Militant Republican legislator Elizabeth Scott to challenge Suzan DelBene in 2016

Last night, it was report­ed that Repub­li­cans have found a chal­lenger to run against Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress­woman Suzan Del­Bene in 2016: the gun-tot­ing, back­ground check-denounc­ing Eliz­a­beth Scott, who cur­rent­ly serves in the Repub­li­can minor­i­ty in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Representatives.

Repub­li­cans have not defeat­ed a Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bent for fed­er­al or statewide office in Wash­ing­ton for over a decade, but that’s not stop­ping them from hyp­ing Scot­t’s can­di­da­cy and try­ing to por­tray Del­Bene as vul­ner­a­ble. Just read this spin from State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Susan Hutchi­son:

Susan Hutchi­son, chair of the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty, Wednes­day called Scott “a ter­rif­ic can­di­date” and argued the 1st Dis­trict is “actu­al­ly a con­ser­v­a­tive-lean­ing district.”

Ter­rif­ic, as in extra­or­di­nar­i­ly great, or ter­rif­ic, as in ter­ri­fy­ing?

Hutchi­son may think of Scott as the for­mer. But a major­i­ty of vot­ers across the 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict may see her as the latter.

It’s no secret that Scott is a very mil­i­tant Republican.

This is the same Eliz­a­beth Scott who does­n’t believe that women should be able to make their own repro­duc­tive health deci­sions:

This year, Scott spon­sored an anti-abor­tion bill declar­ing life begins at con­cep­tion. In 2013, she declined to sign on to a res­o­lu­tion hon­or­ing for­mer Gov. Booth Gard­ner, telling the Her­ald of Everett she object­ed to his role in expand­ing abor­tion rights.

Scott was the only state law­mak­er to vote in 2013 against a bill allow­ing crim­i­nal charges in cer­tain cas­es of spousal rape. On her web­site, she argued its lan­guage was too broad and “threat­ens the lib­er­ty of non­vi­o­lent peo­ple in their homes”.

… and the same Eliz­a­beth Scott who wants to allow gun enthu­si­asts like her­self to car­ry firearms just about every­where, even on pub­lic school grounds:

Eliz­a­beth Scott, R‑Monroe, told the crowd she would co-spon­sor bills in the upcom­ing ses­sion to both repeal and weak­en I‑594.

Scott said she also planned to co-spon­sor a bill to allow peo­ple with con­cealed-pis­tol per­mits to car­ry weapons on school grounds, in hopes of deter­ring a shoot­ing, and anoth­er to elim­i­nate the sales tax on guns and ammu­ni­tion. As she announced each pro­pos­al, the crowd lit up in cheers.

I‑594, of course, is the ini­tia­tive to require back­ground checks on gun sales sold over the Inter­net and at gun shows. It passed over­whelm­ing­ly, with a nine­teen-point mar­gin of vic­to­ry, and sup­port for the law has only grown since the elec­tion. But Scott does­n’t care that vot­ers spoke loud­ly and clear­ly in favor of I‑594. The law was­n’t a week old before she was talk­ing about attempt­ing to repeal it.

This is who Repub­li­cans want to send up against DelBene?

Susan Hutchison’s claim that the 1st is “actu­al­ly a con­ser­v­a­tive dis­trict” is laugh­able. It does­n’t pass the straight face test. If it’s a con­ser­v­a­tive dis­trict, then why have its inhab­i­tants repeat­ed­ly cho­sen Suzan Del­Bene to rep­re­sent them over con­ser­v­a­tives like John Koster and Pedro Celis? The dis­trict was brand new in 2012, and Repub­li­cans weren’t able to win it then, even though their hand­picked redis­trict­ing wiz­ard Slade Gor­ton had a big hand in draw­ing it so that it would be competitive.

Two years lat­er, in 2014, they still weren’t able to win the 1st, even though the elec­toral cli­mate was favor­able for them (midterm cycle, no statewide race, low turnout, Repub­li­can Noise Machine work­ing in over­drive in an attempt to make Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic brand as tox­ic as possible).

Incum­bents are gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered to be most vul­ner­a­ble when they stand for reelec­tion the first time. But Del­Bene sur­vived 2014, and is no longer a fresh­man.  Last cycle, Repub­li­cans recruit­ed a can­di­date they said had a lot of promise (Celis, for­mer­ly of Microsoft, like Del­Bene), but he bare­ly sur­vived the August Top Two elec­tion, and ran an unin­spir­ing, lack­lus­ter campaign.

Scott won’t have that par­tic­u­lar prob­lem — she’ll be pack­ing heat, lit­er­al­ly — but she’s not a cred­i­ble oppo­nent for Del­Bene. Yet, amus­ing­ly, Hutchi­son is try­ing to pitch Scott as the per­fect foil to the well-liked Con­gress­woman:

Hutchi­son said Scott can appeal to the many 1st Dis­trict vot­ers who are not thrilled with DelBene’s sup­port of the Oba­ma agen­da, includ­ing some Democ­rats. “Sno­homish Coun­ty Democ­rats are blue col­lar. They aren’t rep­re­sent­ed by that social­ist wing that is so promi­nent in Seat­tle,” she said.

Ah, this trope again. Well, I guess it’s to be expected.

Repub­li­cans know they can’t win in Seat­tle, so they try to demo­nize the state’s largest city and pit the rest of the state against it.

But there is noth­ing extreme about the sen­si­ble pol­i­cy direc­tions that Seat­tle’s pro­gres­sive lead­ers stand for, whether that’s increas­ing the min­i­mum wage, mak­ing our state’s hor­ri­bly regres­sive tax sys­tem fair­er, or ensur­ing that law enforce­ment treats every­one with respect and dignity.

As I not­ed ear­li­er, Repub­li­cans have failed to defeat a sin­gle Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bent at the fed­er­al or statewide lev­el for years. The so-called boa con­stric­tor strat­e­gy just has­n’t been work­ing for them. But they seem deter­mined to keep try­ing it.

If past his­to­ry is any indi­ca­tion, they’ll find it tough going.

The Sno­homish Coun­ty Democ­rats have con­sis­tent­ly put Wash­ing­ton’s third largest coun­ty in the win col­umn for many Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates and causes.

Jay Inslee, Pat­ty Mur­ray, Maria Cantwell, and Chris Gre­goire have found sup­port there, as have Democ­rats run­ning fur­ther down­bal­lot, like Bob Fer­gu­son and Peter Gold­mark. Sno­homish has been piv­otal in the fail­ure num­ber of recent Tim Eyman ini­tia­tives, notably I‑985 in 2008, I‑1033 in 2009, and I‑1125 in 2011.

Sno­homish vot­ers also mem­o­rably stood against over­turn­ing an increase in road fund­ing in 2005 by vot­ing down Kir­by Wilbur and John Carl­son’s I‑912.

It is worth not­ing that the 1st Dis­tric­t’s pop­u­la­tion base is actu­al­ly in King Coun­ty. Because the 2nd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict encom­pass­es the pop­u­lous west­ern por­tion of Sno­homish, the por­tion of Sno­homish that’s in the 1st is most­ly rur­al. It includes the area affect­ed by the destruc­tive Oso mud­slide last year. And, as local lead­ers in Dar­ring­ton and Arling­ton have attest­ed, Del­Bene rep­re­sents the area very well. She shows up, she lis­tens, and she deliv­ers excel­lent con­stituent service.

The dis­trict extends north through Skag­it and What­com coun­ties, tak­ing in com­mu­ni­ties like Mount Ver­non and Fer­n­dale, which also see a lot of DelBene.

It’s fun­ny that Hutchi­son is so enthu­si­as­tic about Scott. Demo­c­ra­t­ic strate­gists and cam­paign plan­ners will be enthu­si­as­tic about her, too. She’s exact­ly the kind of can­di­date they like: some­one who is so mil­i­tant and extreme that there’s plen­ty of mate­r­i­al just wait­ing to be har­vest­ed for use in neg­a­tive ad campaigns.