OLYMPIA — Some races are starting to fill up quickly on the first morning of filing week as many of the expected candidates and a few surprises turn in their forms and fees.

The top of the ballot for the Aug. 7 primary, the U.S. Senate race, had three names before lunchtime: Incumbent Democrat Maria Cantwell, state Sen. Mike Baumgartner of Spokane's 6th Legislative District were “givens.” But filing first was a previously unheralded candidate, Chuck Jackson of Snohomish. He listed Republican as his party preference, and scaryreality.com as his e-mail provider.

The statewide race attracting the most attention so far is secretary of state. Incumbent Sam Reed is retiring, and five candidates already want to take his place. First in the blocks, and perhaps the first person to file this morning at 8:00 a.m., was Sam Wright of Olympia, who lists his preference as the Human Rights Party. Perhaps more recognizable to a larger chunk of the state's electorate is former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, listing Democrat as his party preference. Democratic State Sen. Jim Kastama also wants that job, as does Democrat Kathleen Drew, a former state senator, and Karen Murray of Quincy, who lists the Constitution Party as her preference.

On a local note, Spokane County Treasurer Rob Chase filed for the County Commissioner seat being vacated by fellow Republican Mark Richard.

For more candidate filings, go inside the blog. We'll update the list several times a day.

Everyone thinking about running for political office this year, take note: You have less than a week to make up your mind. Everyone talking about running and acting like they’re already a full-fledged candidate, take note: It’s not official until you file your paperwork and pay your fee.

Candidate filing week starts Monday morning, and ends when the office where that paperwork and fee must be deposited closes on Friday. Here’s a tricky part – because of budget cutbacks, some county elections offices close as early as noon on Fridays, others at 4 p.m., and some stay open until 5 p.m. Anyone planning to wait until the very last minute to build suspense would be wise to make a phone call to the appropriate office and check when that last minute is.

For some positions that’s the county elections office in the county seat; for others, it’s the Secretary of State’s office in Olympia. How do you know what goes where?

Go inside the blog to read more, or to comment.

The New York Times recently discovered a phenomenon about Washington that most state residents take for granted. We tend to elect women to office.

Last week, “All the News that’s Fit to Print” included a story about the evolving nature of women in politics that focused on Gov. Chris Gregoire and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. That’s because Washington is the only state with women in all three of those statewide positions. That will end next year, the Times noted, because Gregoire’s not seeking re-election and the likely replacements are men.

 It also mentioned the state had a woman as chief justice of the state Supreme Court, an earlier woman governor, Dixy Lee Ray, and Seattle has a woman for mayor back in the  1920s.

Had it looked just a tad east, the Times might have discovered Eastern Washington residents are even more prone to female representation, with a woman as their U.S. Representative, and until the beginning of this year when Spokane’s chief executive left office, many city residents north of the river had a woman as mayor, a city councilwoman and a state senator.

The fact that Mary Verner lost to David Condon doesn’t suggest residents are any less likely to elect a woman. Rather, it suggests that women may have achieved something close to equality in local politics, where their gender wasn’t a major factor in their election or unelection.

Still, it’s a decent article, with a great photo.
  

OLYMPIA — You never know who will show up in the “wings” of the Senate or House chambers.

That's the area behind the curtains, off the main floor, where members come and go, chat, discuss legislation.

On Monday, two former legislators who have now gone on to bigger things bumped into each other as Sen. Maria Cantwell was leaving the Senate Democratic Caucus room, and Sen. Patty Murray was going in.

Both are in the state during the Presidents' Day recess in Congress.

Tim Egan of the New York Times profiles Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington in today's edition.

It's an overall flattering piece, characterizing her as a populist warrior against Wall Street villains.

OK, it has one unflattering jab:

“Through two terms, she has been almost an invisible senator. In person, she underwhelms, a charm deficiency that has given rise to a nickname of “Senator Cant-smile.”

It also concludes with a look at the 2012 election to which some Republicans might object: “She faces no significant opposition in her run for a third term next year.”

This might cause state Sen. Mike Baumgartner, a Spokane Republican who has announced a campaign, to remark something like: “So, what am I? Chopped liver?”

Apparently in Egan's assessment, the answer would be yes.

OLYMPIA — The upcoming special session of the Legislature may complicate campaign cash-grabbing for some candidates, but give others a leg up.

State law bans state elected officials from accepting campaign contributions during a special session and from 30 days before a regular session until that session ends.

The freeze, as it's called, starts on Nov. 27, the day before the special session starts, and continues until that session ends. If the special session lasts past Dec. 10 (something for which you could get really good odds, if Vegas bookmakers were foolish enought to bet on Legislatures) the 30-day ban in front of the regular session kicks in, so the freeze continues into January, February … and however long it takes for the Legislature to finish the rest of its business.

Will they need a special session to get everything done? Who knows. But they've need them for the last two years.

So incumbents up for election in 2012 might not be accepting checks from Thanksgiving weekend until sometime in mid March, at the earliest. Their challengers who aren't in office can.

Also affected are state elected officials who will be running for some other state office. So State Attorney General Rob McKenna's campaign for governor is frozen out, starting Nov. 27. But his chief Democratic challenger, Rep. Jay Inslee, isn't because the law doesn't — in fact, can't — cover federal officials.

That principle that a state can't put limits on federal candidates works in reverse, too. State Sen. Mike Baumgartner, R-Spokane, for example, isn't barred from raising money for his campaign for U.S. Senate against incumbent Maria Cantwell. Neither are any of the other legislators who might run for Inslee's old seat, once they know where the boundary lines are.

State Sen. Mike Baumgartner made his “official” announcement today that he's running against Maria Cantwell next year.

If that sounds familiar, it's because he was on television Friday evening, and in this newspaper Saturday morning, saying he'd run. That may have seemed pretty official to most folks.

Baumgartner previously said he'd make an announcement today, but did an interview with KING-TV on Friday for that station's weekend public affairs show. He said he was running with cameras running; KING and its Spokane sister station KREM had it at 5 p.m. Friday, and KXLY had a brief mention by 5:30 p.m. Generally speaking, The Spokesman-Review does a single story about a candidate's announcement and  will wait for an “official” announcement that we know is coming as long as the candidate doesn't make some other kind of public pronouncement. When that happens, as it did in this case, we posted  Friday and published  Saturday that we would have posted today and published tomorrow.

So let's call today the official unveiling of his campaign website and the unveiling of the obligatory campaign video on YouTube. And there's nothing more official for a campaign than having a web site and a video, no?

Well, nothing except maybe drawing a first strike from the opposing party. State Democrats were quick to brand Baumgartner as a far-right extremist for signing the 2010 Spokane County Republican platform which calls for such things as withdrawing from the United Nations, eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, returning to the gold standard and repealing the Endangered Species Act.

Baumgartner did sign the platform, but said it has about 120 planks; he agrees with some but has spoken out against others, such as withdrawing from the UN.

Expect the platform to come up on a regular basis as Baumgartner tries to get some name identification on the West Side.

Sen. Mike Baumgartner at his desk on the Senate floor this spring. File photo.

OLYMPIA — State Sen. Mike Baumgartner of Spokane is being discussed for the political equivalent of an upgrade, as a candidate for U.S. Senate against Democrat Maria Cantwell.

Baumgartner said Wednesday evening he's “taking a strong look at it” after being urged to get into the race by some supporters. He said he and wife Elinore will make a decision “in the next few weeks.”

It would be a big jump for Baumgartner…

To read the rest of this item, click to go inside the blog.

No one pays Spin Control for advice on their media events, but we sometimes offer it for free. Thus do we raise an eyebrow to Sen. Maria Cantwell's plan to hold a press conference at a Seattle microbrewery this weekend to discuss federal Small Business Loans.

Nothing against the SBA program know as the Small Jobs Act, which Cantwell helped get passed. Or Elysian Fields Brewing, which is using the program to expand production and add 35 workers. Good for them.

But Cantwell is holding the event at 10:45 a.m. Sunday. And the brewery won't start making beer until August.

A Sunday morning event at a brewery? Really? And the facility isn't brewing beer yet? Wouldn't it make more sense to do it on a Friday night when Elysian had some product to display?

Worse yet, the US women's soccer team starts its World Cup match against Japan at 11:45 a.m.

Gotta wonder how much coverage Cantwell will get coverage from that small sliver of the Seattle news media that is not in church or prepping to be glued to their television sets watching the World Cup.

The U.S. Senate is considering a new bill designed to help small breweries with a tax cut, which will in turn create jobs.

Or so says a press release from Sen. Maria Cantwell, who is a co-sponsor of the legislation, along with Sen. Mike Crapo. So microbrews apparently  have bipartisan support, considering Cantwell is a Democrat and Crapo is a Republican.

The proposal for a tax cut isn't surprising, nor is the claim it would help create jobs. It's a rare piece of legislation that isn't introduced with a compliment for how many jobs it will create or save.

The most interesting thing about it is the title: The Brewers Employment and Excise Relief Act.

Which means its acronym is the BEER Act.

Do you suppose they have one person in a room somewhere whose job is coming up with bill titles that make catchy acronyms? And if they do, is this among the  highest-paid staff members in the entire Congress?

Just wondering.

As for the BEER Act and its potential salutory effects on Washington state, you can read Cantwell's press release inside the blog. Click here to read or to comment.

Washington state elected officials are practically giddy this morning as the European manufacturer of Airbus announced it will not contest the Air Force decision to give a humongous tanker contract to Boeing.

The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. officially bowed out of the competition this morning, saying it will not appeal last Thursday's award of a $30 billion-plus contract for the first phase of replacing KC-135 tankers.

Here are a couple official yippeeee!!! statements.

From Gov. Chris Gregoire: “The decision by EADS is more proof that Boeing submitted the best proposal to the U.S. Air Force, and provides the public with more assurance that Boeing will build the most cost-effective and safest refueling tanker that best serves our military and our taxpayers. There’s no doubt Boeing and its workforce build the best planes in the world. I congratulate the 11,000 Washington aerospace workers that will play a role in manufacturing the next tanker, and look forward to seeing the first tanker come off the line.”

From Sen. Maria Cantwell: “Today is a proud day for all Washingtonians. Today’s announcement makes official what Washingtonians know in our bones: We build the best airplanes in the world. Even with the deck stacked against them, Washington aerospace workers prevailed over long odds, stiff competition and illegal foreign subsidies. Boeing, its workers and my colleagues in Congress never gave up in fighting for these 11,000 jobs.”

Remember that when EADS won the contract in 2008, Boeing challenged the decision and the Air Force had to start all over again. This decision suggests that Boeing can get going with the R&D portion of the contract.

Sen. Maria Cantwell was named Monday the chairwoman of the senate panel that oversees aviaition.\

Technically, it's known as the aviation operations, safety and security subcommittee of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which is admittedly two long names with lots of commas. It's main goal right now is to handle the Federal Aviation Administration authorization bill, to modernize air traffic control systems and expand airport capacity, which was described by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as the first “jobs bill” of this Congress

Of course, Washington has a few more ties to aviation than just its airport. There's that company that makes many of those planes that fly in and out of the airports. You know the one. Starts with a “B”.

Being watched almost as closely as what President Obama says tonight are the locations of where the honorable members of Congress will sit.

Put another way: Who's your date for the State of the Union?

Traditionally, the Democrats sit on one side of the House and Republicans on the other, which explains why sometimes half the crowd gives a standing ovation and the other half sits on their hands at various points.

But in the new spirit of bipartisanship, members of Congress are asking colleagues of the other party to cross the aisle and sit with them. This is what we know so far about with whom members from Washington and Idaho will be sitting:

Patty Murray, Washington's senior Democrat in the Senate, will be sitting with Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican. Maria Cantwell, the state's junior Senate D, will be sitting with Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican. They've been working together on some climate legislation, an aide said.

Mike Crapo, Idaho's senior Republican in the Senate, will be sitting with a group that is regional as well as bipartisan. He, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. John Tester, D-Mont., have an area staked out that they all prefer when watching a presidential speech. They'll be joined by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Word is that they like the place because it's possible to make a quick exit as soon as the president says “Thank you, and goodnight.”

James Risch, Idaho's junior Senate R, said he was sitting in an area surrounded by Democrats and Republicans, but that's not too unusual, he added.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, an Eastern Washington Republican who is part of the GOP leadership in the House, invited Lucille Roybal-Allard, a California Democrat to watch with her. McMorris Rodgers said she ran into Roybal-Allard earlier in the day, and they noticed that they were wearing similar outfits. She asked if the Los Angeles congresswoman wanted to sit together, and when Roybal-Allard asked if there'd be room, McMorris Rodgers assured her they'd make room.

No word yet on seating partner for Rep. Raul Labrador, North Idaho's freshman Republican.

The bipartisan seating was first mentioned by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Various sources on Capitol Hill have described this as something akin to asking or being asked to homecoming or Sadie Hawkins Dance. At least they don't have to pass notes in Study Hall to find out if some one just likes them or REALLY LIKES them.

After regular missives for months from the folks at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, things had been quiet for two whole weeks.

In other words, since the election in which the NRSC’s guy, Dino Rossi, lost to Democrat Patty Murray.

They didn’t call, they didn’t write.  After months of sending us clips of national stories about what a great guy Rossi was, diatribes about Murray or links to polls that showed he was beating her, it seemed like they’d forgotten about this Washington.

Not so. Today they’re back, with an e-mail blasting…Maria Cantwell. She committed the cardinal sin of voting for Democratic leadership. Imagine that, a Democrat voting for a Democratic leadership team. A senator from Washington voting for a leadership team that includes Patty Murray, the other senator from Washington.

The press release contains most of the standard stuff, such as a suggestion that Cantwell “put her party bosses’ reckless, job-killing agenda ahead of the best interests of her constituents.” The best interest of Washington state voters is debatable, even if it is usually debated by people in Washington state.

But the curious thing in the NRSC statement is the assertion that Cantwell’s vote for Democratic leaders “puts her at odds with her state’s voters.”

Considering that the state’s voters just re-elected Murray by at least 100,000 votes over NRSC recruit Rossi, wouldn’t it put Cantwell at odds with Washington state voters to vote against the Democratic team?

The real purpose of the e-mail is contained in the final line, however: “Washingtonians will no doubt elect a fiscally responsible leader as their next U.S. senator in 2012.” No hint yet as to the identity of said fiscallly responsible leader.

Washingtonians shouldn’t feel too special, however. The NRSC prepared 13 similar press releases targeting Democrats up for re-election in 2012. They just swapped out the name of the senator and the state.

So there you have it. The first shot in Washington state’s 2012 senate race.

Washington State’s economics experts will tell folks how well or how poorly they expect the state to do as far as collecting revenue in the coming months and years at 10 a.m.

It’s the Revenue Forecast, which is made roughly quarterly, and lets state officials know whether they need to make any corrections in the budget. The state is already holding its breath to find out whether it will get some $480 million from the federal government in extra Medicare/Medicaid payments, and any drop in tax revenues will be a secondary jolt.

Speaking of that extra fed money, which is known as FMAP for federal medical assistance percentage, the U.S. Senate is supposed to try yet again to get 60 votes to move a bill with that in it sometime today. An attempt earlier this week failed.

Also in Congress, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell have a resolution giving Spokane a congressional high five for being the home of Father’s Day, 100 years ago. In honor of the centennial, the resolution establishes 2010 as Father’s Year. Even though by June 17 it’s actually more of a half year, please resist the urge to go out and buy a tie a day through Dec. 31

For full text of the resolution, go inside the blog:

Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell see eye-to-eye on most things. The two West Side Washington Democrats have fairly similar voting records.

But they parted ways today on the Senate’s Wall Street regulation bill. Murray voted yes, calling it “the strongest consumer protections in our history:”

Cantwell voted no, saying it allows Wall Street “to continue to exploit loopholes.”

And yes, they are talking about the same bill.

To read their separate takes on the bill, which passed the Senate, go inside the blog.

OLYMPIA – Washington state may be first in line for one aspect of the new federal Health Care Reform law, submitting a request for some $180 million in federal money to help with pay for the state’s Basic Health Plan.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell joined several state officials Monday in hailing the new law, and saying they’ve already sent in a request for what’s known as “bridge funding”. That provision allows a state to request money through 2014 to help cover the costs of health insurance of residents who make too much to receive Medicaid but can’t afford private plans.
Washington has about 65,000 people on its Basic Health Plan who state officials believe should be covered by a waiver. If the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services agrees, the federal government could pay for two-thirds of their insurance costs, up to $180 million a year through 2014. That would ease the state’s budget problems and allow the state to expand the program.
“We want to be at the head of the line,” Gov. Chris Gregoire said. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed late Monday Washington was the first to apply for the waiver, but could only say the application would be processed “as quickly as possible.”
While Gregoire is seeking the waiver, Attorney General Rob McKenna is challenging aspects of Health Care Reform. Last week he joined 12 other attorneys general in a lawsuit over the requirement that all individuals buy health insurance by 2014 and for provisions that would raise the cost of Medicaid later this decade.
McKenna said Monday that if the state receives the waiver and gets federal money for Basic Health, it won’t block Washington from arguing that other sections of the new law are unconstitutional. If the federal courts rule the individual insurance mandate and the Medicaid increases are unconstitutional, other provisions, including the bridge funding, the ban on denying coverage for pre-existing conditions or extending coverage to young adults on their parents plans would remain in place, he said.
Even though the provisions in the lawsuit don’t take effect for years, “these are important questions to challenge now,” McKenna said.
Gregoire disagrees with McKenna’s decision to join the lawsuit and Monday repeated her belief that it has no merit. States can opt out of Medicaid, she said, if they’re willing to give up the federal money.

Most of the time, when a plane takes off and lands, that’s not news. It’s only when it fails to take off or land that we get news.

Today’s an exception, however, because Boeing’s newest plane design, the 787 Dreamliner, took off and landed for the first time. Sure, it was two years late, but at least they didn’t lose anyone’s luggage.

Various Washington politicos marked the event with official statements of best wishes, which can be found inside the blog. One thing you might notice is the emphasis on Washington workers doing a great job in building the plane…as opposed to say, South Carolina workers which Boeing is going to be using for its second assembly line.

But hey, after Washington workers figure out how to get it flying, South Carolina workers can just follow their instructions, right?

Comments from notables inside:

When a president talks, congresspersons listen…and then they talk, too.

Such was the case Wednesday night when Barack Obama talked about health care reform, and members of Congress talked about Obama’s talk.

Go inside the blog to see what the honorables who represent the Inland Northwest had to say.

Politicians and local business persons are gathering Thursday morning in an effort to convince the Shiners to keep their Spokane hospital open.

It will be bipartisan, with Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, in front of the hospital building on the lower South Hill. They’ll be joined by members of Greater Spokane Inc., which put out a “Save Shriners” announcement Wednesday.

Press conference is 4:30 p.m. Thursday, 5th and Lincoln.