart.”
The perception of management malfea-
sance created problems for Boehner
throughout the week as nearly 25 House
Republicans — including members of his
own state’s delegation — openly revolted
against his incremental debt-ceiling resolu-
tion bill, prompting the Speaker to finally
cry uncle and insert the balanced budget
amendment demanded by the tea party rank
PHoto by SuSan Fried
continued from page 1
Baba joined about 100 other people Saturday, July 30, to celebrate the
46th birthday of Medicare. Participants celebrated by walking from
Safeco Field to the Pike Place Market accompanied by a marching band.
Republican presidential candidate Rep.
Michelle Bachmann (R-MN).
In the background of that was tea party
matriarch Sarah Palin (eager to find an
opening in her beauty pageant mud fight
with Bachmann), teasing Boehner and other
establishment country club Republicans on
Republican defiance dictated by the map
with our votes.”
“P.S. Everyone I talk to still believes in
contested primaries,” added Palin.
“In his inability so far to whip together
enough Republican votes to secure passage
of his bill, Mr. Boehner has faced a triple
threat of his own,” recently blogged pollster
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com. “The
first leg of the stool is the tea party. The
second are first-term Republicans, who
make up more than a third of his cau-
cus. And the third is the threat of primary
challenges to his members.”
Watching House Republicans battle the
past week was a neo-modern take on
“Gangs of New York,” the rhetoric flying
back and forth like make shift, handmade
and file. That’s only close to six percent of
the entire House of Representatives - by
week’s end, 13 of those 25 accounted for
members of the Tea Party Caucus —
chaired by none other than firebrand
Facebook. “[W]e little folk are watching
the debt ceiling debate with great interest
and concern,” wrote Palin. “[R]emember us
‘little people’ who believed in them, donat-
ed to their campaigns, spent hours tirelessly
volunteering for them, and trusted them
by the Pew Research Center.
The National Urban League launched its
conference Wednesday in Boston with the
release of the report entitled “At Risk: The
State of the Black Middle Class.”
Morial also is scheduled to give his annu-
al “State of the Urban League Address”
Wednesday evening at the Boston
Convention and Exhibition Center, where
he will cite the Pittsburgh affiliate of the
Urban League as an example of a successful
and active affiliate.
this time intent on voicing her campaign to
the people at the annual general member-
ship meeting.
She stepped to the microphone and
repeated her plea for the tribe to recognize
gay couples. Tribal Council members said
they would continue considering it. She sat
what you can to help them.”
Suquamish Tribe Chairman Leonard
Forsman said Purser’s lobbying helped the
issue jump to the top of the council’s prior-
ities.
“I’m just happy that we’re able to get the
work done that will allow the same rights
Indian Tribe on the southern Oregon coast -
recognizes same-sex marriage. The
Coquille adopted its law sanctioning gay
marriage in 2008. Most tribal law doesn’t
address the issue. In 2006, efforts to grant
marriage rights at the nation’s largest tribe,
the Navajo, were defeated.
Same-sex marriage licenses also are
granted by New York, Connecticut, Iowa,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire and
Vermont, plus Washington, D.C.
The Suquamish Tribe has about 1,000
enrolled members, according to its website.
Its reservation is on the shores of the Puget
Sound, about an hour from Seattle. The city
of Seattle is named after its most famous
member, Chief Seattle, who led a confeder-
ation of tribes in the first half of the 1800s.
While Heather Purser lobbied for mar-
riage, she said she’s not yet taking that step.
But her victory has helped her deal with
many personal issues.
“I have a lot of bitterness inside of me. I
grew up in an abusive environment,” she
said. “Ever since (the vote), a lot of that
pain is just gone.”
See debt on page 8
Economy
continued from page 1
2005.
The median wealth of white U.S. house-
holds in 2009 was $113,149, compared with
$6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks,
according to an analysis released Tuesday
Marriage
continued from page 1
have approved so-called “everything but
marriage” laws, granting same-sex couples
many rights.
The change in tribal law came after a four-
year campaign by tribal member Heather
Purser, 28, to get the marriage ordinance
changed to include same-sex couples.
“I wanted to feel accepted by my tribe,”
Purser said Tuesday. “I was expecting a
fight to be ugly. But I was so shocked. I
guess I was expecting the worst out of peo-
ple. I was expecting the worst out of my
people.”
Purser came out to her family when she
was 16 and decided to campaign for gay
marriage in her tribe after college.
She approached the tribal council, which
she said was supportive but not encourag-
ing. She said they told her to talk to elders
about the issue and assigned a tribal attor-
ney to work with her.
But Purser became discouraged, thinking
the tribe was moving too slow. She moved
to Seattle, to a gay-friendly neighborhood,
where she met her partner.
Purser, who is a seafood diver for the
tribe, returned to the reservation in March,
‘Everyone said aye. No one said nay’
down. But people around her encouraged to
stand up again. She then asked for a voice
vote.
“Everyone said aye. No one said nay,” she
said. Behind her, her father and brothers
watched.
“I’m proud that she stood up for herself
and took a stand. You bet,” said Heather’s
father, Rob Purser. “A father’s main concern
is that your children are happy, and you do
and privileges to all people, regardless of
sexual orientation,” Forsman said in a tele-
phone interview with The Associated Press.
“It was a process that took longer than
expected. We have a lot competing needs.”
Hansen said other jurisdictions will have
to decide whether to uphold same-sex
unions performed on the Suquamish’s reser-
vation.
At least one other tribe - the Coquille
august 3, 2011 The Seattle Skanner Page 3