Tag Archives: Dave Reichert

Democrat Jason Ritchie running in WA CD 8 against Dave Reichert

Posted on October 29th, 2014 | Comments Off on Democrat Jason Ritchie running in WA CD 8 against Dave Reichert

Democrat Jason Ritchie is running in Washington’s 8th Congressional District against incumbent Republican Dave Reichert. Washington state’s 10 congressional districts are currently held by 6 Democrats and 4 Republicans. Picking up an additional Democratic Congressional seat would help in the Democrat’s national effort to take back the US House of Representatives from the Republicans. Considering that President Obama won the 8th Congressional District when he ran for re-election in 2012 makes a Democratic pickup possible. The 8th CD is one of only 17 CD’s nationally where Obama won and a Republican Representative won. Continue reading →

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Don’t Expect Quick Outcome in Burner/Reichert Congressional Race

Posted on November 8th, 2006 | Comments Off on Don’t Expect Quick Outcome in Burner/Reichert Congressional Race

Democrat Darcy Burner and Republican Dave Reichert remain locked in a virtual deadheat in their Congressional race in WA- 8. It will probably be several weeks before things are clear as to who really wins. What has been decided is that whoever wins is going back to a Democratically controlled House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

The numbers as reported by CNN as of 3:30 Wed. afternoon show Reichert with a lead of 2623 votes.

Dave Reichert (R) 61,9212…51%
Darcy Burner (D) 59,298…….49%

The reason for the uncertainty is that as of Wednesday afternoon – probably as many as half of the final ballots have not been counted. An estimated 80,000 ballots or so in hand in King County that cover the 8th C.D. have still not been counted. Over the next 3 days these will enter the vote total. Probably 8 to 10 thousand more absentees will arrive at King County elections for the 8th C.D. , from ballots postmarked but not yet received at King County Elections.

Expect that the race will tighten. Burner did better than Reichert in King County. He did better than she did in Pierce. Most of the Pierce Co. ballots in the 8th CD have been counted. The estimate of Pierce County ballots that cover the 8th CD ranges from 12 to 18 thousand.

Besides the uncounted ballots in hand and the ones that arrive in the mail over the next week or so, there are also a large number of provisional ballots that have to be individually looked at by canvassing boards and decisions made to count them or not based on their validity. There are a record number of these this year. There may be as many as 10,000.

So don’t expect to see any concessions by anyone soon despite how the numbers may move over the next week. There is no requirement for anyone to concede as the election is decided by the final vote count. Obviously whoever is ahead will urge their opponent to concede. However only a fool would declare that this election is over right now.

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Republican Hit Piece Coming Against Democrat Darcy Burner!

Posted on September 18th, 2006 | Comments Off on Republican Hit Piece Coming Against Democrat Darcy Burner!

No sooner does Joel Connelly in the Seattle PI note that the Republicans are out to rip their opponents than more proof appears. Independent expenditure reports tabulated at www.PoliticalMoneyLine.org note that The National Republican Congressional Committee on Friday reported $25,587 in mailings “in opposition to Darcy Burner for Congress.”

Darcy Burner is running to toss out first term incumbent Dave Reichert in the 8th Congressional District in Washington State. Just like Joel said, Don’t they have something positive to say about their candidate? This is not an expenditure to supprt Dave Reichert for Congress. I could find no other recent expenditure by them supporting Reichert.

Republicans in the House are against the wall this year, with voters waking up to the fact that Republicans have been working to help their special interest moneyed backers, not middle class and lower class working people in America. Cutting student loans, refusing to raise the minimum wage and turning back years of health and environmental protections speak volumes to what another two years of unchecked control of Congress by Republicans means for our future and our children’s future.

Darcy Burner is not alone in being hit with upcoming negative ads. As Daily Kos reports she is part of a $2 million buy of negative ads.

Darcy Burner represents a new and independent voice and deserves our support. You can help to counter negative Republican hit pieces that don’t speak to the issues we really face in this country by sending her a contribution today. President Bush and Karl Rove have both come to Washington State to raise closed door contributions to keep Reichert alive.

While donations to Burner have exceeded Reidhert’s the last three quarters according to FEC reports, independent contributions from 527’s and other can quickly alter this advantage.

You can make a contribution today by clicking on the Majority Rules Act Blue Contribution page. Help keep Darcy out front.

Expect that as November gets closer the National Congressional Republican Committee will send out other mailings. On August 20, 2006 it was reported by www.PoliticalMoneyLine.org
that they had some $43,622,106 to spend around the country.

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Reichert, McMorris and Hastings Absent as Co-Sponsors of Voter Verified Paper Trail Bill.

Posted on September 8th, 2006 | Comments Off on Reichert, McMorris and Hastings Absent as Co-Sponsors of Voter Verified Paper Trail Bill.

Some 211 members of Congress from both parties have signed on as Co-Sponsors of a Congressional Bill to require a voter verified paper trail for elections. All 6 of Washington’s Democratic Congressmen have signed up as co-sponsors of House Bill 550.

Washington’s three Republican Congressmen, Dave Reichert (WA 8), Cathy McMorris (WA 5) and Doc Hastings (WA 4) are absent as co-sponsors of HB 550. Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey is the prime sponsor.

HB 550 would also require that there be a mandatory recount of 2% of all ballots to check for errors or fraud. The title of HB 550 reads Title: To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a voter-verified permanent paper record or hard copy under title III of such Act, and for other purposes.

According to CNN, 27 states require by law a voter verified paper trail, 8 others do it, and 15 states have no requirements for safeguards.

There is a need for uniformity and consistency in election results. The 2000 and 2004 elections resulted in a loss of voter confidence in the integrity of our electoral system. The 2000 Presidential election was decided by a 5/4 vote of a conservative US Supreme Court. Some still question the 2004 vote also as a tainted election, particularly because of the Ohio results.

Republicans like McMorris, Reichert and Hastings don’t care because their party was the winner(?) in the Presidential elections. Republicans have deliberately tried to suppress votes in Democratic areas. Questions about the integrity of voting machines like Diebold remain.

As CNN noted, legislation to create a paper trail for voters in Maryland failed to pass their Legislature. So voters will be using machines that voters touch to record votes – there will be no way to verify the accuracy of the final vote because there will be no paper ballots available for a recount.

Reichert, McMorris and Hastings are out of touch with updating our national voting system and installing safeguards to protect the voting process. Just one more reason to vote them out of office.

McMorris is being challenged by Democrat Peter Goldmark.

Reichert is being challenged by Democrat Darcy Burner

Hastings is being challenged by Democrat Richard Wright.

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How Congressman Reichert Uses Advantages of Incumbency to Reach Voters

Posted on May 16th, 2006 | 1 comment

Monday night US Representative Dave Reichert’s Mercer Island office was open until 9 PM helping seniors sign up for the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefits Program. Congressman Reichert is running for re-election in Washington’s 8th Congressional District. He is facing a strong challenge from Democrat Darcy Burner.

Reading his press release from last Thursday one almost could conclude that the Republicans in Congress passed this program as part of their re-election strategy. Make the program so complicated that Congressman Reichert has to have an:

“ongoing effort to assist seniors during the sign-up period. In addition to keeping his office open late, Congressman Reichert has sent over 125,000 pieces of mail to constituents that explains the program and provides sign-up information. He has made over 40,000 phone calls to seniors in his District about the program. He has held 16 workshops, helping seniors to sign-up and giving them access to the program’s experts.”

In an April 10, 2006 press release he announced workshops in Eatonville, Orting, Carnation, Bellevue and Boney Lake.

On May 3, 2006 , he announced additional workshops in Eatonville and Renton.

All this of course is paid for by the taxpayers. What I found intriguing was that “He has made over 40,000 calls to Seniors in his District” One has to wonder how he was able to get anything else done during this time in Congress or even have any time to spend with his family.

Assuming he only spent 2 minutes per constituent, which is short considering how absurdly complicated the program is, it would comprise some 1333 hours of his time. At 8 hours a day that’s some 166 days. If he did this for 5 days a week, he’s now spent some 33 weeks talking to Seniors or over half a year just on this one issue.

He must be getting tired. Maybe that’s the reason his press release makes no mention of extending the sign up time without a penalty. In fact one has to wonder why there is any penalty at all for signing up later. Isn’t this program supposed to benefit Seniors or is it meant to punish Seniors?

Of course we all know this program wasn’t really meant to help Seniors that much or it would have allowed for bulk buying of drugs to reduce costs to Seniors. Because in point of fact, the legislation is really a Prescription Drug Company Price Guarantee Act.

 

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