Endorsements

Download Our August, 19 2008 Election Cheat Sheet

No one is going to read this. It’s August. It’s nice outside. And
while this election year has been exciting on the national level, no
one cares who Washington State’s insurance commissioner is. Or our
state treasurer. Hey, have you decided how you’re going to vote in that
all-important Superior Court Judge Position 53 race?

Bored yet? You will be: This primary election marks Washington
State’s first-ever “top-two” primary, in which both the top two
vote-getters, regardless of party, move on to the general election. In
Seattle, what that means is that two Democrats in every race will go
forward. Voters, you can thank yourselves for this convoluted
system—you dumbfucks. Thanks to you, candidates have to start
campaigning earlier, which boosts the cost of campaigns, which makes it
harder for grassroots and third-party candidates to get a toehold.

Still reading? Because here comes the civics lesson:

This year’s primary election may lack Obama sex appeal, but it’s
still important. Really! Your primary vote can give Darcy Burner a
boost on the Eastside; reelect Charles Johnson and Mary Fairhurst, two
supreme court justices whose races actually will be decided in
the primary; and slap down the Trojan-horse Initiative 26, which would
give a boost to Republicans by allowing countywide candidates to run
without party labels. Most importantly, you need to give a
primary-election leg up to Governor Christine Gregoire—a centrist
Democrat whose opponent, Dino Rossi, opposes abortion rights, thinks
global warming is a myth, tortures cats in his basement for kicks, and
believes that health-insurance companies should pay for boner pills but
not for contraception.

The Stranger doesn’t endorse in uncontested races.

Oh, and about Rossi skinning cats in his basement for kicks: We made
that up. He ties up Boy Scouts in his basement for kicks.

The Stranger Election Control Board (SECB) is Erica C. Barnett,
Dominic Holden, Tim Keck, Eli Sanders, Dan Savage, Jonah
Spangenthal-Lee, Tori Spelling, and Annie Wagner.

KING COUNTY

Initiative 26 and Council-Proposed Alternative

Vote: No

Vote for: Council-Proposed Alternative

Initiative 26 would make all county elected positions nonpartisan.
The county council–backed alternative would allow candidates to
list their party “preference.”

The first question on the ballot is whether either version should go
on the ballot in the general election. The second is if some version of
the initiative goes on the November ballot, which should it be?

Vote no on the first question. The Republican brand is toxic. The
only hope local Republicans have of gaining ground in blue King County
is to make sure voters don’t know they’re Republicans. But if sex
offenders have to register, so should Republicans.

On the second question, vote yes on the council-proposed
alternative. If it passes, it will at least allow candidates to be up
front about their political party and ideology, making any candidate
who doesn’t declare a party preference immediately suspect.

U.S. HOUSE

7th District

Jim McDermott

Democrat Jim McDermott faces a challenger from his own party named
Donovan Rivers, a perennial candidate named Goodspaceguy, a couple of
guys who couldn’t decide which party they preferred (but have probably
been tied up in Dino Rossi’s basement), and a 20-cent plastic bag named
Steve Beren, who challenged McDermott and—surprise!—lost
two years ago. None stand a chance. McDermott is a consistent vote in
favor of children’s health care and against the war in Iraq. And he
totally knows Michael Moore!

8th District

Darcy Burner

This is Darcy Burner’s second try at unseating Republican
Congressman Dave Reichert, a supposedly independent-minded conservative
who’s spent most of his time in the U.S. House toeing the Bush line on
everything from the war in Iraq to tax cuts for the rich.

In 2006, when Burner first challenged Reichert, the question was
whether residents of the politically mixed 8th District would drop the
incumbent and bet on a newcomer. Burner performed well given the
name-recognition hurdle she had to overcome, coming within three points
of beating Reichert.

This year, the question is whether Burner can prove she isn’t a
lightweight. She can. While Reichert was busy rubber-stamping the Bush
war plan, Burner was developing her thoughtful “Responsible Plan to End
the War in Iraq,” which more than 60 Democratic congressional
candidates have taken up as a rallying cry. Burner has the right
positions on everything from reproductive rights to the environment,
but for her leadership on the Iraq problem alone she deserves to win
this seat.

Oh, and Reichert—who likes to tell folks about the time he
spent visiting with the Green River Killer—refused to come in and
talk with the SECB. Because we’re too mean, says fearless Sheriff
Reichert. Gee, maybe if we murdered two dozen women Dave would sit down
and chat with us… in a decade or two.

STATE OF WASHINGTON

Governor

Christine Gregoire

Christine Gregoire won the governor’s office by 133 votes in
2004—a minuscule margin that reflected the Democrat’s poor
showing in liberal Seattle, where thousands of voters filled in the
circle for John Kerry but skipped the governor’s race. In her first
term, Gregoire has all too frequently taken Seattle for granted. She
supported building a new viaduct on the waterfront despite overwhelming
Seattle opposition, opposed full marriage equality, and called a
special session of the legislature to codify Tim Eyman’s reactionary
Initiative 747, which starves local governments by capping property tax
increases at 1 percent a year. Gregoire is tough—a recent
endorsement meeting sometimes felt more like a boxing match than an
interview (and that was before Gregoire starting pounding
beers)—but we’d like to see her direct her devastating right hook
toward the issues most important to blue Seattle, instead of pandering
to tax opponents and culture warriors east of the mountains.

On the other hand: Gregoire pushed through a badass climate-change
bill over House Speaker Frank Chopp’s objections; (belatedly) supports
Sound Transit; and balanced the state budget amid predictions of record
deficits. And her Republican opponent—Boy Scout–binding
Dino Rossi—is scary. He’s antichoice, anti–affirmative
action, anti–children’s health care, pro-cat torturing, and he
released a roads-heavy transportation plan with a fantasy funding
package that should’ve gotten his cat-torturing, Boy
Scout–binding ass laughed out of the race. And he has the backing
of the powerful Building Industry Association of Washington—a
sleazy PAC whose primary mission is to fight progressive legislation
and push an antitax, anticonsumer, antienvironmental agenda. The BIAW
has accused Gregoire of being a “heartless, power-hungry she-wolf who
would eat her own young to get ahead” and put up billboards all over
Eastern Washington accusing the governor of “stealing” the 2004
election. Don’t let that cat-torturing bastard steal this one. Vote for
Gregoire.

Lieutenant Governor

Anyone but Brad Owen

Lieutenant Governor Brad Owen has been on call since 1996 in case
the real governor drops dead. This leaves him plenty of extra time,
which he uses to tour the state with his crappy-ass rock band and
crusade against pot. This year we support all four of Owen’s
challengers: An empty bag of chips (Marcia McCraw), a one-eyed dog
(Arlene A. Peck), a crusty come sock (Jim Wiest), and a man without a
website (Randel Bell). All are more qualified to hold this post than
Brad Owen.

And please join the SECB and vote stoned as a matter of
principle.

Secretary of State

Sam Reed

Current secretary of state Sam Reed has the distinction of being the
SECB’s sole Republican endorsement this year. We’re not sure if this
will help or hurt him.

Reed has been capable and reliable in his eight years as secretary
of state. He didn’t pull any party-line political shenanigans (see:
Florida, Ohio) during the protracted ballot recount battle between
Gregoire and Rossi in 2004, and allowed the actual winner—that
would be Christine, Dino—to take office.

Reed’s main opponent, Democrat Jason Osgood, is completely
unqualified for the job. When the SECB asked Osgood—a paranoid,
sweaty, nervous wreck with no political experience—why he felt he
was qualified to be secretary of state, he told us he’d been “a
software developer since third grade” who “care[s] about computers,
trees, and salmon.” Then he launched into an Orwellian tirade about bar
codes on ballots.

There’s no reason to unseat Reed, especially if it means putting a
kook like Osgood in office.

State Treasurer

Jim McIntire

Democratic state treasurer Mike Murphy is stepping down, and three
capable candidates are seeking to take over his job, which involves
managing and investing the state’s tax revenues: Republican Allan
Martin, Murphy’s current deputy; Democrat ChangMook Sohn, the state’s
former chief economist; and Democrat Jim McIntire, a former state
representative and UW professor of economics.

While all three candidates seemed eminently qualified—and all
get points for taking pity on the SECB, which didn’t even know the
state had an elected treasurer until five minutes before our
interview—we encourage you to vote for McIntire.

State Auditor

Brian Sonntag

Since 1993, state auditor Brian Sonntag has pushed for performance
audits and open, accountable government. He’s being opposed by a
Constitution Party member and some guy named Dick. Vote Sonntag.

Attorney General

John Ladenburg

It may seem odd that The Stranger is recommending that you
vote against the only female-to-male transsexual to hold statewide
elected office in the nation, but Republican attorney general Rob
McKenna has got to go. A political climber whose sights are set on
higher office (and, one day, a facial-hair transplant), McKenna is the
man responsible for our idiotic top-two primary, which he defended last
spring in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. More recently, McKenna has
ignored requests from supporters of Governor Christine Gregoire to shut
down a secret campaign fund run by the BIAW to elect Gregoire’s
opponent Dino Rossi, withheld public documents under a broad
interpretation of attorney-client privilege, and argued that convicted
felons have fewer rights to public records than other people—even
after they’ve had their civil rights restored. McKenna also opposes
abortion rights—a not-insignificant position at a time when
right-wing opponents of Roe v. Wade are whittling back
reproductive rights at the state level.

McKenna’s Democratic opponent, Pierce County Executive John
Ladenburg, is a funny, smart, savvy politician with a strong
environmental record. As a county executive, he worked hard to clean up
illegal dumps and junk cars, earning the endorsement of the
überliberal Sierra Club despite his support for the controversial
Cross-Base Highway across Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base. (To
see if anyone actually read this far, The Stranger is proud to
offer a $50 check and a minibottle of Jack Daniels to the first person
that e-mails us at ireadatleastasfarastheladenburgendorsement@thestranger.com.) [UPDATE: To the Election Control Board’s immense surprise, this prize has already been claimed.] Ladenburg says
his priorities as AG will include cracking down on consumer scams like
unlicensed contractors, cleaning up Puget Sound, and closing some of
the legal loopholes that have allowed government
agencies—including McKenna’s office—to keep public records
from the light of day.

Commissioner of Public Lands

Peter J. Goldmark

All our heroes are cowboys. That’s not true. Some of our heroes are
skinny drummers and generous pot dealers and tranny escorts. But we
like cowboys, too.

Peter J. Goldmark—a real live cattle rancher with a PhD in
molecular biology—is going up against two-term Republican
incumbent Doug “Bathing Suit Area” Sutherland, who’s been in the news
recently for playing an unwelcome game of grab-ass with a young, female
employee at the Department of Natural Resources.

While Sutherland has been busy doing damage control for
sexual-harassment complaints (with an invaluable assist from our
negligent daily newspapers), Goldmark has been out racking up
endorsements from groups like the Sierra Club for his green game plan.
Goldmark says he’ll push the state to use Washington’s five and a half
million acres of public land to explore renewable-energy solution like
biomass, geothermal, and tidal power. He’s also attacked his opponent
for failing to enforce environmental and logging regulations.

The SECB hopes that Goldmark’s cowboy charisma convinces voters to
boot out his back-stroking, boob-ogling opponent.

Superintendent of Public Instruction

Randy Dorn

It wasn’t hard for the SECB to decide to give longtime
superintendent Terry Bergeson the boot, but it was tough to figure out
her replacement. After chugging some absinthe and flipping a coin, the
SECB decided to throw our coveted endorsement to Randy Dorn.

Dorn is currently the executive director of the Public School
Employees of Washington union, which recently issued a vote of no
confidence in Bergeson. He wants to revamp the state’s screwy
Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) test and push the
legislature to fully fund public education.

Bergeson has consistently defended the WASL as a high-stakes
requirement for graduation. We decided it would be funny to present
Bergeson and her challengers with a few sample questions from the WASL
and she bombed the test. Bergerson only answered two out of the three
questions we put to her and both her answers were wrong. True
story—you can see Bergerson’s pathetic WASL test sheet here.

Commissioner of Public Urination

Kollin Min

Finally, a race where we can endorse onetime Heidi Wills challenger
Kollin Min. Min’s challenger, David Irons, seemed just a little too
excited about the position.

Insurance Commissioner

Mike Kreidler

Democrat Kreidler has been a strong advocate for health-care reform,
consumer protection, and the rights of malpractice victims. His
Republican opponent, John R. Adams, thinks the reason insurance is so
expensive today is “lack of consumer choice.” Yeah, right. Vote
Kreidler.

Legislative District No. 5

Senator

Phyllis Huster

We don’t usually endorse in races outside Seattle, but we’re making
an exception for Phyllis Huster—not because she’s particularly
impressive (her campaign consists mostly of innuendos about incumbent
Cheryl Pflug’s divorce), and not because Pflug is all that bad.
Although Pflug supported a bill that would have allowed pharmacists to
refuse to dispense Plan B and voted 12 years ago for the Defense of
Marriage Act, she also voted for domestic-partner legislation and
pushed to legalize medical marijuana. But this year represents a
historic opportunity to turn a Democratic majority in the state senate
into a supermajority. So we’re endorsing Huster.

In the interest of full disclosure, most of the SECB couldn’t stand
Huster and we’d like to apologize in advance to all other members of
the state senate, D and R, if by some miracle our endorsement unleashes
Huster on Olympia. But this is one instance where a lousy Dem is better
than a so-so Republican.

We would so totally endorse Pflug if she would pull a Rodney Tom and
cross the aisle already. You know you want to, Cheryl.

Legislative District No. 11

Senate

Juan Martinez

A formidable Democrat who heads the Ways & Means Committee, Margarita
Prentice is one of the most powerful members of the state senate. An
advocate for farm workers and domestic-partner benefits in her first
years in the legislature, Prentice has since taken a series of
positions that we find inexcusable. She took the lead in opposing an
interest-rate cap on payday loans, she supported massive public
subsidies to lure the Sonics to Renton, and she was the only Seattle
senator to sponsor a bill to codify Tim Eyman’s 1 percent cap on
property taxes. She also stalled annexation of unincorporated North
Highline in King County—an area that just happens to be home to
numerous casinos and card rooms that would have to shut down if the
area were annexed by Seattle. The gambling industry, not
coincidentally, is one of Prentice’s most faithful supporters.

Speaking of money, the vast majority of Prentice’s comes from
outside her low-income Renton/Tukwila district. In 2004, just four of
Prentice’s contributions were from residents of her district—a
total of $175.

Prentice’s Democratic opponent, Juan Martinez, is an affable
working-class guy from the South Bronx who’s pounding the pavement in
an effort to make up the fundraising gap between his campaign and the
Prentice juggernaut. Although he was short on specifics—referring
repeatedly to “doorbelling,” “the people,” and “environmental
justice”—we believe Martinez’s heart is in the right place. More
importantly, it’s time for new blood in the 11th. Vote for
Martinez.

State Representative Position 1

Zack Hudgins

The SECB is supporting Democrat Hudgins because of his impressive
environmental record in the house, and because he’s been a strong
advocate for accountability at the Port of Seattle. And because we
think guys named Zack are dreamy.

State Representative Position 2

Bob Hasegawa

Democrat Hasegawa is a reliable advocate for tax reform who fights
for the interests of his low-income district. Plus, he has an awesome
mustache! Vote for him!

Legislative Dist No. 36

State Representative Position 1

Reuven Carlyle

The race to replace 36-year veteran Helen Sommers features two
qualified, energetic, liberal candidates: wireless entrepreneur Reuven
Carlyle and tax reform advocate John Burbank. Both are qualified to
fill Sommers’s shoes but we’re going with Carlyle, because of his
energy, his entrepreneurial background, and his enthusiasm for
innovative solutions to entrenched government problems.

Burbank, a longtime Democratic Party activist and author of the
reviled “latte tax” for early-childhood education, has been running a
class-warfare campaign against Carlyle, claiming his opponent will be
beholden to business interests in the legislature (and going so far as
to suggest that Carlyle, a former foster child who was raised by a
single mother, only has his kids in public school because he’s running
for office). We worry more that Burbank will be chained to old ways of
doing government business: incremental fixes instead of comprehensive
tax reform, transportation “solutions” like retrofitting the viaduct
instead of implementing regionwide congestion pricing, and small steps
like creating a “green jobs” fund instead of innovative proposals like
real-time electric metering for small businesses. Vote for Carlyle.

State Representative Position 2

Mary Lou Dickerson

The SECB supports Mary Lou Dickerson for fighting on behalf of girls
in danger of being lured into prostitution—and for her tough
stance against window-blind cords. Her opponent is a dude named Leslie
who once wrote that he “feel[s] safe saying no one who voted for George
Bush either four or eight years ago is losing sleep over their
choices.”

Ah, Republicans—they’re so cute when they’re delusional, which
they almost always are.

Legislative District No. 37

State Representative Position 2

Eric Pettigrew

Pettigrew has been a reliable champion for low-income residents of
his South Seattle district. He sponsored legislation to prohibit
discrimination against Section 8 tenants, pushed to close the gun-show
loophole, sponsored legislation to study the overrepresentation of
minority children in foster care, and was one of four legislators who
supported studying the surface/transit option for replacing the Alaskan
Way Viaduct. His opponent, Ruth Bennett, is a Libertarian perennial
candidate and the lead plaintiff for her party in the lawsuit against
the top-two primary. Vote for Pettigrew.

Legislative District No. 43

Representative Position 2

Frank Chopp

We certainly aren’t thrilled to be endorsing Chopp. The bullying
house Speaker is too busy licking the Building Industry Association of
Washington’s spunk up off the floors in Olympia to look out for his
constituents’ interests—voting against a cap on payday-loan
interest rates, against closing the gun show loophole, against capping
condo conversions, and against protections for home buyers, among other
things. But given that his opponent is a Republican Jan Drago
look-alike without a shot in hell, we don’t have much choice. Vote for
Chopp—hey, at the last the floors in Olympia will be clean.

Legislative District No. 46

State Representative Position 1

Scott White

Democrats Scott White and Gerry Pollet, running for the open seat
being vacated by state treasurer candidate Jim McIntire (see
endorsement, page 11), have spent months locked in one of the ugliest
local political battles in recent memory. First there was the spat over
who would get the (meaningless) “official” nomination (Pollet won).
Then White attempted to withdraw from the race. Then, just as suddenly,
he had a change of heart, and asked the county elections office to let
him back in. Accusations flew, a nonsensical lawsuit was filed, and the
dust had barely settled before Pollet was making more charges against
White—this time, that he’d improperly taken money from a lobbyist
for a strip-mining company.

All of this makes Pollet look petty and vindictive—all the
more so because he doesn’t seem to recognize that at some point, he
needs to stop airing grievances and start talking issues. Asked to
demonstrate he wasn’t vindictive, Pollet launched into a tirade about
“the public’s right to know” about White’s attempted withdrawal and the
need for spending caps in legislative campaigns. When asked why the two
major endorsing environmental groups weren’t supporting him, a longtime
antinuclear activist, Pollet responded that the groups had “made a
political calculation” by backing his opponent. Then, when asked about
gay marriage, he demonstrated that he didn’t know what he was talking
about when he slammed the incremental approach backed by Ed Murray and
Jamie Pedersen and said he would push for a constitutional amendment in
the next four years. Huh?

Oh, and Pollet gave one SECB member a roll of Smarties candies and
called them the “Smartie Award.” Yeesh. Vote for White.

State Representative Position 2

Phyllis Kenney

Kenney tried to save Flexcar from the stupid rental-car tax and has
been a huge proponent of providing money for college to working people.
Vote for Kenney.

Yes, we’re getting into the judges here, which are the dullest
endorsements of all. (For Christ’s sake, let’s stop electing judges.
Appoint them, make them stand for reconfirmation, but get unqualified
voters, who could give a fuck, out of the judicial-appointment
business!) So feel free to skip to the SECB cheat sheet if you haven’t
already. In fact, we dare you to keep reading. It’s really, really
boring. Just go clip the cheat sheet and follow our orders, you
sheep.

JUDICIAL

State Supreme Court

Justice Position 3

Mary Fairhurst

Underqualified right-wing challenger Michael Bond (who believes that
“the most important role of the courts is to protect the people from
the power of government”) made this choice easy by refusing to meet
with the Stranger Election Control Board—and by pompously
referring to himself in the third person on his campaign website (“In
Bond’s opinion…”). But sunny, brainy incumbent Justice Mary Fairhurst
has more than earned a second term on the state’s high court.

Fairhurst wrote the supreme court’s most rigorously reasoned dissent
in the marriage equality case Andersen v. King County, easily
dismantling the state’s claim that denying marriage to gays and
lesbians in any way promotes procreation or encourages straight people
to get married. On a case where so many of her colleagues proved
themselves sniveling, cowardly bigots, Fairhurst came out swinging.
Plus, she’s weirdly obsessive about a person’s privacy interest in his
or her DNA. Considering how much DNA we’ve got lying around the office,
we find that comforting. Vote for Fairhurst.

Justice Position 4

Charles W. Johnson

Incumbent Justice Charles Johnson joined the bigoted plurality in
the all-important Andersen v. King County gay-marriage case, on
the grounds that the state legislature can make up whatever mush-minded
excuses it likes to discriminate against a minority. And he didn’t have
much to say in defense of that vote in our endorsement interview.

Unfortunately, Johnson’s opponents include a flaky no-show named
Frank Vuilliet, who scored the coveted “not qualified” rating from both
the liberal King County Bar Association and the prissy Municipal League
and a slightly more-qualified Seattle insurance attorney named James
Beecher, who told us that Andersen “should embarrass the court.”
But some of Beecher’s more widely circulated beliefs (“The
responsibility of the court is to interpret and clarify the law, not to
legislate”) suggest he would be to the right of Johnson on issues that
come before the court more frequently than marriage equality. Beecher’s
main complaint about Johnson is that he’s been on the court too long.
To which the SECB says: So?

Besides, Johnson isn’t completely irredeemable. He ruled to give
custody rights to a nonbiological lesbian mother in another touchstone
gay-rights case, and we like his positions on public disclosure and
privacy issues. He told us he was especially proud of an opinion he
wrote in 1994 involving a warrantless search of a suspected marijuana
grow house, which helped establish that Washington’s privacy laws go
further than the ones in the federal constitution. Vote for Johnson.
Because someone’s got to look out for your dealer.

King County Superior Court

Superior Court races in which one candidate gets more than 50
percent will be decided in the primary.

Superior Court Position 1

Tim Bradshaw

Currently serving as senior deputy prosecuting attorney for King
County, Tim Bradshaw stands out from a field of three highly qualified
contenders for his long list of endorsements and 20 years of
experience.

Superior Court Position 10

Jean Bouffard

Bouffard’s opponents are another prosecuting attorney whose major
accomplishments include expanding the use of DNA evidence, and a
current municipal court judge. Although all three are qualified,
we’re endorsing Bouffard for her experience dealing with civil cases
and her extensive knowledge of environmental and land-use law.

Superior Court Position 22

Holly Hill

We like Holly Hill because she’s a badass former federal
civil-rights attorney and a current judge pro tempore in King County
District Court. Although we’re concerned by the fact that she’s dumped
more than $85,000 of her own money into the race, we think Hill will
make a capable judge (and that out-of-control spending is a great
argument for public financing of elections).

Superior Court Position 26

Laura Middaugh

Laura Middaugh is a decent incumbent Superior Court judge who had
the good fortune of drawing an unqualified opponent whose main reason
for running appears to be a personal vendetta against Middaugh’s
husband, state senator Adam Kline.

Superior Court Position 37

Jean Rietschel

There’s almost unanimous agreement that Jean Rietschel, a Seattle
Municipal Court Judge for the last 12 years, is exceptionally
well qualified. We agree.

Superior Court Position 53

Mariane Spearman

If there’s an underdog in this race it’s Mariane Spearman. We love
an underdog, especially when the gay lawyers and the black lawyers and
the Latino lawyers love her, too.