Read Online 299 Days: The Preparation by Glen Tate - Free Book Online Page B

you.”
    Ben was in a part of the yard that the neighbors couldn’t see, and he took a big piss. “Hey, look, the Governor is pissing in his yard!” Ben yelled. They laughed so hard it hurt.
    Grant would remember “Governor Ben” pissing in his yard for years. There was something about it that he couldn’t get out of his mind. It was like the path. It was like he was seeing the future, but he wasn’t. It was hard to explain.
    Grant’s job at WAB was great. In addition to traditional legal work, he also lobbied. He saw how laws were passed. It was ugly.
    He witnessed no outright bribery, but legislators were typically not very bright. They did what lobbyists said, especially lobbyists for government, unions, environmentalists, and big business. The Republicans usually listened to WAB, but listening was about all they could do.
    The Republicans weren’t exactly pure and wonderful. They had no power so everything they did was designed to try and achieve some power. There was no plan to do anything good once they got power; they just wanted it. Even in the past, when the Republicans controlled the state House and Senate, they still managed to pile up more government. A little less growth in government, but a net increase, nonetheless. Republicans were more interested in getting re-elected than in actually decreasing the size of government. Getting re-elected in Washington State meant promising “more funding for our schools,” “protecting the environment” and all that. Just a little less than the Democrats.
    Republicans spent much of their time on social issues, which meant they alienated most of the voters in liberal Washington State. It was pretty sad. Grant saw firsthand the reasons those in political circles said that the Democrats were the “evil” party and the Republicans were the “stupid” party.
    Most of Grant’s work was representing WAB members in lawsuits against the government. His first case was for Big Sam’s Plumbing. Big Sam, who fit the name at six feet four inches, installed a water heater for a customer in some typical mildly corrupt mediumsized city in Washington State. It turned out that the customer was a city council member who was despised by the mayor. Big Sam didn’t get a permit to install a water heater, because no one ever did, although the building code technically required one. So the Mayor announced his concern that the council member had broken such an important safety law. Big Sam, who was a very bright guy, wrote an extremely elegant letter to the editor of the newspaper about how stupid it was to require a permit to do something that people did all the time. The newspaper published it and the mayor looked like an idiot.
    The mayor had the city attorney convene a special grand jury and charge Big Sam and the council member with the crime of installing a water heater without a permit. It was a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail. Conveniently enough, they announced the charges two days after the election. Big Sam was terrified about going to jail for installing a water heater. He was a WAB member so he called them.
    Grant made a public records request to the city for all the water heater permits ever issued. It turned out that in a city of 90,000, exactly two water heater permits had been issued in the past ten years. A few thousand hot water heaters had been installed without permits, or criminal prosecution.
    By the time Grant got the records from the reluctant city, Big Sam’s trial was in a few days. He started the case on the day before Thanksgiving. This was exactly what he loved. Big Sam was being bullied and Grant had some special skills that could beat the bully. He took Thanksgiving Day off, but worked the next day and all weekend on the case. He found a very obscure legal doctrine called “procedural equal protection” that stated it was unconstitutional if a person exercises a constitutional right like free speech (such as writing a letter