Legislators demand apology from GOP

The legislators who were targeted by the Speaker's Roundtable, a front organization for the Washington State GOP, have sent a letter to the Republican House leader (Richard DeBolt) demanding an apology.

The letter, courtesy of VanBlog, is as follows:

January 24, 2006


Representative Richard DeBolt
Minority Leader
Washington State House of Representatives

Dear Representative DeBolt:

We, the undersigned members of the House of Representatives, have been the targets of your campaign committee in recent days. Because we refused to bring to the floor a bill that had not received a public hearing as of that date, a bill that most members had not even seen or read, we are being accused of “refusing to impose life sentences for violent sex predators.”

It is an egregious lie, frankly, and unworthy of the good people in your caucus.

However, we are not the true victims of this action. Thousands of families in Washington received phone calls and postcards falsely warning of a “violent predator” living in their communities. Parents we’ve spoken with were unnecessarily alarmed; children seeing the postcard were needlessly frightened.

Fear-mongering, exploiting children for political gain, lying to the public – these are the kinds of stunts that should not be acceptable here in Washington state.

Last June you signed a letter asking for donations to the Speaker’s Roundtable, the organization responsible for these calls and postcards. You were recently quoted in the Olympian saying that these political decisions are being made independent of your caucus.

Whether you are directly involved in these decisions or not, these innocent people deserve an apology and we are asking you to give them one today. Please let the people of our state know that this sort of political tactic was a mistake and will not be repeated.

Only then can we get down to what we all want to do: pass meaningful legislation that will protect children and convict more sex offenders.

Sincerely,

Rep. Bill Grant
Rep. Pat Lantz
Rep. Geoff Simpson
Rep. Deb Wallace
Rep. Tami Green
Rep. Derek Kilmer
Rep. Pat Sullivan

DeBolt and his cronies need to apologize immediately. They made a serious mistake and they need to acknowledge that.