Democrats Waging War Against the Middle Class in Court

The middle class in Washington State was struck a cruel blow yesterday when the State Supreme Court ruled against citizens and sided with Democrats and Education Union Groups in finding unconstitutional citizen initiatives requiring the state legislature to reach a 2/3 supermajority vote in order to raise our taxes.

Most telling is just who the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed shortly after voters for the 4th time approved the requirement of a 2/3 supermajority in I-1053 in 2010.

In addition to the League of Education Voters and the Washington Education Association we also see Representative Laurie Jinkins (D. 27th); Representative Jamie Pedersen (D. 43rd); Representative Deb Eddy (D. 48th); Representative Sam Hunt (D. 22nd); Representative Jim Moeller (D. 49th); Representative Timm Ormsby (D. 3rd); Representative Eric Pettigrew (D. 37th); Representative Chris Reykdal (D. 22nd); Representative Cindy Ryu (D. 32nd); Representative Mike Sells (D. 38th) and State Senator David Frockt (46th) listed as plaintiffs against middle class citizens of Washington State.

Jim Moeller was quoted in the pages of the Columbian saying, “The constitutional legality of the supermajority has gone unresolved for many years, and I’m really pleased that the court has finally settled the issue.”

Arming Teachers, How Much Is Your Child’s Life Worth?

Photo credit: American Free Press
http://americanfreepress.net/?p=7801

The year 2012 is drawing to a close with an unthinkable tragedy fresh in our memories, 28 people, including 20 small children shot dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, their lives cut short by a maniac who first murdered his own Mother, stole her weapons and broke into the school, any motive still unknown.

That it happened 11 days before Christmas makes it all the more tragic and painful for all of the families affected.

Even though school shootings are statistically rare, they are nonetheless tragic and we can no longer feel confident our children are safe in their seats in school.

As expected, the reactions are strong and equally divisive, ranging from calls for more gun control, better treatment for the mentally disturbed, curtailing violent movies and video games and an increasing call for armed security be placed in schools in the way of hired security guards, Police or arming properly trained qualified teachers and school personnel.

Anthony Bittner Pleads Guilty, to Serve 41 Days

Anthony Bittner drew a lot of attention back in 2010 when the then 18 year-old High School Senior filed to run for the 18th Legislative District Representative seat eventually won by Ann Rivers. He drew even more attention when he was arrested for his involvement in a local organized crime ring.

Prior to the arrest, this blog was giving Bittner some support, not so much because I felt he would win in the heavily contested race, but because I liked the idea of a young man getting involved politically and was looking forward to his growing and maturing in public service.

All of that was dashed with the arrest, likely along with any political aspirations he may have had. I can only imagine the disappointment of his parents and younger sister who idolized her older brother.

But like many young people, Anthony chose a bad path, got involved with a bad crowd, did drugs and was arrested.

Adrian Cortes Reenters 18th District Race.

In a Press Release received from the Adrian Cortes Campaign, it is announced that Cortes is reentering the race he withdrew from earlier.

MEDIA ADVISORY
8/23/12
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Adrian Cortes at (360) 608-3513
adriancortes@nym.hush.com

CORTES TO RE-ENTER DISTRICT 18 STATE HOUSE RACE

Battle Ground City Councilman and businessman, Adrian Cortes, announced his re-entry into the race for the 18th District State House Position One. Cortes, a Republican, said “I looked at the primary results as well as the outcome of the appointment process, and the large amount of daily calls, texts and e-mails from supporters asking me to reconsider; it became clear to me that the people want another choice.”

While Constituents Struggle, Jim Moeller Frets Over Liz Pike’s Position on R-74

It has long been known that Jim Moeller is pretty much a single issue representative, wanting first and foremost to promote what he refers to as “equality” for homosexuals. As we saw in the legislative session earlier this year, a $1.5 Billion budget gap took a back seat to ram-rodding a homosexual marriage bill through, wasting half of the session and causing the legislature to have to enter special session after Republicans and 3 Democrats stopped yet another Democrat inspired “kick the can down the road” hurry-up budget.

Continuing in that mindset, several times now Moeller has hounded Republican candidate for the 18th Legislative District, Liz Pike to state her position on Referendum 74, a measure to be voted on in November statewide to allow voters to say whether or not homosexuals in Washington State should marry.

Liz Pike Bests Vick For Appointment to 18th District, Pos. 1

Just received word that Republican Liz Pike has been selected to fill the seat left open when Ann Rivers was selected to replace Retiring Joe Zarelli in the State Senate.

Four of the six commissioners from Clark and Cowlitz County’s selected Liz due to her past experience in office on the Camas City Council.

Liz will finish out the term of Ann Rivers until the end of the year. Then, whoever wins the election for Pos 1 18th Legislative District will be sworn in.

Liz is currently campaigning for Pos. 2 in the 18th and given her strong finish in the primary against 2 Democrats, receiving over 61% of the votes, she will likely move over the Pos. 2 while Brandon Vick will be likely winner against write-in, Pete Silliman. If Adrian Cortez rejoins the race, it will likely be a very close finish.

Congratulations Liz, we look forward to your representation in the 18th.

Updated: Poor Voter Turn-out Leaves Several Races Unpredictable

I thank all who turned in their ballots in the Tuesday primary elections, but remain very disappointed in so many not bothering to participate. Of the 234,411 ballots mailed out, only 71,951 have been received back at the time of this writing. That amounts to 30.69%, far less than the 38% first predicted, which itself is poor.

While some still may trickle in from further out in the county, I expect few differences in what races have already determined which two candidates move-on to the November 6 General.

A few surprises and disappointments, but overall the votes seem to have gone fairly close as I expected, even though I did not issue any predictions.

For U.S. Senate, I was disappointed to see Art Coday finish so far behind as I expected him to do better. I did not expect him to win, especially in Clark County, but believed he would show better. I can live with Baumgartner taking on Cantwell and also know he has his work cut out for him.

Liz Pike, Ready to Restore Washington State

The 18th Legislative District has been a strong Republican district for a long time. It is noted for electing strong conservative Republicans like Joe Zarelli, Ann Rivers and Ed Orcutt.

The recent redistricting saw Democrats licking their chops in hopes they might gain a foothold with Orcutt being districted out. Enter Liz Pike, a long time Republican who wants to see the 18th remain in the GOP’s hands and is facing two before unheard of Democrats, David Shehorn, retired computer systems worker and Ryan Gompertz, barely out of High School and studying history and economics at UW.

Neither Democrat has any political experience to speak of other than volunteer work with the party.

Liz Pike, on the other hand, comes with the experience of running for and winning an election to serve the community on the Camas City Council, as well as owning her own small business, Pike Advertising Agency.

She currently serves as Political Affairs Director for the Building Industry Association of Clark County as well and true to her roots growing up on a Clark County Dairy Farm, operates Shangri-La Farm, a small scale sustainable farm in Fern Prairie. She also was a volunteer co-organizer for the Washougal Farmers’ Market as well as an avid promoter of the “buy local, slow food” movement and more.

Adrian Cortes to Withdraw from 18th District Race

Received in email today

PRESS RELEASE
June 7th, 2012

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Adrian Cortes

Adrian Cortes to withdraw from campaign for State Representative for the 18th legislative district position 01.

For immediate release

Adrian Cortes

Candidate for State Representative, 18th legislative district, Position 01

Ph. 360-608-3513

Battle Ground, Washington, June 8th, 2012

On May 18th, I was encouraged by the Honorable Senator Joe Zarelli to run for legislative office. After only a short amount of deliberation, I decided to step up to serve given that no one else had done so; things have changed. Now there are two Republicans running for the same Representative seat.

After giving it some very serious thought, I recognize that my current schedule cannot support the huge time demands that waging a legislative campaign would take. With a demanding schedule that includes (most importantly) my family, work, college studies, and a serious commitment to my role as a councilmember in the city of Battle Ground; my priorities remain local.

Candidate Filing Week Ends With a Surprise

The 5 O’clock deadline for candidate filing ended with the surprise announcement by 18th Legislative District Senator Joe Zarelli’s announcement that he will not seek reelection. Zarelli has been a strong conservative voice in Olympia since 1995.

Zarelli was instrumental in drawing the support of 3 moderate Democrat Senators this last session to stop a liberal Democrat unsustainable budget being passed as the bi-partisan effort enlisted the 9th Order to take control of the Senate, eventually seeing a much better budget passed.

His voice on behalf of taxpayers will be missed.

Ann Rivers, another strong conservative will be vacating her 18th District Representative seat to run to replace Zarelli against Camas Democrat Ralph Schmidt. Ann was elected to replace Jaime Herrera Beutler in the 18th in 2010, beating out numerous other candidates. She has shown herself to be a very capable lawmaker for Southwest Washington.

Filing for Rivers seat is Clark County GOP Chair Brandon Vick, who also ran against Rivers in 2010 and Battle Ground city council member Adrian Cortes.

Delegate Vote Challenge in the 18th District Rebutted

It comes as no surprise that the legal challenge launched, seeking the voiding of the delegates chosen in the 2012 Clark County GOP convention for the 18th Legislative District, amid allegations of irregularities and fraud was not well received by same, most notably the Ron Paul supporters who came out in the majority on delegates and face the danger of not being seated in the State GOP Convention to be held in Tacoma.

As I showed in the previous post, Delegate Vote Challenged, 18th District Could Lose All GOP Delegates, supporters of candidate Mitt Romney were not pleased with the convention outcome and have cried foul to the WSRP, launching the effort to void the delegates selected in the 18th Legislative District.

In a continuance of the exceptional organizational skills seen in Paul’s supporters, that was used to discover the weaknesses in the system and legally exploit them to their advantage, Washington state co-chair for the Ron Paul campaign and Clark County Delegation Chair, Katja Delavar has fired back, along with her husband, former Washougal City Council Member Michael Delavar both drafting their own rebuttals to the challenge and to be sent to the WSRP, here and here.

Delegate Vote Challenged, 18th District Could Lose All GOP Delegates

The fiasco known as the 2012 Clark County GOP Convention may be over, but the results of it are far from done. Irregularities and questionable delegate votes has prompted at least 2 Mitt Romney supporters, who were credentialed delegates from the earlier caucuses to challenge to delegate selection in the 18th Legislative District where Romney, who won the caucus straw poll, ended up with very few delegates, while Ron Paul who didn’t fare well in the caucus came out with the majority of delegates to the state convention.

Much finger pointing and blaming of each other followed the close of the convention that ended up with Clark County Republicans only being able to send 75 delegates and no alternates to the state convention in Tacoma, instead of the allotted 94 delegates and 94 alternates.

There is not much sense in rehashing the blame game here as from where I sit it appears everybody had a share in the blame.

Ron Paul supporters initially received much of the blame, seeing the previously announced “caucus strategy” unfold all across the state and given that he ended up with the bulk of selected delegates after doing poorly in the caucus straw poll.

Clark County GOP Chair Brandon Vick ended up accepting blame for the fiasco.

Just How Broken is Olympia?

Anybody who has paid any attention at all to the news in Washington State knows that Olympia just isn’t working for quite some time. Doesn’t matter what party you are in or support, all we need do is pick just about any newspaper in the state to see how dysfunctional the Washington State legislature has gotten in the past decade or so.

Partisan pundits from either major party will always point fingers at the other, absolving themselves of any blame, which is a large part of the problem. We saw it just this last session and special sessions that were supposed to overcome a $1.5 Billion budget gap, but agenda driven legislators, with the full blessing of the governor, had more important matters to tend to.

We saw it late in the close of the regular session, which prompted 3 Democrats to cross the aisle and join forces with Republicans, drawing the ire of their party leaders, to take the floor and bring a bipartisan budget deal to the floor. House Democrats rejected the bipartisan budget bill and the mess continued.

One of those Democrats, Senator Jim Kastama from the 25th Legislative District recently made a speech at the Washington Research Council board meeting Tuesday, held at the Washington Athletic Club where he pulled back the curtain and let us know just how dysfunctional our legislature has gotten.

From the transcript of that speech, supplied by Eric Smith of the Washington State Wire, we see what went on in Olympia did not make it to the news services and how Democrat Party Leaders castigated Sen. Kastama, one going so far as to tell him “he had cooked his own goose when he cast his vote this year with Republicans” and another one informed him that “the only job he’d be likely to get was as a gas-station attendant” while his “session aide tearfully begged him to change his vote.”

With Probst’s Announcement, the Campaigns Get More Interesting

Now that we see 17th Legislative District Representative Tim Probst feeling he is ready to tackle and entrenched incumbent for a State Senate seat, his seat in the House will be an open seat that the Democrats surely will want to retain with another person. Should Tim lose the Senate race, which is likely, he will not be allowed to just return to his House seat.

The 17th now has a Republican Senator, Don Benton who has won the seat 4 times now and Paul Harris, also a Republican holding down position 2, running for a second term.

Republicans have Mike Appel and Julie Olson, both of whom announced their intent to run against Probst prior to his coming out on his bid against Benton.

Knowing that the Democrats will not want to lose the seat held now by Probst, it would be expected that they recruit a strong candidate to run in his place. All indications at this time is that is not what they have planned and are trying to recruit Monica Stonier, who lost to Republican Paul Harris in the 2010 elections by nearly 7 percentage points and who we last heard of, was trying to relocate her residence to qualify to try to be appointed to replace Democrat Jim Jacks, who abruptly abandoned constituents due to scandal in 2011 in the 49th Legislative District.

The Columbian endorsed her campaign in the 2010 General Election, but did not in the primary election that year citing they “were — and remain — worried about her close ties to the teachers union.” She still lost.

Liz Pike Files For 18th Legislative District Representative Run

Due to redistricting, the seat currently held by Republican Ed Orcutt in the 18th Legislative District will be vacated as Ed is moved into the 20th District. Former Camas City Council Member Liz Pike has filed with the PDC to be elected in Ed Orcutt’s place. Today, Ms. Pike released the following;

January 23, 2012

For Immediate Release
Contact Liz Pike
Tel. (360) 281-8720
Email: pikeadvertising@comcast.net

Liz Pike Announces Plans to Run for 18th District State Representative, Position 2

Liz Pike, former Camas City Council Member, has filed with the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission as a candidate for State Representative, District 18.  This seat is currently held by Representative Ed Orcutt, who is now in the 20th District due to redistricting.

“I am running for State Representative because I want to help restore the public’s faith in state government.  I am disappointed to lose Representative Orcutt as our district’s State Legislator.  I have decided to run for his seat to try to maintain the strong representation and courage he has provided,” said Liz. “If we commit to the ideal of reducing burdensome regulations and onerous rules, and work to shrink the size of government by prioritizing spending, our State will, once again, become business friendly.  What we desperately need is more private sector job growth.  Our State cannot continue on its current path.”

Liz is a small business owner of Pike Advertising Agency since 1995. She is currently contracted to serve as Political Affairs Director for the political action committee of the Building Industry Association of Clark County.

Liz was raised on a dairy farm in Brush Prairie and has lived in the 18th District most of her life.  She operates a small sustainable farm in Fern Prairie raising sheep, turkeys, chickens and grows fruits, vegetables and berries.  Liz has two grown children.

The campaign website is LizPike.us.  Liz can be reached at Tel. (360) 281-8720 or by email pikeadvertising@comcast.net or on FaceBook under “Liz Pike.”

More Wa. State Lawmakers Request Salary Cuts, But…

Since word was first received that state legislators in Olympia could voluntarily reduce their wage by 3%, matching the cut they voted in for many state workers, only one Republican was included in the initial 4 that signed on, Ann Rivers of the 18th legislative district.

Much has been said to claim Democrats, who slowly sign on to the wage cut in more numbers than Republicans are who actually care about taxpayers. On the surface, that claim appears true since it appears numbers wise, Democrats still outnumber Republicans in signing on to the measure.

Besides the fact that Democrats continue to hold the majority on both houses, outnumbering elected Republicans, two points have come out showing that Democrats really don’t care more for taxpayers in these economically depressed times.

Ann Rivers Gives Republican Response to Governor Gregoire’s State of the State Address

Ann Rivers, newly elected 18th Legislative District Representatives gives the Republican response to Governor Gregoire’s 2011 State of the State Address in Olympia Washington.

Transcript

Ann Rivers Give Republican Response to Governor…, posted with vodpod

 

Governor Gregoire’s Address may be seen here

Can the Washington State GOP be Saved?

Not grabbing headlines just yet is Americans for Prosperity State Director and radio host Kirby Wilbur announcing his intent to challenge Washington State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser for the party’s top spot in 2011.

In a November 9th notice sent to the Everett Herald Wilbur said,

“We did make some gains last Tuesday, but not as many as we should have, given that the voters rejected the income tax and candy tax so overwhelmingly and reinstated 960 as well by a large margin. I have gotten a lot of support and encouragement from within the party and have a vision for the state party and I think the skills and talent to bring it about.” 

A careful review of the general election results this year and comparison to other regions shows that the Republican Party is due for a major shake-up in Washington State and also at several county level parties’.

GOP Wins Some, Loses Some

Nationwide, last night’s election shows that Americans wholesale reject the Obama leftist agenda as Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives and made significant gains in the U.S. Senate.

Locally in Washington State, similar results are shown statewide as the Democrats have lost their lop-sided majority in the House and the state Senate is within reach of the Republicans, depending on a few still too close to call races.

Locally in Clark County, results weren’t as impressive, although some decent gains were made.

Vote Jobs

Less than 4 days are left to mark and turn in your ballots. I like to carry mine down to the drop box and others will drop them in the mail. If by mail, be sure to have them at the Post Office early enough to make sure they are postmarked before the Tuesday 8 PM deadline.

Tim Likeness, our elections manager says, “The biggest issue we tend to have is that we have so many that get postmarked the day after” going on to add that about 600 ballots were received with a postmark too late to be counted in the recent primary election.

We have a lot of candidates running in this mid-term election and several initiatives to sort out, all of which are just as important as getting our ballots in on time. We have heard all of the Democrat vs. Republican rhetoric and barbs thrown back and forth and now must decide who and what we want.

Hard core Democrats, like their Republican counterparts will undoubtedly vote party line as usual and as usual, the actual selection will be left in the hands of Independents, the center of our population that adheres to neither party down the line.

Our country is in deep trouble with a lingering recession and no viable solutions on the table just yet. Unemployment remains higher than it has been in several decades with benefits running out and so few actual jobs being offered.