Local Control?

 I do not know about you, but if I wanted to live in Seattle, I would move from here to there.  For better or worse I have already experienced living in the Emerald City with its beautiful broken glass strewn bike paths, amazing restaurants, and interesting aromas (human feces?).  I happily traded that for bike paths and trails where the occasional tack weed/goathead causes a slight inconvenience (flat tire), pitiful restaurant scene, and the wonderful aroma of ripe concord grapes that abounds in the fall.  Call me selfish, but I care mostly about politics at the local level where they have a profound impact on our lives.  If Seattle wants me visit as a tourist they must provide a good product – a clean, safe, thriving city, but I can care less about how they achieve this from a political perspective within the confines of our state constitution.  So what is Tina Podlodowski sticking her nose into our Benton County business? 

 Who is this Podlodowski?  

 Tina Podlodowski is the Chair of the Washington State Democrats and the Western Region Chair of the ASDC.  We should pause to remember that the Chair of the Washington State Democrats is elected by the state committee members (Article III - D). In Benton and other counties, the state committee members are elected, by precinct committee officers, once every two years during the "Central Committee organizational meeting" (Article XII).  Precinct committee officers (PCOs) are elected, if one runs for the position, in each precinct (separate post coming later level set on what a precinct), by the voters who live in the precinct.  A precinct can be no larger than 1,500 active registered voters (RCW 29A.16.040 (2)).  Working this chain in reverse we see that hyper local voters elect their PCOs, PCOs in turn elect their state committee members, state committee member then elect the state party Chair.  

What did Podlodowski allegedly do?

As there are two sides to every story and there is no way that anyone would answer questions from a new blogger named Rico, we can only use information from amazing sources like Facebook and hearsay.  Podlodowski did not take kindly to the Benton County Democratic Central Committee (BCDCC) chair endorsing a Republican candidate in a county prosecutor race.  On the surface an endorsement by the BCDCC chair of a Republican candidate seems odd, but this is an office where no Democrat filed to run.  Going into the primary election only two candidates appeared on the ballot, both of whom where Republican.  It seems well within reason the BCDCC chair and the BCDCC are well within their right to endorse whoever they believe to be the better candidate.  Hell they could endorse a Republican over a Democrat if they truly believed the Republican was the better fit for office.

Richard Reuther (former BCDCC interim chair) you have my respect for calling out that factions exist within Democratic party and that the state party is clueless about eastern Washington. 

Republican factions are playing out in the LD 8 state house race as well as the county prosecutor race.   

Should Podlodowski have influence in our county?  

Some might argue that the Chair of the Washington State Democrats should have influence everywhere in the state, but there is a strong case that says the voters should have the say in their own county, when the business is strictly county business.  The Chair being involved in a US Senate race for Patty Murray or Doug White's race for the Congressional District 4 seat totally makes sense, but the Chair sticking her nose in the race for Benton County Prosecutor seems to be overreach.  

Maybe Podlodowski should stick to state/nation level politics as the Chair and solving the major issues facing Seattle and King County as a citizen who lives there.