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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Caucuses Draw Out Chief Issues Republicans, Democrats Getting Ready For Fall, Year 2000

Ray Reichenberg has an idea he thinks would help the country: Don’t let law yers be involved in government. He took his idea to his precinct caucuses Tuesday.

Kathleen Taft is concerned that the nation’s poor are getting poorer. She came to her caucus, too.

Nancy Dibler is frustrated that so many people won’t help their country by doing something as simple as voting. She did something a little bit more timeconsuming - she attended her caucus.

Around Washington state Tuesday night, Republican and Democratic activists - some with experience that can be numbered in decades and others that can be numbered in days - gathered in schools, church halls and living rooms.

They started the process that will lead to party statements of principles that candidates might espouse as they seek votes in the fall.

At Northwest Christian School in north Spokane, Republicans were warming up for this fall and looking ahead to 2000 with a litany of complaints about President Clinton and Vice President Gore.

“Are you as distressed as I am about a president of the United States involved in such tawdry affairs?” Jim Roeber asked about 50 voters from the 6th Legislative District. “It is vital that we don’t slack off in our off-year election.”

Their conversations ranged from scandals in Washington to phonics in local classrooms. They filled out questionnaires on taxes, government spending and government interference.

At one table in the school’s gymnasium, Reichenberg explained why he came to his first caucus.

“I believe we have to find a way to educate the voters in this country to vote for anybody but an attorney,” he said. “We have a mess today that’s so bad, and it was started by an attorney (Clinton) and perpetuated by other attorneys in the White House.”

Dibler and her daughter, Cassandra, who is the GOP precinct officer in their north Spokane County precinct, agreed that lawyers can complicate government sometimes.

But Dibler suggested a more basic solution to the country’s ills - political involvement.

“We don’t need to throw money at problems, we need to get people out and vote.”

About a mile away at Willard Elementary School, Democrats were talking about involvement, but not about scandals in Washington, D.C.

“Why should we spend all our money investigating personal bad habits?” asked Taft.

They signed a new statewide initiative calling for an increase in the state’s minimum wage, suggested that the United States look into a medical insurance plan similar to Canada’s, and stick to its promises to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The federal government signed a contract to clean up decades of nuclear waste, said Gerald Willis. It should honor its contract.

Resolutions and suggested changes in each party’s platform will be forwarded from the caucuses to party officials in the coming weeks. They’ll be debated at county conventions later this spring by delegates elected at the caucuses.

Party officials predicted turnout for the caucuses would be low, and neither the Republicans at Northwest Christian nor the Democrats at Willard did anything to contradict them.

But low turnout provided one bonus for activists who showed up. Almost anyone who wanted to be a delegate to the county convention was a shoo-in.

, DataTimes