Marko Liias exits congressional sweepstakes; other WA-01 candidates stay in

“[I]t’s often said that democ­ra­cy is about vot­ers choos­ing their politi­cians. But in the redis­trict­ing process, it’s politi­cians choos­ing their vot­ers. And in many ways, those deci­sions can be more impor­tant than elec­tions in some context.”

— Nate Persi­ly, Beek­man Pro­fes­sor of Law and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, com­ment­ing on the impor­tance of redis­trict­ing in the Unit­ed States.

With the release of Slade Gor­ton and Tim Ceis’ con­gres­sion­al redis­trict­ing pro­pos­al yes­ter­day, par­tic­i­pants and would-be par­tic­i­pants in Wash­ing­ton’s 2012 con­gres­sion­al sweep­stakes final­ly have an idea of what the polit­i­cal land­scape is going to look like for the next decade… that is, assum­ing the Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion com­pletes its work on time as required by the state Constitution.

No dis­trict has been more reshaped under Ceis and Gor­ton’s pro­pos­al than the 1st (WA-01), which is cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ed by Jay Inslee. Only a few months after the Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion began its work, Inslee for­mal­ly launched his cam­paign for gov­er­nor, which gave the Ceis and Gor­ton the free­dom to relo­cate his district.

(By tra­di­tion, the four Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion­ers are sup­posed to avoid mov­ing incum­bents out of their cur­rent dis­tricts when redraw the lines… how­ev­er, nei­ther the Con­sti­tu­tion nor the rel­e­vant statute — Chap­ter 44.05 of the Revised Code of Wash­ing­ton — requires this. Thanks to Dave Gib­ney for the clarification).

Fol­low­ing the launch of Jay Inslee’s cam­paign for gov­er­nor, sev­er­al Democ­rats declared their inten­tion to run for Con­gress to suc­ceed him, includ­ing Lau­ra Rud­er­man (who served as one of the 45th’s state rep­re­sen­ta­tives for many years before unsuc­cess­ful­ly chal­leng­ing Sam Reed for Sec­re­tary of State in 2004), Dar­cy Burn­er (who twice ran against Dave Reichert in the old WA-08, but came up short each time), Roger Good­man (one of the 45th’s two cur­rent state rep­re­sen­ta­tives), new­com­er Dar­shan Rau­ni­yar, Steve Hobbs (state sen­a­tor from the 44th), and Marko Liias (state rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the 21st).

All of the afore­men­tioned can­di­dates  — with the excep­tion of Liias — have man­aged to end up in the new 1st. After think­ing things over, Liias has decid­ed to quit the con­gres­sion­al sweep­stakes and seek reelec­tion to the state Leg­is­la­ture. Here is the mes­sage he sent to his sup­port­ers ear­li­er today:

I have some tough news to share with you. I will not be con­tin­u­ing my cam­paign for Congress.

My home, and the com­mu­ni­ties that I have rep­re­sent­ed in the State Leg­is­la­ture, were moved into exist­ing con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts that already have strong rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Con­gress. The dis­trict where I’ve lived most of my life and hoped to rep­re­sent in Con­gress, the First Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, will now move east and become a large, more rur­al dis­trict that stretch­es from east of Lake Wash­ing­ton to the Cana­di­an Border.

Some have sug­gest­ed that I move to this new dis­trict and run any­way, but that is not who I am.

I start­ed this cam­paign because I believe that the mid­dle class needs strong, prin­ci­pled voic­es in Con­gress. And while 2012 will not be the year that I take our fight to Wash­ing­ton DC, that does not mean our fight is over. After tak­ing some time to con­sid­er our options, Mike and I have decid­ed that I should seek reelec­tion to the State Leg­is­la­ture where I can con­tin­ue the fight for a bud­get that pre­serves the safe­ty net, fund­ing for edu­ca­tion, real­is­tic trans­porta­tion solu­tions and full mar­riage equality.

I am proud of all that we accom­plished togeth­er in this cam­paign. In less than six months, we attract­ed sup­port from over 3,000 indi­vid­ual donors, held over a dozen house par­ties, and we have earned endorse­ments from amaz­ing com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and com­mit­ted cit­i­zens. I could not be more grate­ful for your sup­port and encouragement.

As I look for­ward to the upcom­ing leg­isla­tive ses­sion, I know that there will be teach­ers and home care work­ers and small busi­ness own­ers that need a voice in Olympia, and that will be my task. I may ask for your help again in the weeks ahead, and I know that you will be there with me.

Thanks for everything.

All my best,
Marko

The oth­er five can­di­dates have all decid­ed to stay in the race — and most of them are wast­ing lit­tle time ask­ing for con­tri­bu­tions. They may soon be joined by Suzan Del­Bene, who chal­lenged Dave Reichert in WA-08 last year and near­ly pulled even with him in a dif­fi­cult year for Democrats.

Mean­while, Den­ny Heck, who unsuc­cess­ful­ly sought to suc­ceed Bri­an Baird as U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the old WA-03, is off and run­ning in the new WA-10… and from his announce­ment press release, it sure seems like he has the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion sewn up. Here’s an excerpt:

Heck is in a strong posi­tion to be elect­ed the first Con­gress­man from the 10th Dis­trict. He has the endorse­ments of Con­gress­man Norm Dicks in the 6th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict and Con­gress­man Adam Smith in the 9th Con­gres­sion­al District.

Heck has also been endorsed by Thurston Coun­ty lead­ers includ­ing State Sen­a­tor Karen Fras­er, State Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Sam Hunt and Chris Reyk­dal, Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers Cathy Wolfe, San­dra Romero and Karen Valen­zuela and by Dylan Carl­son, Chair of the 22nd Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict Democrats.

In Pierce Coun­ty, Heck has been endorsed by Pierce Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Pat McCarthy, 28th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict State Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Tami Green and Troy Kel­ley, 29th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict State Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Steve Kir­by and Con­nie Laden­burg, 27th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict Sen­a­tor Deb­bie Regala and 27th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jean­nie Darneille and Lau­rie Jenk­ins, for­mer 25th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dawn Mor­rell and for­mer Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and State Trea­sur­er Dan Grimm, retired Pierce Coun­ty State Sen­a­tors Rosa Franklin, Mar­i­lyn Ras­mussen, and Ken Mad­sen, and by Taco­ma May­or Mar­i­lyn Strick­land and for­mer Taco­ma May­or Bill Baars­ma. Heck has also been endorsed by Don Green and Ken Steven­son, Chairs of the 28th and 2nd Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict Democrats.

Heck starts 2012 with more than $550,000 cash on hand, raised from more than 1300 indi­vid­ual dona­tions to the cam­paign. He is proud to have the sup­port of the Wash­ing­ton Machin­ists Coun­cil, Elec­tri­cal Work­ers IBEW Local 77, Pacif­ic North­west Region­al Coun­cil of Car­pen­ters, AFSCME Coun­cil 2, Labor­ers Local 252, Boil­er­mak­ers Local 502, Sheet Met­al Work­ers Union Local 66, Oper­at­ing Engi­neers 302, APWU Amer­i­can Postal Work­ers’ Union, Asbestos Work­ers Local 7, Plumbers and Pip­efit­ters, and the Wash­ing­ton State Build­ing and Con­struc­tion Trades Council.

It is not clear yet what the Demo­c­ra­t­ic field will look like in the new WA-03 or WA-08, though one Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date has been prepar­ing to chal­lenge Reichert in the lat­ter dis­trict — Karen Porter­field. Incum­bent Democ­rats Rick Larsen, Norm Dicks, Jim McDer­mott, and Adam Smith are expect­ed to seek reelec­tion in their new­ly redrawn dis­tricts, which have become more Democratic.

In east­ern Wash­ing­ton, Repub­li­cans Doc Hast­ings and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers are expect­ed to seek reelec­tion. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has recruit­ed a for­mer U.S. Marine, Jay Clough, to chal­lenge Hast­ings; how­ev­er, the par­ty does­n’t appear to have a can­di­date lined up to take on McMor­ris Rodgers.