Paul Queary, a veteran AP reporter and editor, is founder of The Washington Observer, an independent newsletter on politics, government and the influence thereof in Washington State.
The incumbent, Steve Hobbs, is not beloved by the progressive wing of the Democratic party and hasn’t shown much firepower as a statewide candidate, finishing fourth in the 2016 primary for lieutenant governor.
The departing Russ Hauge, who spent 20 years as Kitsap County Prosecutor, was a chief gripe for the association and its allies in Olympia for an approach they found, well, too prosecutorial toward the now-legal weed business.
While a handful of progressive rich folks will embrace paying the new state capital-gains tax as a civic duty, or even as atonement for many years of benefit under a tax system that falls lightly on them and heavily on the poor, most will make a clear-eyed decision with an eye on the bottom line.
So what will the Supremes do with this task, which they never asked for and likely don’t really want? Well, they might go looking for a map that checks the boxes in the law.
Inslee’s move has the likely effect of replacing Hobbs -- a maverick centrist who has bucked Inslee and progressives within his own caucus on a variety of issues -- with someone more ideologically aligned with the governor and other Senate Democrats.
Several citywide campaigns this year focused heavily on harvesting the four $25 coupons issued to every registered voter in Seattle. Two who did were soundly beaten by more conventional campaigns centered on direct mail and advertising.
The Republican maps signal ambition to win back recently lost territory. The map proposed by former Rep. Paul Graves, representing the House Republicans, is the most aggressive of the four in terms of displacing incumbents. He would move a whopping 25 Democrats out of their districts.