The Political Junkie

Hello Loyal Readers,

Last Friday, I interviewed legislators and decision-makers down in Olympia, I hope to have that video footage (exquisitely captured by the Center for New Media) up in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, there has been a flurry of activity recently.

Gary Jensen with Suzan Delbene in 2012

Pedro Celis, Republican donor and technocrat, has made his run for Congress against Rep. Suzan DelBene official, just as we predicted a few weeks back. Despite DelBene’s strong performance last year against John Koster, this race tops several lists as the most competitive in the nation. While I think an ungodly amount of money will be spent on this race, I don’t see it going red this year. Rep. DelBene has shown herself to be an effective Congresswoman, staying in regular contact with her district, but in a tough year, it might turn ugly.

A robocall swept the 42nd district this week paid for by the Environmental Priorities Coalition urging voters to call Sen. Doug Ericksen and petition him to hold a hearing on the Oil Transportation Safety Act (HB2347). The bill would direct various state agencies to evaluate the dangers of transporting oil, tighten safety regulation and provide fines for leaking oil tankers.

You can listen to the call by clicking the play button below:

The Environmental Priorities Coalition is a lobbying effort by a number of environmental non-profits, including Futurewise, Washington Conservation Voters and Conservation Northwest. With the situation in the Senate constantly evolving, it is no wonder that statewide groups will try to bring some pressure on Ericksen. I assume they already tried buying him dinner.

That’s it for today. I have a few longer articles bubbling in the queue that I hope to get live over the weekend, so stay tuned!