Washblog

Evergreen Politics' Lynn Allen has a recap of the time she and I spent in Olympia last thursday interviewing the seven Democratic legislators targeted by the GOP fake sex offender cards - an excellent article that hopefully captures the emotions we felt while talking to the targeted legislators. An excerpt:

(Rep. Pat Lantz) said the argument is more subtle than anything like this can depict.  The greatest difficulty that law enforcement officials have is getting convictions against family members. “When victims thing that ‘Uncle Joe’ will be sent away for life for what he did, there is a lot of pressure to back away from testifying against him.” Lantz is an active grandmother who says it is hard enough raising children without this fear-mongering. She is furious that this pack of lies went into her district and thinks that Representative Richard DeBolt, new House Minority Leader, whom she says masterminded this repulsive act, should apologize and that Kevin Carnes, who works both for the House Republican Organization Committee (HROC) and the Speaker’s Roundtable, the Republican PAC that paid for it, should be fired.  She says that DeBolt will say that playing tough will get a tough bill.  “That isn’t true.  Any piece of complex legislation like this takes time and requires input from people who deal with these issues all the time.  Legislation is about putting people together and doing no harm in the process.”

Like Lynn says, call Richard DeBolt at (360) 786-7896, then e-mail him at debolt.richard@wa.leg.gov, and let him know your thoughts on his Karl Rove style of politics.

SB 6356 is sitting in committee and needs your help in getting it out and onto the floor.

Krist Novoselic is a smart mofo. I am hoping to get him on Washblog soon to have him talk about IRV.

Washblog has been nominated for a Koufax Award - Best State and Local Blog. Voting is not open yet.

Will be talking with Rep. McDermott's staff today to nail down some particulars for tomorrow's guest blogging. Stay tuned...