Kitsap Caucus

U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, made his first floor speech in Congress Thursday and reiterated his theme that Congress should do something to stop the accross-the-board cuts that will happen at the end of the month if it doesn’t act.

In the speech he refers to “legislation that doesn’t solve this problem, isn’t going to pass the Senate, and isn’t going to become law” and that there will be four days of action in DC before the cuts happen.

The legislation he is referring to he HR 273, which freezes federal employee pay. Kilmer spokesman Stephen Carter said via email that the bill will be voted on Friday, but there was “a procedural vote on the rule to consider it.”

The text of the speech follows and was provided by Kilmer’s office:

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A retired member of Congress probably has a few more career options than the rest of us when we leave our jobs. “Championing legislation” might not be a skill marketable should U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, apply for a job at Supercuts. So if you’ve got a cosmetology degree you might have a leg up on him there. But I don’t think our 36-year congressman is going to be hurting for options.

On Sunday in Tacoma, at a party honoring his career, Dicks took to the mic and showed his versatility. He can not only make a lasting mark on Tacoma and Bremerton and do whatever opportunity arises for a former college linebacker, the congressman can sing.

You might want to interpret “can sing” the way all of us “can sing.” At least he knows the words. Like Buckwheat, once Norm Dicks sings a song, it’s eternally his.

Most jobs you’re actually allowed to pack up your stuff and leave the building forever before you’re displaced from your desk. I mean imagine your boss telling you in two weeks you have to leave, and for that two weeks you have to move all your stuff to the room with the vending machines.

That’s akin to what’s happening in Congress. I guess it’s how things work there, because nobody complains about it that I know of. I didn’t know that was how things operated and I had the experience of a highly educational internship as a reporter in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1986, when John McCain, John Breaux, Harry Reid and Tom Daschle gave up their House seats for ones in the Senate.

I learned all about this office shuffling on Thursday. I had read the story about newly elected Congressman Derek Kilmer picking number 65 out of 70 for office space. (In that competition, that high score is a bad thing.) But it hadn’t occurred to me that Norm Dicks would already be out of his space. I mean now it makes sense. Like “duh.” I should have had my first clue when I saw all the furniture in the Rayburn hallways.

But on Thursday I knew his staff was in the Rayburn building. I went there and looked at the directory on the wall to find out which office belonged to our soon-to-be retired politician. I found the number, went to the location and found a California flag outside the door. The office now belongs to George Miller, D-Calif. I asked the cherubs inside the front office where Dicks’ office had gone to and was told it was in the basement cafeteria, where all the “retirees” from the building were placed. I put that word in quotes, because not everyone down there is retiring by choice.

“Basement” in this case isn’t as bad as it sounds, and there is a separation between the room of cubicles and the actual eating area.

After finding Dicks’ main cubicle (No. 36) I was told my contact there, Chief of Staff George Behan, would be there in a while. So I waited in a comfy chair nearby and was looking over emails when in my view I saw Cubicle 27, the current landing spot of U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. You may remember that Kucinich considered becoming “D-Wash.” but wasn’t exactly welcomed by local party brass and he wasn’t gerrymandered out of his district as expected. Instead, he was put in the same district as Marcy Kaptur, another Ohio Democrat who also wasn’t looking to retire. She beat him in the primary, which set the stage for Kucinich being found in a cubicle smaller than mine, straining his neck to talk on his cell phone and wondering where his stapler went.

Dicks, by the way, being the ranking Democrat in Appropriations, has office space in the committee offices and he has his own office space in the Capitol itself. From my perspective, he still looks like a member of Congress.

Having just returned this week from vacation, when I ignored this place and any issues it might discuss, I just Thursday read Josh Farley’s story about how some people are complaining because Bruce Danielson, candidate for state Supreme Court, doesn’t seem to be campaigning.

I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here, in a way. I’m not saying this move by Danielson is good or right. (Nor am I saying he’s the devil.) I am saying he just might benefit from this strategy, and that in itself might make it good or right. I’ll also argue that maybe there is more than winning the election at issue.

I understand the complaint. The 20 or so of you who might want to go to a debate between the judge candidates and the hundreds more of you who would like to read something before voting could benefit from knowing Danielson’s positions on judicial matters, assuming you’re undecided.

My answer to that is Danielson did post a one-page website and put his info in the voter’s guide. He’s telling you something. It’s not nothing. Whether there is enough there for you to get a sense of how he would perform as a judge is another question.

That, perhaps, gets answered in the Sun story itself. Farley followed the advice of bob12345 before bob12345 gave it, suggesting to me that maybe bob12345 didn’t read the entire story. bob12345 wrote, “i have no problem with him not posting his info, campaigning, or participation in debates. his info is out there, the sun should have filled in his info for him.. ‘reporting’.” Well, bob12345, I assume you’re talking about the questionnaire we gave each candidate first. No, we’re not going to fill in the answers to our questions for him. Would you expect the county auditor to do that? The questionnaire is a place for candidates to make their arguments without any filtering by us. Farley did, however, go back to some of Danielson’s old public statements and put them in the story. You know, reporting.

On the question of whether Danielson’s strategy will make him the winner, well I’d say it probably won’t, based on history of other candidates who choose not to show up to public events, answer questions from inquiring news organizations, or doorbell.

It doesn’t mean it won’t ever work. Danielson, I suspect, may be employing this technique to illustrate his point on his website that “Judges should be elected without influence from a political party or special interest group.”

For the record, I think the term “special interest group” is thrown around way too much, the all-encompassing bogeyman used by politicians to scare voters into not voting for the opponent.

For those who might think Danielson is arguing against electing judges, the very next sentence on his site should dispel that notion. “Voters should not settle for a judge who has been appointed by the most partisan office of the State.”

Another reason it could work one day, if not now, is because it makes the candidate look like a maverick, bucking the system and delivering a middle finger to establishment politicians and the mainstream media. Some respond favorably to that.

It also generated a story (free advertising) because some in the legal community are put off by Danielson’s decision to run this way. The story does not, contrary to some of the commenters, say the Kitsap Sun is upset about it. The Kitsap Sun, as far as I am aware, has not taken a position on Danielson’s tactic. We also don’t have a practice of editorially slamming people who don’t buy ads from us, by the way. In fact, I only know who buys ads when I see them the way you do, on my computer screen or in the paper. Those of you who want to believe otherwise are probably not going to believe that, but I’ll go through the useless exercise of telling you anyway.

Finally, let’s not discount the idea that maybe winning the election is not the candidate’s first priority. I don’t know Danielson’s motivation for running. We assume all candidates actually want to win. The large majority probably do and would take the job if they did win, but you’d be surprised how many know very well they’re not going to. So they run for other reasons.

Danielson could win, and if he does I’m sure he’d relish the job. But if he doesn’t win, he has made a statement by running the way he has. And if you’re more cynical, he’s paid a filing fee and paid for a website, which if nothing else ends up creating advertising for his legal services. How many clients would it take for him to make up whatever price he paid?

As a P.S. to this, Danielson is not alone this election in applying this kind of technique. In the 6th Congressional District race Eric Arentz filed as an independent and as far as I know hasn’t campaigned other than providing information for the official election guides.

Stephan Brodhead, a Republican, has done a little more. He answered our questionnaire, has a pretty comprehensive website and I see his ads on Facebook. He won’t, however, talk to me or other reporters.

In fact, when I wrote that the primary ballots were in the mail and described him as “2010 Oregon Congressional candidate Stephan Brodhead,” he took particular exception to that, writing as a story comment, “Well Gardner, for your information, when I ran in Oregon in 2010, I did it for experience. I ended up endorsing one of your fellow Mormons that attended BYU, hence your qualifiying me as an Oregon candidate is quite self serving… In fact it is prickish and somewhat BYUish…..Sorta Council of 50 type of deal…”

Later that day I wrote an e-mail to him saying, “I was hoping we could set up a time to chat on the phone for an election story for the weekend,” making no reference to his online comment.

He responded: “Go ahead and talk to Brigham Young, I mean, Jesse Young. Given how you worded your blog, I am certain that your interpretation and journalistic intent will not fall in my favor; hence, I am not interested in talking with you at all….
“Good day!”

I responded, “What are you talking about?”

His answer: “You called me the ‘Oregon candidate’ in your blog….You chose this as a qualifier, and did not have to. This shows your intent….I am not interested in any type of interview at this juncture. I think we are done…Please quit with the emails….”

My final response: “I’m not done. I don’t understand what the problem is with what I wrote.
“I’m giving you an opportunity to make your case as a candidate. To be clear, you’re going to decline an opportunity to make that case because I mentioned the fact that you ran for Congress in Oregon?
“If that’s what you want, for me to write that you refused to be interviewed for the story, I’ll grant your wish.”

He didn’t respond to me again until after I wrote the story I had asked him to comment for. In that story I described him as “a real estate owner and manager, small business owner and veteran.” He took issue with that description.

Brodhead’s message to me: “Collectively, all of the news organizations have censored my service in Iraq while playing up Driscoll. Your latest article simply calls me a veteran while you explain in detail Eichner and Driscoll’s military service. This is just another blatant example of your media bias and manipulation. Your credibility as a journalist is suspect. Thanks for devaluing my contributions as a veteran while playing up others….”

My response: “Amazing that someone who refuses to talk to anyone in the media complains that he’s being censored.”

In the story I referred to Eichner’s military service by calling him a “former Navy submarine captain.” Of Driscoll I said he was “a veteran who in 2006 volunteered to rejoin the U.S. Marine Corps and served in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

So perhaps Brodhead has a point, though I don’t feel all that guilty for using “veteran” to describe him. Most people do still consider being a veteran a good thing, right? Given the chance to do the story again I might say he was a flight engineer in Iraq. I wasn’t trying to discount his service. But again, if want to believe otherwise, what I say here isn’t going to change your mind. If you go to the bio page on Brodhead’s site you’ll see his military experience.

And if you’re looking for a candidate who won’t talk to the media or debate his opponents, you’ve got your man. In a primary race with five candidates from the same party, I can see a day when that strategy might work.

In April we told you that, yeah, that election for the one-month job in Congress might seem like it costs a lot of money, but at least there will be a lot to do. Surely there would be a lame-duck session so Congress could finish the work it was unwilling to do before the election.

Now there is a push, perhaps a quixotic one but a push nonetheless, to not have that lame-duck session. Three Senators are urging House leadership to get a budget passed in August or October, which would essentially make a lame-duck session unnecessary.

“Should Republicans fail to do this, Americans can expect another carefully choreographed crisis that will needlessly take government to the brink of a shutdown, without concern for voters, consumers and businesses that desperately need stability amid these fragile economic times.” — South Carolina Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, all Republicans.

George Behan, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, said the congressman would like to see a budget passed before August, too. “Norm believes it would be good for our economy if we got together,” Behan said.

It seems unlikely. A year ago Congress had three different proposals they could have at least accepted as frameworks for budget agreements and failed, Behan said. The guts of any of those could be used again, but “Politically it’s hard to imagine that happening.”

Many Republicans have pledged to not do anything that hints of raising taxes and Democrats are saying they’ll let all the Bush tax cuts expire, a pretty fair piece of leverage, Behan said.

It’s those tax cuts that are part of what an end-of-year session would likely address. A representative from the current 1st Congressional District could, in theory, be an important single vote.

If Congress doesn’t meet after the election, well, someone either gets to brag about being in Congress for a month or gets a head start on the other new members.

UPDATE: Candidate Stephan Brodhead shed further light on the response he gave to the News Tribune. While he’s still not happy the reporter posted just a part of his letter, he apologizes to the paper and to another candidate. And he takes shots at Democrats Derek Kilmer and Norm Dicks.

With the August primary next on the election calendar newspapers and others are inviting candidates in for frank discussions about policy and campaign goals. The News Tribune in Tacoma invited Stephan Brodhead, one of five Republicans running to replace Democrat Norm Dicks in Congress, in for a chat and it seems he is not interested.

“I have never subscribed to the Tacoma News Tribune or used their classified or advertising services. I found their classified ad cost to be ridiculously priced, and I use Craigslist to advertise my rentals. I use Google to get my news; hence, asking for an endorsement from your obsolete “Obama Yellow Press” makes no sense whatsoever.”

Point of clarification: While Brodhead might first see his news from Google, the company doesn’t actually report news itself, it links to publications like this one, and the News Tribune.

He said more, but instead of being like The Huffington Post and copying and pasting it, I’ll be like Google and give you a link to it.

The Seattle Times editorial board was critical of several would-be members of Congress who decided to run both for the temporary seat and the permanent one. I wish the issue were that easy to describe for us in Kitsap, but let’s save that conversation for later in this blog post.

The Times’ criticism points out that candidates like Darcy Burner, who was the first to declare she’d run in both races, get to raise twice as much money this way for mailers and the like, because she can raise money for two different elections. (Confused already? I don’t blame you. I’ll explain it all later. I keep promising that, I know.) I mention Burner specifically, because she’s the one who started the cascade of candidates running for the full two-year term that begins in January to also run for the one-month job (It might be longer. I know, that’s confusing.) That ends in January to fill the last month of Jay Inslee’s congressional term. He resigned earlier this year to focus on his bid for the governor’s office. Burner was joined in running for both seats by Democrats Suzan DelBene, Laura Ruderman and Darshan Rauniyar. Republican John Koster joined in as well. Democrat Steve Hobbs declined, saying the move by the other candidates was motivated by money. The Times editorial didn’t mention that independent candidate Larry Ishmael also declined.

The Times may be off the mark in question the point of a one-month congressional job. There could be some important items to vote on, such as the budget, the extension of the Bush tax cuts and an income tax deduction for Washington residents.

But I think the Times may also have a case in suggesting candidates will raise money for both races, but do you think anyone Kitsap County will see any mailers from candidates for the one-month job? The Times opines that all the benefit of the extra money will go toward winning the permanent seat.

So let’s again explain why this is happening.

First off, Jay Inslee resigned from Congress, and congressional officials said federal law stipulates that an election to replace him during his term must happen. If he had resigned with a month left that wouldn’t have been necessary, but he is out of the seat for long enough that congressional officials believe it merits electing a replacement.

Had this not been a redistricting year the state would have had the option of taking the winner of the general election and appointing him or her to the seat early. Because it’s a redistricting year and the 1st District boundaries have been changed dramatically, whoever gets elected in the 1st will be representing a vastly different area than the current 1st. So voters in Bainbridge would be represented for one month by someone they had no say in choosing.

So on the primary and general election ballot voters in about half of Kitsap County, the part currently in the 1st Congressional District, will pick a member to fill the remainder of Inslee’s term from about early December to early January and a congressman in the 6th Congressional District, with that term beginning in early January.

In the final candidate filing story last week I tried to simplify the discussion by writing this:

“Candidates for the new 1st Congressional District, which does not include any portion of Kitsap County, had all held back on running for the temporary seat, which carries the northern portion of the county and Bainbridge Island.”

I received an email from someone confused by that paragraph. A different person used the story comments to express befuddlement. I admit that there are times I can write things clearer than I do, but in this case I think the issue is confusing and difficult to boil down in a single sentence. I think I did pretty well, and it’s still confusing.

So let me try this.

If you live in the 6th Congressional District now, you have nothing to figure out.
If you live in the 1st Congressional District in Kitsap County, you will be electing two members of Congress this year. One will be in the 6th Congressional District, because beginning in January you will no longer be in the 1st. You will be in the 6th. That member of Congress will serve a regular term. The other member of Congress you elect will be in the 1st District and will only serve for the last month you will live in the 1st District.

Are we clear yet?

A fifth Republican announced today he’ll run for Congress in the 6th District.

Bill Driscoll, a former Marine who has also been in the forest products business, issued a statement saying he put $500,000 of his own money to put him even with Democrat Derek Kilmer’s “$350,000 in special interest money.” (For more about Derek Kilmer’s money, read our story from Monday.)

Driscoll’s statement says career politicians have failed, that he would focus on jobs, a strong defense, making sure veterans get the benefits they’ve been promised and balancing the federal budget.

Filing week begins May 14. The entire Driscoll statement follows:

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Stephan Brodhead becomes the latest Republican to announce his intention to run for Congress in the 6th District.

Brodhead’s press release announcing his run emphasizes his belief that the 6th District military bases need to remain strong. From his email announcement:

“In great measure, our representative must be strongly familiar with defense related technologies and its application to ‘Post-Cold War reality.’ The competence of our representation influences the quality of our future military. It influences our Northwest economy. We must get it right. We must continue to move forward. Hiring a representative with zero military experience or awareness of our DOD system makes absolutely no sense.”

Brodhead frames all of this from his own family’s military history, including his own. Brodhead, whose campaign site is here, also ran for Congress in Oregon’s 1st District in 2010, losing in the primary.

We’ll get more from all the candidates after they officially file in May. Brodhead joins Doug Cloud and Jesse Young in the Republican party. State Sen. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, remains the only Democrat yet to declare and file with the Federal Elections Commission.

Washington is getting a 10th congressional district, which will likely be placed somewhere in Western Washington. We’re planning on having a story on the issue posted online later today and running tomorrow in print. We have also written about this before, suggesting that while the state might gain a member of Congress, Kitsap County could feasibly lose one of its two.

In the meantime, you can read the press release that follows from the Secretary of State’s office.
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The future of congressional representation for this area could see major changes, thanks in part to redistricting and Bainbridge Island Democrat U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee’s political ambitions.

This one got away from me when it first came out. Les Blumenthal with McClatchey wrote a story headlined, “Packing up after loss, Democrat Baird spares no one criticism.” I packed it away in the “B” file as in to BE read later. The story is about soon-to-be former U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver.

What I missed was this gem:

He also hints that his political career may not be over, even though he decided not to seek a seventh term in order to spend more time with his twin 5-year-olds.

Baird has roughly $450,000 in his campaign account. He can’t keep it personally, but can donate it to charity or other campaigns. There’s one other alternative.

“I could use it for another race,” said Baird.

Baird is moving to Edmonds, Wash., in the 1st Congressional District north and east of Lake Washington currently represented by Democratic Rep. Jay Inslee. If Inslee were to run for governor in 2012 as many expect, the congressional seat would be open.

You’ve got everything (Inslee rumors and a suspected successor) in there except redistricting, as in new congressional boundaries being drawn thanks to the 2010 Census. Baird moving to Edmonds is a different kind of redistricting.

You might recall the earlier post where it was speculated that the entirety of Kitsap might become part of the 6th Congressional District. This obviously becomes easier to do if Inslee does run for governor, because it would reduce any political machinations aimed at keeping Bainbridge Island in the 1st. It might not stop it completely, because I do think Kitsap officials like being able to lobby two members of Congress. It is questionable, however, how much political muscle this county has in the allocation of congressional seats.

Dick Morrill at Crosscut makes the case that Olympia is the most likely central location for the next congressional district Washington is likely to get as a result of the Census. If his postulation is correct, that has huge implications for us.

Morrill writes:

The new Tenth, with Lewis, Pacific, Wahkiakum, and Thurston counties on its south, would need to add the Olympic peninsula counties of Clallam, Jefferson, Mason, and Grays Harbor, plus 80,000 or so, probably from Pierce County rather than from Kitsap.

Some of that territory is currently in the Sixth Congressional District. So Morrill writes:

The Sixth (Democrat Norm Dicks), having lost the peninsula counties, might logically combine most (or all) of Kitsap and western Pierce, including Tacoma.

It is worth noting that these theoretical maps contain the possibility that both of our current members of Congress would be in new districts. Norm Dicks, whose official residence is in Belfair, would be part of the new 10th. Jay Inslee would become part of the Sixth if all of Kitsap was pushed. Political realities, as Morrill acknowledges, would seem to come into play here, unless Dicks and Inslee were to suggest that where they live should not play into the redistricting conversation. That could happen, I suppose, if Inslee is intent on running for governor and Dicks decides to retire. Otherwise, I don’t see it. And I would also think there would be some resistance within Kitsap County about losing one of two members of Congress with whom to ask for favors.