Adele Ferguson – Are Dems using courts in move to derail Dino Rossi?

WELL, LOOK who got a write-up in the Wall Street Journal.

Our own Dino Rossi, in a tantalizing top of the page editorial entitled “A Washington State Smear Campaign.”

“Desperate political environments tend to inspire desperate political tactics,” writes Kimberley A. Strassel. “In Washington State, liberal activists are desperate.”

Dino attracted the Journal’s attention in his race to unseat U.S. Sen. Patty Murray because if this turns out to be a “wave election” on Nov. 2, meaning a loss of over 20 seats by the Democrat majority, our man could be the 51st Republican vote in the Senate. And now that he is leading in some polls says Strassel, “the left is unleashing the dirty tricks.”

Well, the left knows how to do it. Dino went down in history as having been elected governor here twice, on election night and in a machine recount, but never count King County out when it seeks power. They managed to come up with some boxes of uncounted ballots after the polls had closed to give Democrat Chris Gregoire 129 more votes than him.

STRASSEL DOESN’T rehash the 2004 race but the rematch in 2008 when activist trial lawyer Knoll Lowney filed a lawsuit against the Building Industry Association of Washington claiming it was using workers comp money to fund political campaigns. BIAW is a big backer of Rossi.

Lowney demanded that a judge immediately bar the BIAW from accessing any money it might use for Rossi. The judge said no so Lowney filed another lawsuit claiming BIAW and Rossi improperly colluded on campaign activities.

Lowney got a judge to allow him to depose Rossi eight days before the election, an action that put enough doubt in voters’ minds to cost him the election, according to Strassel. The lawsuit was dropped. It wasn’t needed any more.

But, by golly, here it comes again. Rossi had no sooner declared for the Senate than Lowney sent a process server with a subpoena to Rossi’s home demanding more documents from the years of both elections, 2004 and 2008.

This despite the fact the Public Disclosure Commission conducted its own investigation into the affair and gave him a clean bill of health way last March.

THE TRIAL for the new lawsuit originally was set for Nov. 1, the day before the election but it was moved until after the election by the judge in the case, Mike Heavey, of the well known Heavey family which is well established in the Democratic Party. There is no telling what Lowney will ask for in the meantime, reporter Strassel says, (obviously to force the matter back in the public eye in the hope of rekindling doubt as to Rossi’s integrity), “but no one should be surprised when he asks for it.. We’re now about to discover whether Washington’s judicial system will again be abused for politics.

Washingtonians should watch this one.”

We’re not the only ones watching. The Rossi-Murrray contest has crept up into the top events of the election. Just this morning, I heard Chuck Todd, NBC’s political analyst, say that President Obama has some busy times ahead. “He’s going to spend a lot of time trying to save Barbara Boxer in California and Patty Murray in Washington State.”

Personally, I am so sick of her ads on TV that run all day long wherein she claims credit for everything but the capping of the oil well. She’s being sold as the most powerful woman in Congress. Then why are the D’s worried?

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA, 98340.)