Sorry, Republicans: Seattle-bashing isn’t going to save your brand in Washington State

This past week­end in Leav­en­worth, the Dan Evans wing of Wash­ing­ton State’s Repub­li­can Par­ty gath­ered at the Enz­ian Inn for its annu­al Cas­cade Conference.

The Seat­tle Post-Intel­li­gencer’s Joel Con­nel­ly attend­ed the gath­er­ing of the self-pro­fessed Main­stream Repub­li­cans and reports that atten­dees “used humor and hard argu­ment here over the week­end to gird for what their fundrais­ing chair Jim Wal­do pre­dict­ed will be ‘our two tough­est years.’ ”

Repub­li­cans won the 2016 fed­er­al elec­tions and now con­trol every branch of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Repub­li­cans in Wash­ing­ton State are grap­pling with the fall­out of that, and under­stand that one con­se­quence of Don­ald Trump’s rise could be severe dam­age to the Repub­li­can Par­ty brand through­out the state.

In Leav­en­worth, Repub­li­cans sig­naled they’ll try to pro­tect their hold on the state Sen­ate not by advanc­ing wor­thy ideas to improve Wash­ing­ton’s qual­i­ty of life, but by bash­ing Seat­tle every chance they get — and try­ing to tie every Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date run­ning out­side of the state’s largest city to the specter of an income tax.

As Joel point­ed out in his report­ing, in the days when Dan Evans was gov­er­nor of this state, such a strat­e­gy would have been unthink­able. Evans and oth­er Repub­li­cans of his day were well liked in Seat­tle and King Coun­ty; Evans served as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the deep blue 43rd Dis­trict pri­or to becom­ing Gov­er­nor. Evans was a stal­wart pro­po­nent of levy­ing a state income tax and twice con­vinced the Leg­is­la­ture to approved a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to pro­vide for one.

Nowa­days, Evans has a dim view of Seat­tle pol­i­tics, and of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

“We are evolv­ing into one very blue (Demo­c­ra­t­ic) area around Seat­tle and the rest of the state is turn­ing Repub­li­can,” the ven­er­a­ble Evans said in Leav­en­worth, accord­ing to Con­nel­ly’s report. He added: “They (Democ­rats) don’t care and look down on peo­ple who live in the rest of the state.”

I like and respect Dan Evans a great deal — he was arguably one of the best gov­er­nors this state ever had, and I applaud his efforts to reform Wash­ing­ton State’s regres­sive tax code — but those state­ments are nonsense.

Wash­ing­ton’s polit­i­cal make­up is indeed evolv­ing, but it’s much more com­plex than Evans makes it out to be. Greater Seat­tle isn’t the state’s only Demo­c­ra­t­ic area. Sim­i­lar­ly, rur­al com­mu­ni­ties aren’t the state’s only Repub­li­can area.

Democ­rats do very well in Wash­ing­ton’s 3rd Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict (Spokane), which is cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ed by Democ­rats Mar­cus Ric­cel­li, Timm Orms­by, and Andy Bil­lig. But appar­ent­ly in Evans’ eyes, they don’t count.

Nor do Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors like Kevin Ranker, Kris Lyt­ton, Steve Tharinger, Mike Chap­man, Kevin Van De Wege, Bri­an Blake, Dean Takko, each of whom also rep­re­sent a dis­trict that is hours away from Seattle.

Democ­rats would not be with­in strik­ing dis­tance of a Sen­ate major­i­ty and would not have a House major­i­ty at all if they could­n’t com­pete out­side of Seattle.

Evans’ claim that Democ­rats are uncar­ing and look down on peo­ple who live else­where in the state is also wrong.

I’m active in the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, and the par­ty cares deeply about every com­mu­ni­ty in this state, whether it be urban, sub­ur­ban, or rural.

It is pre­cise­ly because of that con­cern that pro­gres­sive Demo­c­ra­t­ic Lands Com­mis­sion­er Hilary Franz is embark­ing on a Rur­al Com­mu­ni­ties Part­ner­ship Ini­tia­tive, which was just announced today by DNR.

“The Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources has sig­nif­i­cant resources and capac­i­ty to aid in eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment around the state, espe­cial­ly in areas of Wash­ing­ton that have been tra­di­tion­al­ly nat­ur­al resource-based economies,” the Com­mis­sion­er said.

“This agency believes that social, envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­ic invest­ment, and stew­ard­ship are con­cepts that work in con­cert, not oppo­si­tion. We can invest in clean jobs, restore habi­tats and cre­ate eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty around the state at the same time. It takes per­se­ver­ance, trans­paren­cy and ener­gy – all things that this agency and its employ­ees are com­mit­ted to.”

The Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty feels the same way. The par­ty refers repeat­ed­ly in its plat­form to the needs of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, stat­ing:

• We are the stew­ards of the land and water that sus­tain us. We must pre­serve fam­i­ly farms, strength­en rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, ensure the avail­abil­i­ty of high-qual­i­ty food, and main­tain the via­bil­i­ty of land and water.
• We call for… strength­en­ing the Wash­ing­ton State Growth Man­age­ment Act and poli­cies that pre­serve agri­cul­tur­al land and nat­ur­al resources, along with robust rur­al infra­struc­ture;
• We call for… gov­ern­ments to invest in con­tin­ued local access to need­ed trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture, includ­ing rur­al road and high­way main­te­nance and improve­ment, ensur­ing that con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to those cities and coun­ties out­side of the I‑5 and I‑90 corridor.

The par­ty aims to prac­tice what it preach­es. To that end, it has an active, vibrant Agri­cul­ture & Rur­al Issues Cau­cus orga­niz­ing reg­u­lar activ­i­ties, and holds most of its busi­ness meet­ings in cities far from Seat­tle — many in rur­al Washington.

I can attest to that first­hand because I attend those meet­ings as a mem­ber of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee (WSDCC).

For exam­ple, just this past April, the WSDCC held its spring meet­ing in Wal­la Wal­la at the Mar­cus Whit­man. Pri­or to that, the par­ty held meet­ings in Yaki­ma, Wenatchee, the Tri-Cities, Chelan, Ocean Shores, Fer­n­dale, and Vancouver.

The most recent state con­ven­tion (2016) was in Taco­ma, and the one pri­or to that (2014) was in Spokane. The clos­est meet­ings to Seat­tle have been in Lyn­nwood and Olympia. Seat­tle itself has not host­ed a state par­ty meet­ing or con­ven­tion since 2012, five years ago. That will change in Sep­tem­ber; it’s Seat­tle’s turn to host.

It is pre­cise­ly because the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty cares about com­mu­ni­ties like Fer­n­dale, Wal­la Wal­la, and Van­cou­ver that it choos­es to hold busi­ness meet­ings in those places. Com­mi­teemem­bers from the greater Seat­tle area are quite used to hav­ing to trav­el to get to state par­ty meetings.

Hav­ing the meet­ings around the state means there are oppor­tu­ni­ties for par­ty lead­ers to learn about the needs of rur­al communities.

I remem­ber when we were in Chelan, there was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to tour one of the local orchards. In Fer­n­dale, we got to meet peo­ple from the local tribes. In Van­cou­ver, we demon­strat­ed in sup­port of a new bridge for I‑5.

And while we were in Wal­la Wal­la, I went across the Ore­gon bor­der to observe a town hall that Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden was hold­ing in Milton-Freewater.

What I learned from going to that town hall is that peo­ple in rur­al North­west com­mu­ni­ties have the same con­cerns as peo­ple in urban or sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties. They’re try­ing to fig­ure out how to pay the bills and take care of their families.

Many rur­al North­west­ern­ers are incred­i­bly upset with Don­ald Trump and the actions tak­en by his regime since Jan­u­ary. There’s a deep desire for an inves­ti­ga­tion into the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion’s involve­ment in our 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, and deep dis­gust with Repub­li­can plans to do away with the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, round up immi­grants who are con­tribut­ing to our soci­ety, and enact tax cuts for the wealthy.

Dan Evans and the Main­stream Repub­li­cans rec­og­nize that Trump is akin to an anvil tied around their col­lec­tive heels. Local Repub­li­cans want to escape his shad­ow and tox­ic pol­i­tics, and know that if they don’t, they’re like­ly to lose.

“It has nev­er been more impor­tant to estab­lish a Wash­ing­ton brand of Repub­li­can­ism,” Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Hans Zeiger told atten­dees of the Cas­cade Con­fer­ence, as relat­ed by Con­nel­ly’s report.

It seems the plan for estab­lish­ing that brand is to sow seeds of divi­sion among Wash­ing­to­ni­ans (fit­ting, con­sid­er­ing that’s a tac­tic Trump used in his cam­paign) and stoke as much anti-Seat­tle sen­ti­ment as they can whip up.

Democ­rats already have a darned good bogey­man in Don­ald Trump, and Repub­li­cans are clear­ly envi­ous. They want bogey­men of their own.

In the words of Slade Gor­ton, as report­ed by Con­nel­ly: “There is a whole cul­tur­al dimen­sion that is more impor­tant than economic.”

Joel’s report­ing strength­ens my view that the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty — includ­ing the Main­stream Repub­li­cans — care more about cling­ing to what they have than solv­ing any of the state’s press­ing problems.

Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic schools are sig­nif­i­cant­ly under­fund­ed. NPI research has found that strong majori­ties of Wash­ing­ton vot­ers believe new rev­enue is need­ed to ensure our chil­dren receive the amply-fund­ed edu­ca­tion the Con­sti­tu­tion requires they get.

The Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have pro­posed a bud­get that increas­es the prop­er­ty tax­es of most Wash­ing­to­ni­ans while leav­ing less mon­ey over­all for our schools. Their pro­pos­al has been wide­ly panned, but they’ve stub­born­ly refused to open their minds to any of the rev­enue ideas Democ­rats have come up with.

For instance, Repub­li­cans have flat­ly reject­ed levy­ing a cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy, which 65% of polled Wash­ing­ton vot­ers say they sup­port.

I searched the agen­da of the Main­stream Repub­li­cans’ Cas­cade Con­fer­ence for the words “edu­ca­tion” and “schools”. There were no match­es. Now, I imag­ine the top­ic must have come up, but it’s sig­nif­i­cant it was­n’t the theme of any planned ses­sions. And it’s not men­tioned in Joel’s recap of the conference.

It seems that our resolv­ing our school fund­ing cri­sis sim­ply isn’t some­thing that the Main­stream Repub­li­cans regard to be a top priority.

There were ses­sions on con­ser­va­tion, immi­gra­tion, home­less­ness, and oth­er wor­thy issues. Some of these ses­sions appeared nos­tal­gi­cal­ly themed.

But con­sid­er­ing that the Main­stream Repub­li­cans say their desire is to build a brand inde­pen­dent of the nation­al Repub­li­can Par­ty — where are their ideas for fund­ing our schools? That is the most impor­tant state-lev­el issue there is.

At the end of this month, state gov­ern­ment will have to shut down if we don’t have a bud­get. And if that bud­get does­n’t mean­ing­ful­ly bol­ster school fund­ing, an impa­tient Supreme Court just might strike it down.

We are hurtling towards that moment, and yet Sen­ate Repub­li­cans refuse to nego­ti­ate with House Democ­rats, to the exas­per­a­tion of Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee.

It’s very evi­dent that Repub­li­cans are eager to fig­ure out a way to win and don’t want to throw in the tow­el just because the nation­al envi­ron­ment is bad and get­ting worse. But they have not pre­sent­ed a cred­i­ble plan for how they’d govern.

When Dan Evans was Gov­er­nor, Wash­ing­ton’s tax code was regres­sive and a hin­drance to the health of our pub­lic ser­vices. It remains so today. How would Repub­li­cans fix that? What are their ideas? I don’t see any, and I don’t hear any.

All I see and hear com­ing out of this Cas­cade Con­fer­ence are grand old par­ty elders like Dan Evans and Slade Gor­ton rem­i­nisc­ing about bygone days and sug­gest­ing that Seat­tle-bash­ing will help get today’s Repub­li­can can­di­dates like Jiny­oung Lee Englund elect­ed in places like the 45th despite the specter of Trump.

Sor­ry, Wash­ing­ton Repub­li­cans. That’s not going to work. Run­ning against Seat­tle isn’t going to save your brand. You can try it, but if you do, it’ll only prove that you have more sim­i­lar­i­ties with Don­ald Trump than differences.