Kirby Wilbur resigns as Washington State Republican Party Chair, effective immediately

Well known con­ser­v­a­tive Kir­by Wilbur is resign­ing as the chair­man of the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­cans, the par­ty has announced.

“I am resign­ing as the chair­man of the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty, effec­tive today at 5:00 PM,” Wilbur said in a news release dis­trib­uted to reporters only a few min­utes ago. ““I have been offered a five-year con­tract with the Young America’s Foun­da­tion that I would be fool­ish not to accept. I will be mov­ing to the “oth­er” Wash­ing­ton with­in the next cou­ple of months to write this next chap­ter of my life.”

“It has been an hon­or to serve as chair­man of the WSRP since Jan­u­ary 2011. We have had many suc­cess­es and I have had some fail­ures. The Par­ty has a good crop of up-and-com­ing lead­ers, and a strong staff, and it will con­tin­ue to move for­ward no mat­ter whose hand is on the helm,” he added.

Wilbur has served as chair­man of the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­cans since he oust­ed for­mer state sen­a­tor Luke Ess­er from that posi­tion in 2011. Ess­er, iron­i­cal­ly, became par­ty chair after los­ing his state Sen­ate seat to Rod­ney Tom in 2006.

Tom’s defec­tion back to the Repub­li­can Par­ty has allowed Wilbur to boast for the last few months that Wash­ing­ton Repub­li­cans con­trol the Sen­ate in Olympia. That boast was repeat­ed in Wilbur’s res­ig­na­tion announcement:

Chair­man Wilbur was elect­ed to his first term in Jan­u­ary 2011. Under his lead­er­ship, Wash­ing­ton elect­ed the only statewide Repub­li­can offi­cial on the west coast in Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman, and picked up 1 seat in both the State Sen­ate and the State House in 2012.

In late 2012, ear­ly 2013, two Democ­rats joined with our Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors to cre­ate the Major­i­ty Coali­tion Cau­cus, thus giv­ing Repub­li­cans a major­i­ty in at least one cham­ber of the Leg­is­la­ture for the first time since 2004. Chair­man Wilbur was reelect­ed to a sec­ond term in Jan­u­ary 2013.

That’s some pret­ty nice spin there. So, accord­ing to the WSRP, Kir­by had a hand in Kim Wyman’s nar­row vic­to­ry over Kath­leen Drew. By that log­ic, he also had a hand in the defeats of Rob McKen­na, Rea­gan Dunn, Michael Baum­gart­ner, Bill Finkbein­er, James Watkins, Clint Didi­er, Sharon Hanek, and John R. Adams, who all ran for statewide office last year but lost to their Demo­c­ra­t­ic opponents.

Under Wilbur, Repub­li­cans per­formed worse in statewide races than they have in any oth­er cycle in recent mem­o­ry. The par­ty also failed to take open seats in Wash­ing­ton’s 1st, 6th, and 10th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­tricts, although fresh­man U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler won reelec­tion in the 3rd District.

And con­sid­er­ing that Wilbur and the Repub­li­cans had a goal of elect­ing Repub­li­can majori­ties in both the House and Sen­ate in 2012, the pick­up of one seat in each house does­n’t seem like much of an accomplishment.

The vot­ers of Wash­ing­ton State elect­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic majori­ties to the Leg­is­la­ture in 2012; but as Wilbur’s press release hap­pi­ly points out, pow­er-hun­gry wannabe Repub­li­cans Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don decid­ed to leave the Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus in the wake of the elec­tion in return for a pair of titles, nice offices, and what they thought would be influ­ence with­in the Repub­li­can caucus.

From Wilbur’s per­spec­tive that was a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment. He did­n’t bring it about, but evi­dent­ly some­thing had to go into that oh, and for the record, here’s what I accom­plished while I was the chair paragraph.

Vice Chair Luanne Van­Wer­ven will run the par­ty as act­ing chair until a per­ma­nent suc­ces­sor to Wilbur is cho­sen. The par­ty’s cen­tral com­mit­tee must meet with­in the next three months to decide who the next chair will be.