Herald staff
SEATTLE — Seattle’s two daily newspapers endorsed Democrat Maria Cantwell for U.S. Senate in their combined Sunday edition.
The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer compared the race to the 1980 election, when Republican Slade Gorton toppled Senate veteran Warren Magnuson. This time, the newspapers say Gorton’s seat is in danger.
"There comes a time to restart the clock, to build and rebuild the credentials and seniority of Washington’s team in the U.S. Senate," the Times wrote.
The Post-Intelligencer called Gorton wrong on fundamental issues, from health care to campaign finance reform, and asserted that voters are willing to lose seniority in the Senate for a new voice.
"It’s time for a philosophy that more accurately reflects the values held by the majority of citizens in this state," the Post-Intelligencer wrote.
Both of the newspapers noted Cantwell’s stance on campaign finance reform and her understanding of high-tech issues, as shown by her stint as senior vice president at Internet software company RealNetworks.
Man gets 20 years in prostitution case: A Seattle man convicted of transporting underage girls from state to state to work as prostitutes has been sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison. Tracey James Barnes, 31, was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court to 19 years and eight months under federal anti-slavery laws. One of the women who testified against him said she wished he’d gotten more time. "He didn’t get enough," said a 20-year-old Seattle woman Barnes lured into prostitution when she was 16. "There’s not a time or a price on what he did to the girls he encountered." Barnes was convicted in February of seven counts of violating the Mann Act. The seldom-used law, enacted in 1910, targets "white slavery," forcing young women into prostitution. He also was found guilty of one count of illegal possession of a firearm.
Tully’s buys Portland-area bakeries: Marsee Baking, a chain of 10 bakery and coffee shops, has been acquired by Seattle-based Tully’s Coffee Corp. The company will gain 10 locations in downtown Portland, Lake Oswego and Beaverton. Each location will add Tully’s full line of specialty coffee drinks and products to Marsee’s existing bakery selections. The deal will be completed Dec. 1. Marsee will supply bakery products to Tully’s coffeehouses in Oregon and Vancouver, Wash., including future locations. Current employees at Marsee’s locations will be retained, said Tom O’Keefe, founder and chief executive of Tully’s.
Conservative group must pay: A judge has ruled that the Oregon Citizens Alliance’s nonprofit educational foundation violated a restraining order when it returned checks to donors. The foundation’s accounts were frozen last month after a Portland gay-rights activist sued the alliance in an attempt to collect an 8-year-old civil judgment. Catherine Stauffer, 31, was awarded $32,000 in damages in 1992 after she was removed from an alliance meeting. Stauffer accused former alliance communications director Scott Lively of grabbing her arm and slamming her into a partition at a 1991 anti-gay meeting at a church. Courts determined the organization couldn’t pay the damages because it was broke. But Stauffer’s attorneys learned the alliance had transferred $200 out of the foundation’s account and had returned $840 in donations since the Sept. 12 order to freeze the account. Multnomah County Circuit Court judge Marshall Amiton told Oregon Citizen’s Alliance to pay Stauffer $840 by Nov. 10.
Student body president will keep his job: A student body president caught with drugs on campus will keep his leadership position at Phoenix High School. A student-led recall against Keanon Ferguson, 17, failed Friday in a close vote by students. Ferguson, who fought for his title both in court and class, said he would devote the remainder of his presidency to anti-drug efforts at the school. Phoenix High School Principal Brian Rhodes said the vote was "fairly evenly split" between those who wanted to recall Ferguson and those who wanted him to stay in office. Ninety percent of students participated. Rhodes declined to give the exact vote. In the last week of school, a security guard in the school parking lot found Ferguson carrying a small amount of marijuana and a pipe. Drug paraphernalia was found in his car. Under school rules, he was suspended. In August, school officials took the additional step of removing him from his office.
