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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Doug Sutherland Enters Senate Race Pierce County Official, Smith Campaigning For Murray’s Seat

Pierce County’s top elected official entered the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, trying to claim the middle ground between incumbent Democrat Patty Murray and GOP challenger Linda Smith.

Doug Sutherland called for a simpler tax system, greater local control of natural resources and more attention to the economy as he opened his campaign in Spokane.

He criticized Murray, who is completing her first term in the Senate, for not doing enough.

“Patty Murray has been guilty not so much of sins of commission but sins of omission,” he said.

Asked for specifics, he cited funding from the federal government to cities and counties to pay for additional police officers. The money doesn’t cover the entire cost of an officer’s salary, and disappears after three years, requiring the local governments to come up with funds to replace it.

It would be better to limit the federal money to one-time expenditures for equipment and training, Sutherland said.

He also criticized Smith for doing things that antagonize other members of Congress.

“I am not in your face. I am not combative. I am not take-no-prisoners,” Sutherland said. “My natural constituency is conservative Republicans - traditional conservative Republicans.”

He drew a distinction between himself and the other candidates on abortion. Smith, a Vancouver congresswoman who numbers many Christian conservatives among her supporters, is an outspoken critic of abortion. Murray, of Seattle, supports abortion rights.

Sutherland tried to land in the middle, saying he believed the decision to have an abortion should be made by a woman and her doctor.

“They need to decide as early in the pregnancy as possible,” he said. “Abortion in the late term (of pregnancy) is something that needs to be regulated.”

On taxes, Sutherland said he favored a simpler tax system, but would not come out yet in favor of a so-called flat tax, where all taxpayers faced the same rate.

“I would support either a flat tax or a major simplification,” he said.

He said he supports a plan by the state’s Republican delegation to give control of the Hanford Reach, one of the last stretches of free-flowing water in the Columbia River, to local officials.

He also supports Sen. Slade Gorton’s proposal to alter sovereign immunity that Native American tribes now have.

Decisions from tribal courts should be subject to appeal to the federal court system, he said.

Sutherland, who was elected Pierce County executive in 1992, is the former mayor of Tacoma and was city manager of SeaTac when that community was incorporated.

He bragged that he has balanced 20 annual government budgets, but later noted that he was required by law to do so.

Sutherland has been traveling across Washington state for several months seeking support for his campaign. His announcement comes as another Republican, U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt of Spokane, is trying to decide whether to jump into the GOP primary for Murray’s seat.

Nethercutt said this week he was still talking with supporters and his family about a possible run.

“I’ve thought more about this than anything I can remember in a long time,” Nethercutt said. “I can’t think long and hard forever, but I want to give it a little longer.”

Sutherland said he hopes to draw on his natural constituency of Pierce County, the state’s second mostpopulous, in the race against Smith and possibly Nethercutt.

, DataTimes