Free Republic

Dean Logan, the politically battle-weary director of King County elections, is resigning to take the No. 2 elections job in Los Angeles, prompting County Executive Ron Sims to delay moving the county to a virtually all-mail voting system. In an interview Monday, Logan said a factor in his decision to leave his job as director of the Records, Elections and Licensing Services Division was the "toxic environment" surrounding the elections operation. It heated up after the contested 2004 governor's election and intensified again recently over Sims' vote-by-mail plan. Sims has planned for an August 2007 rollout of the vote-by-mail system,...

State Democrats say their latest research shows that Republican Dino Rossi cannot overcome Gov. Christine Gregoire's 129-vote victory under any theory proposed in court. Even using the GOP's method of analyzing alleged illegal votes in the November election, the Democrats claimed, Gregoire would win by 67 votes. Former two-term Gov. Gary Locke -- the man Gregoire replaced in the Statehouse -- accused Rossi of "fighting for himself at the expense of the citizens of this state." He and state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt called a news conference yesterday to urge Rossi to drop his lawsuit. Our question is, 'Why...

The Democratic controlled 2005 legislative session will definitely not be remembered as one that respected the will of the people. In just four short months of one-party control in Olympia, Democrats managed to amend no less than four initiatives passed by the people. Averaging one altered people's initiative a month, it's a good thing session ended when it did. Left by the wayside of the Democrats' 2005 tax-and-spend express are Initiatives134, I-402, the promises of I-728 (I-884), and the granddaddy of them all—I-601. Passed in 1992, I-134 was the people's attempt to reign in the campaign contributions of corporations and...