Dave Reichert won’t seek reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018

Entrenched Repub­li­can incum­bent Dave Reichert announced in a lengthy state­ment this morn­ing that he has decid­ed not to seek reelec­tion to the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 2018, set­ting the stage for what could be one of the most close­ly con­test­ed U.S. House races in the coun­try next year.

“It has been an hon­or and and a priv­i­lege to serve the peo­ple of the great­est state in the world’s great­est nation for near­ly five decades,” Reichert said, say­ing his “life of ser­vice” was enter­ing a “new phase”. “First as a mem­ber of the U.S. Air Force Reserves for six years, then in the King Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s Office for 33 years, and most recent­ly as a sev­en term Mem­ber of Congress.”

“After spend­ing time dur­ing the August work peri­od with fam­i­ly and friends, reflect­ing on the past, dis­cussing the future, and cel­e­brat­ing anoth­er birth­day, I have decid­ed this will be my last term and I will not run for reelec­tion in Novem­ber 2018. It was not an easy deci­sion but I believe it was the right one for my fam­i­ly and me. I have spent my entire career and devot­ed my life to ser­vice. I see this not just as a job, but as a call­ing — a call­ing I will not walk away from.”

Repub­li­cans have held a long grip on the 8th Dis­trict, going back to the dis­tric­t’s incep­tion fol­low­ing the 1980 cen­sus. Reichert is the third Repub­li­can to rep­re­sent the dis­trict, after Rod Chan­dler (1983 — 1993) and Jen­nifer Dunn (1993 — 2005). How­ev­er, the dis­trict has been sup­port­ing Democ­rats for Pres­i­dent for years. It backed Al Gore, John Ker­ry, Barack Oba­ma, and most recent­ly, Hillary Clin­ton… even after its bound­aries became more favor­able to Repub­li­cans in 2012.

Reichert beat out sev­er­al oth­er Repub­li­cans in 2004 for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion (2004 was a year when Wash­ing­ton had a real pri­ma­ry) and went on to defeat Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee Dave Ross in the gen­er­al election.

Dar­cy Burn­er then mount­ed two con­sec­u­tive chal­lenges to Reichert (one in 2006, the sec­ond in 2008), both of which were unsuccessful.

In 2010, Suzan Del­Bene stepped up to take on Reichert, but by then, Reichert was well entrenched and had sur­vived two Demo­c­ra­t­ic wave elec­tion cycles, and he was able to defeat Del­Bene with­out much dif­fi­cul­ty. (The fol­low­ing year, Del­Bene’s neigh­bor­hood was placed into the open 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, and she ran for Con­gress again and won. She con­tin­ues to rep­re­sent the 1st Dis­trict today.)

Reichert then faced Karen Porter­field (2012), Jason Ritchie (2014), and Tony Ven­trel­la (2016), win­ning by lop­sided mar­gins each time.

Democ­rats had vowed to mount a more cred­i­ble chal­lenge to Reichert in 2018, but Reichert’s deci­sion to retire will com­plete­ly change the dynam­ics of the race. The 8th Dis­trict is now one of the best pick­up oppor­tu­ni­ties any­where in the coun­try, and to prop­er­ly take advan­tage, the par­ty will want a charis­mat­ic, cred­i­ble can­di­date who is com­fort­able cam­paign­ing on both sides of the Cas­cade Mountains.

Pri­or to Reichert’s retire­ment, a slew of can­di­dates had stepped for­ward to chal­lenge him as Democ­rats. Only one is an elect­ed offi­cial: Issaquah City Coun­cilmem­ber Tola Marts. With Reichert now retir­ing, we’ll see oth­er elect­ed offi­cials give thought to enter­ing the race, and poten­tial­ly jump in.

The Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee’s Steve Stivers lame­ly tried to put the best pos­si­ble spin on Reichert’s retire­ment, offer­ing the fol­low­ing response: “Washington’s 8th Dis­trict is a seat that has cho­sen Repub­li­cans for over a decade. With a bit­ter and expen­sive pri­ma­ry fight already con­fronting Democ­rats in this seat, Repub­li­cans are ready to elect anoth­er com­mon-sense con­gress­man like Dave Reichert, not anoth­er rub­ber stamp for Nan­cy Pelosi.”

First of all, Wash­ing­ton State does­n’t uti­lize a pri­ma­ry to select nom­i­nees like most oth­er states do. Wash­ing­ton has the Top Two sys­tem, in which the top two vote get­ters advance regard­less of par­ty. This is a sys­tem that can poten­tial­ly result in either the Demo­c­ra­t­ic or Repub­li­can par­ties get­ting com­plete­ly shut out of the gen­er­al elec­tion, even in a statewide con­test. For example:

• in 2014 and 2016 in the 4th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, where the gen­er­al elec­tion was a con­test between Clint Didi­er and Dan Newhouse;
• in 2016 in the state Trea­sur­er’s race, where the gen­er­al elec­tion was a con­test between two Repub­li­can candidates;
• sev­er­al times per cycle in leg­isla­tive dis­tricts that are heav­i­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic (i.e. in Seat­tle) or heav­i­ly Repub­li­can (i.e. in East­ern Washington).

If Repub­li­cans get their own field of can­di­dates and they split the vote more bad­ly than the Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates do, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty could have two of its own can­di­dates advance to the gen­er­al elec­tion and the seat would be lost to the Repub­li­cans. It’s not an unre­al­is­tic scenario.

At this point, Repub­li­cans can’t afford to gloat about the prospect for Demo­c­ra­t­ic divi­sions when they have their own field to manage.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic field is going to be upend­ed any­way. It was in a state of flux even before Reichert’s deci­sion to retire, with can­di­dates exit­ing and enter­ing. With Reichert’s retire­ment, the six Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­bers of the state’s del­e­ga­tion will take an intense inter­est in the race, as will the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gres­sion­al Cam­paign Com­mit­tee (DCCC) and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee (DNC).

Sec­ond, the notion that Reichert was a “com­mon sense Con­gress­man” is a laugh­er. Talk about rub­ber stamps — Reichert is the liv­ing, walk­ing def­i­n­i­tion of a rub­ber stamp. He does what he’s told, and has ever since he was elected.

He even admit­ted it at a gath­er­ing of the Main­stream Repub­li­cans in 2006:

Some­times the lead­er­ship comes to me and says, ‘Dave, we want you to vote a cer­tain way.’ Now, they know I can do that over here, that I have to do that over here. In oth­er dis­tricts, that’s not a prob­lem, but here I have to be able to be very flex­i­ble in where I place my votes.

Because the big pic­ture here is, keep this seat, keep the major­i­ty, keep the coun­try mov­ing for­ward with Repub­li­can ideals — espe­cial­ly on the bud­get, on pro­tect­ing our troops, on pro­tect­ing this coun­try. Right? Being respon­si­ble with tax­pay­er dol­lars. All of those things. That’s the big pic­ture. Not the vote I place on ANWR that you may not agree with, or the vote that I place on pro­tect­ing salmon.”

You have to… be … flexible.

And so, when the lead­er­ship comes to me and says ‘Dave, we need you to take a vote over here because we want to pro­tect you and keep this major­i­ty, I…I do it.’

Because Reichert is a rub­ber stamp, he is in the habit of wait­ing to receive instruc­tions pri­or to announc­ing how he’ll vote on a con­tentious bill or amend­ment that’s unlike­ly to be well received back home in the real Washington.

When top Repub­li­cans reach the point where they don’t need his vote, they release him and give him per­mis­sion to but­tress his mytho­log­i­cal rep­u­ta­tion as an inde­pen­dent thinker by vot­ing no — like on the awful Trump­cuts bill.

Reichert has tra­di­tion­al­ly enjoyed one impor­tant advan­tage in his cam­paigns and dur­ing his ser­vice as a Mem­ber of Con­gress, how­ev­er: he’s con­tin­u­al­ly been able to rely on an adept staff who have helped com­pen­sate for his shortcomings.

Reichert has been the sub­ject of many crit­i­cal Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate posts over the years. Here’s a look back at the low­lights of his tenure in Congress:

• Dave Reichert announces he’ll oppose Trump­cuts bill
• Dave Reichert takes a pass on chal­leng­ing Jay Inslee for gov­er­nor in 2016
• Dave Reichert does­n’t know what the Glass-Stea­gall Act is (sad, but true!)
• Team Del­Bene catch­es Reichert oper­a­tives puff­ing up Dav­e’s image with false Google ad
• Cam­era shy Dave Reichert won’t agree to any debates with Suzan DelBene
• Dave Reichert, fake environmentalist
• Repub­li­can con­gress­men try to strad­dle right wing “birther” sideshow
• Dave Reichert says he’s “on board” with Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s new direction
• The GOP Death List
• Burn­er vs. Reichert: for me, it’s personal.
• Repub­li­can Dave Reichert jokes about the death of Hillary Clinton
• State Democ­rats file FEC com­plaint over Reichert’s Bush fundrais­ing event
• Reichert caught in flip-off fib
• Dave Reichert gets him­self in trou­ble again
• Dave Reichert isn’t run­ning a clean campaign
• Analy­sis of the first debate between Dar­cy Burn­er and Dave Reichert
• Reichert caught abus­ing tax­pay­er mail­ings (again)
• A vote for Dave Reichert is a vote for “stay­ing the course” in Iraq
• Reichert’s boast keeps fin­ger sto­ry alive