Tag Archives: Democratic Party

Sheldon upended by Senate minority coalition

Standing at the rostrum Washington state Senator and soon-to-be-defeated in his bid to repeat as Senate President Pro Tem Tim Sheldon gets a photo taken by staff photographer Aaron Barna holding his new grand-daughter Scarlett born on Dec.13. 2014, while joined by his wife Linda and daughter Alex on Monday, Jan. 12, 2015, during the opening day for the 2015 legislative session in Olympia. (AP Photo/The Olympian, Steve Bloom)
Standing at the rostrum Washington state Senator and soon-to-be-defeated in his bid to repeat as Senate President Pro Tem Tim Sheldon gets a photo taken by staff photographer Aaron Barna holding his new grand-daughter Scarlett born on Dec.13. 2014, while joined by his wife Linda and daughter Alex on Monday, Jan. 12, 2015, during the opening day for the 2015 legislative session in Olympia. (AP Photo/The Olympian, Steve Bloom)
Call it symbolic revenge for a real defection. One party pulled two of the opposite party over to form a coalition. That was true two years ago when Republicans lured Potlatch Democratic state Sen. Tim Sheldon, along with Rodney Tom, to form a de fact majority in the chamber, a majority that was boosted by the election of real Republican Jan Angel.

One of Sheldon’s rewards in return was election to what (Tacoma) News Tribune reporter Jordan Schrader described as a “mostly ceremonial job,” of president pro tempore.

Sheldon lost that gig on Monday.

Even after the Republican Party announced in early December Sheldon’s return to the role, which would have put him in charge of the chamber in the case of Lt. Gov. Brad Owen’s absence, Democrats helped maneuver to get Sheldon out of the seat. They nominated Republican Pam Roach. Republicans tried to counter by nominating Democrat Karen Fraser. But Democrats, Fraser included, voted as a bloc and along with Vancouver Republican state Sen. Don Benton, elected Roach to the position.

The Northwest Progressive Institute Advocate described it as Democrats settling a score with Sheldon, making “the most of an opportunity to hold Tim Sheldon accountable for his treachery.”

Sheldon told Schrader he thought Democrats were retaliating and that they will want something in return. Roach said they did not ask for anything.

It’s a mostly symbolic victory and will do little to change the agenda in the chamber. The first evidence of that was the Senate’s vote to require a two-thirds vote to approve any tax increases, a rules change in the chamber that passed with a 26-23 vote, exactly the number of the Republican+1 majority.

The Sheldon upset went down officially within 12 minutes, which is on the video that follows. Of course, it really took flight in conversations for which there is no video, so this will have to do.

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The battle within local Democratic and Republican races

An alert party operative who shall remain nameless told me recently, “The fights between parties are nothing compared to the fights within them.” Here we give you two examples, one from each party.

The first fight is one those in Kitsap are more likely to know about, the one between supporters of Russ Hauge and those of Bob Scales. Hauge is the incumbent Kitsap County prosecutor and is a Democrat. Scales served two terms as a Bainbridge Island city councilman and works as an attorney for the City of Seattle.

Tim Sheldon, whose name comes up later, doesn’t like it when Democrats say he isn’t one of them. There is no party registration in Washington, he’ll tell you. Even if there were, it isn’t like there is a test you have to pass for either party. But Democrats do have at least a little bit of justification for saying that about Sheldon, especially now that he caucuses with Republicans. “They caucus with me,” he responds. Fine. Same difference. On issues that divide Democrats and Republicans in the state Senate, Sheldon sides more with Republicans than he does with Democrats. It doesn’t make him a Republican, but give the Democrats credit here for arguing with some evidence.

I’m not sure where they’re getting their evidence when it comes to Bob Scales. Debbi Lester says Scales is combative, short-sighted and mean-spirited, based on her experience as fellow member of the Bainbridge Island City Council. That might all be true, but neither party is immune from that kind of behavior. I covered the council for a year or so while Scales was on it his first time and couldn’t tell you based on that where his politics are. There is the bigger question of where that even matters when it comes to serving as prosecutor, but where Lester and others cast doubt on Scales’ cred as a Democrat come from the fact that the Kitsap Patriots Tea Party gave Scales a high ranking as a candidate.

Quick, what does the Kitsap Patriots Tea Party stand for in a prosecutor? Yeah, I don’t know either. Still, I found it curious, so I contacted the organization to see if I could get a copy of the questions they asked and Scales’ answers. I got no reply. So we asked Scales if he would provide them. He did. I’ll post those below, after the other bit about in-party fighting.

That comes from the race Sheldon is in. Sheldon received a $13,800 in-kind contribution for some polling from the Senate Republican Campaign Committee. (On Monday night I learned there was a last-minute contribution made to Sheldon by the same group. It’s for $5,126.59 and was given on Thursday.) Remember, he’s a Democrat. There is another Democrat in the race, Irene Bowling, who is not shy about questioning his Dem cred. He has received no other official Republican Party money.

Travis Couture, the Republican in the race, received $2,000 from the Mason County Republican Central Committee, but that’s about it from official sources. Official communications from the state have gone out within the district from the state party backing other 35th District Republicans, but not Couture.

Eventually, apparently that was July 31, Couture had had enough. So he sent a letter to Washington State Republican Party Chairwoman Susan Hutchison complaining. The text of that letter follows. After that is the response from the state party and then the one from Kitsap County Republican Party Chairman Chris Tibbs. After that you can we go back to the Democrats, with Bob Scales taking on the “Tea Party” issue.
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Democrats Voted Here

If you are wondering why Democrats held on so well in Washington while across the nation they did not do well at all, the basic answer appears to be that they voted here. Democrats in Washington, despite the dire predictions for them nationally, mailed in their ballots. A Portland pollster makes that case, as well as the one contending that Washington is getting bluer.

Some of the information is included in a story about the county certifying the Nov. 2 election.

Moore Information of Portland, Ore. sent out an analysis (posted below) suggesting that Dino Rossi, Republican challenger for the U.S. Senate here, did better among Republicans than any other Senate candidate in the country. He also won the vote of independents by big numbers. He lost, according to Moore, because incumbent U.S. Sen. Patty Murray did even better among Democrats, and there are more Democrats than there used to be and they didn’t get too depressed to vote here.

Of course, if you read our story from Nov. 1, this may not surprise you at all. The last two paragraphs said this:

Turnout was markedly higher in 1998 and 2006. Carl Olson, Kitsap County Democratic Party chairman, said his party’s get-out-the-vote effort is tracking as well as it did in 2006, when turnout was 68.2 percent.

“My personal sense tells me there may be some surprises,” he said, meaning Democrats may do better than expected. Whether the party’s tracking of those who are solid or lean Democrat means they voted Democrat again, he said, he doesn’t know.

While Democrats lost ground in Washington, what their voters did by voting was prevent a party disaster. They maintained control of both chambers in the state. Locally every Democrat incumbent had a closer race, but they all won.

My hunch is this also explains why late votes, those counted after those from election night, did not break Republican as they have in past elections. Democratic margins, in fact, grew larger.

Moore’s analysis, co-written with Hans Kaiser, also with Moore Information, follows:

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Washington Inches Closer (Barely) to Getting a 10th Congressional District

David Ammons in the Secretary of State’s office is reporting that Washington’s odds of picking up another congressional seat following the 2010 Census are still good. Official numbers won’t be out for another three months, but a company analyzing data from Census Bureau estimates has Washington picking up seat number 434 out of 435.

The bigger story may be that it looks like the realignment would benefit Republicans more than Democrats.

Assuming voting in congressional districts generally follow the overall movement of their states, if the GOP doesn’t take over the House in 2010, realignment could make it easier in 2012.

States picking up one congressional representative are Washington, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina and` Utah. Florida would get two and Texas four. New York and Ohio would each lose two and Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania would lose one.

Of course, states do not vote in unison and redistricting/gerrymandering plays a role, as does the general mood of the country. Still, at least on the surface this looks like a Republican win.

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County Republicans Condemn Russ Hauge on Rifle Club Suit

Sandra LaCelle, Kitsap County Republican Party Chairwoman, sent this to us:

On September 13, 2010, at the Executive Board Meeting of the Kitsap County Republican Party, the following resolution was adopted:

Resolved, that the Kitsap County Republican Party hereby condemns the actions of Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hague and his office for the continual harassment and frivolous legal attacks upon the officers and members of the Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club.

It is a bold statement for reasons I will provide further down.

Rifle club members were out in force at Monday’s county commissioner meeting addressing County Prosecutor Russ Hauge’s lawsuit against the club. Some of their comments will be included in a story Josh Farley is working on. Their basic points were:

  • The club is all about safety.
  • The county commissioners need to reign in Hauge and the Department of Community Development.
  • They asked why this had to be filed in Pierce County.
  • If the club is closed people will go shoot in the hills.
  • They questioned the qualifications of the prosecutor’s key witness.
  • They think this is a vendetta Russ Hauge is launching against Marcus Carter. (The two have faced off in court before.)

James Sommerhauser, a regular at these meetings and a fixture in the local Democratic party, said he belonged to the club for a couple of years. He thought it was safe, but said if it wasn’t he probably wouldn’t have recognized how. He said if the club didn’t get permits it was required to, then the club would be wrong in that case. He also pointed out that the prosecutor is a separately elected official, so county commissioner control over what the prosecutor does is almost non-existent. Josh Brown, county commissioner, said that the primary interaction between the commissioners and the prosecutor is over the prosecutor’s budget.

That does not necessarily mean the commissioners have to remain silent, but they’re not clear right now what authority they have to do or say anything.

Jim Coutu of Gig Harbor made a point that may speak to why some people who have no dog in the fight would have strong feelings about the suit. “Lawsuits come about because people cannot come to terms any other way,” he said. “This doesn’t feel like something that wanted to get resolved in a proper manner.” Where that matters is that the public knows of no problems between the county and the rifle club. And then there is a pretty big lawsuit.

You may recall there is also friction between the county and the city of Bremerton over the city’s financial participation, or lack of it, in the restructuring of the loan for the Harborside Condominium complex. We’ve been reporting it for months. It may result in a lawsuit, but because we have been reporting the conflict for some time that news won’t come out of the blue like the rifle club suit did.

The Central Kitsap Reporter had a story in May when neighbors of the range wanted the county to take action. It was kind of a “he said, she said” moment.

From a political standpoint, addressed in Farley’s story posted Saturday, there is so much to consider. I think Hauge was absolutely correct when he said the suit “could not have come at a worse time” politically.

In the Aug. 17 primary Hauge won what was a de facto straw poll by 12 percentage points. While that doesn’t officially fall into “landslide” territory, it is a pretty comfortable lead. Now this issue is out there, less than two months from election day. The only way this is a political win for him is if overwhelming evidence comes to light between now and the day ballot are mailed out. Courts do not move that quickly. And people mad at Hauge for taking this action will not wait until election day to mark their ballots.

What if it turns out that Hauge is right? I know many people will not consider that possibility, but I am not at liberty to rush to judgment here. I have not read his filing and even from what I little I have heard I have a lot of questions on both sides. But again, what if it turns out Hauge is right?

Would Republicans then still have cause to claim that this lawsuit is a “frivolous legal attack” and part of the “continual harassment?” Though the party’s statement doesn’t specifically name this most recent suit, in tone it seems pretty clear that the county Republican Party has already judged this case before the process plays out.

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
old Time is still a-flying.
And this same flower that smiles today,
tomorrow will be dying.”
– Robert Herrick

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