Redstate

Posted at 9:36am on Jun. 17, 2008 If Gregoire Were a Republican, This Would Be Front Page, Above the Fold in the New York Times

By Erick

Twenty-three of our United States have entered into agreements with Indian tribes to allow casino gambling. Of those twenty-three, twenty-two collect millions of dollars as part of revenue sharing agreements.

What about the twenty-third state? Well, that would be Washington State and we're coming to learn that it is more and more likely Washington collects no money from Indian gambling operations because Governor Christine Gregoire decided she'd rather get campaign contributions.

Washington State Republicans and some Democrats are demanding an investigation into Governor Gregoire's handling of revenue sharing agreements with Washington State Indian tribes.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports

Gov. Chris Gregoire is benefiting from more than $650,000 in campaign contributions from Indian tribes that hit the jackpot in 2005 when she killed a gambling compact potentially worth more than $140 million a year to the state.

Unlike 22 other states that collect millions from revenue sharing agreements for tribal gambling, Washington gets no money from tribal casinos under the compact that Gregoire renegotiated with the Spokane Tribe.

The newspaper quotes Senator Ken Jacobsen, a Seattle Democrat, making a good point for a Democrat: "Why would you give someone a monopoly without taking a cut?"

And that is exactly it. In 2005, Washington intended to enter into agreements with the tribes that would have expanded tribal gambling operations and given Washington a cut of the money. But, before the legislature approved it, Governor Gregoire insisted the deal be renegotiated. Her staff was directly involved in the negotiations and they negotiated the state out of millions of dollars.

Gregoire, in what seems to clearly be a quid pro quo arrangement, received $650,000.00 in campaign contributions. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports, "The bulk of the tribal campaign contributions came from tribes that opposed the 2005 agreement Gregoire killed."

Posted in 2008 | Christine Gregoire | Corrupt Democrat Watch | Democratic Governors | Indian Casinos | Washington — Comments (8)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:29pm on May 16, 2008 Join us for drinks at Bullfeathers

By Soren Dayton

Join a bunch of Redstate readers and writers at Bullfeathers in Washington, DC at 6:30. Bullfeathers is a bar 1 block south of the Capitol South metro.

The special occasion is the graduating from college of California Yankee's son and a number of Redstaters in Washington this summer.

Posted in Drinking Freely | Special Events | Washington — Comments (43) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:15pm on Feb. 13, 2008 Washington Republicans need to come out from under their rocks and get involved

By Jeff Emanuel

Republican Dino Rossi lost the Washington state governor's race to Democrat Christine Gregoire in 2004 by 129 votes -- a difference found on the third counting, after Rossi led through the initial vote count and through the first recount. Following that shady, by-hand third recount, Rossi declined to act like a Democrat and didn't appeal the result the state Supreme Court, instead allowing the state to move forward, and setting his sights on a rematch in 2008.

Well, 2008 is here, and Gregoire leads Rossi in fundraising by a 2-to-1 margin. If Washington Republicans are fine with another Gregoire term, then by all means, they should remain content to sit on their hands and not help Rossi in his bid to unseat her.

But if folks in what is (in my opinion) the greatest state in this country actually care about moving their state in the right direction, they need to get off their backsides and help Dino Rossi make up those votes and get elected governor of the Evergreen state.

He can win it, but not on his own.

Update: Columnist Joel Connelly has a decent analysis of the race in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Posted in 2008 | Democratic Governors | Do-Nothing Republicans | Gregoire | Rossi | Washington — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:02pm on Feb. 6, 2008 Will Washington state take Wisconsin's health care sloppy seconds?

By Jeff Emanuel

At the beginning of this legislative session, State Senator Karen Keiser (D-Kent) introduced legislation that would radically increase government control of health care in the state of Washington. The legislation was based almost entirely on a plan that had been considered – and rejected – a year before by a state halfway across the country.

Thanks to the efforts of pro-market legislators like Wisconsin State Rep. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa), who spent a great deal of time, resources, and political capital educating their fellow representatives, and the state’s voters, about what a poor policy decision it would be to enact the expensive and inefficient program, the 2007 attempt at government-run health care was removed from the state budget it had been inserted into, and was scrapped entirely.

Though Wisconsin managed to avert the debacle that the “Healthy Wisconsin” program would have caused in the state’s health care market, the program’s authors did not give up on their dream of subsuming the health care and health insurance markets entirely into a government-run framework. Instead, remaining true to government’s penchant for rehabilitating failed ideas and policies and presenting them – unchanged, but under slightly new names – as new solutions, they simply exported their idea to Washington, where Sen. Keiser was happy to adopt them and to present them as a "solution" to Washington’s health care woes.

Read on for more.

Posted in Government-run health care | Health care | Policy | The Nanny State | Washington | Wisconsin — Comments (45) / Email this page » / Read More »