Darcy Burner Can't Tell the Truth About Her Voting Record
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The Seattle Times hosted Darcy Burner today for an online Q&A (Dave Reichert will do a similar appearance on October 16th). More on a couple issues later, but for now, let's look at a glaring gaffe Burner made on the topic of her own voting record.

Here's the online question:

Darcy, is it true that you only voted in 6 of 15 elections that King County records show you were eligible to vote in from 1999 to 2003? If so, why is your personal voting record so spotty? If this is not true, can you tell me how many elections you were eligible for within that period per your records and how many of those you voted in? -- Bob Nix, Kent
D.B.: First, the voting record that matters is Dave Reichert's: he has missed 30 votes as a Congressman in the past two years, including skipping an important vote on the Iraq war when he chose to be here raising money with George Bush.

As to the Republican smear, King County elections does not identify which elections a voter is eligible to vote in, only which ones they have voted in. My attackers are wrong: They identify elections I could not legally vote in, since I do not live in Redmond's city limits.


Burner seems to be able to come to grips with the fact she has a terrible record voting in elections prior to 2004. Stefan has laid out the facts quite clearly. Contrary to the implications of Burner's response, I (and probably Stefan too for that matter) can attest it is very easy to examine a list of which elections in which someone did or did not vote, and the relevant voter registration addresses for those elections, to determine in which voting jurisdictions a voter was eligible in a given year, and thus, whether or not a voter missed any elections.

In this case, the record is quite clear, Burner voted in only 6 of the 15 elections she was eligible for from 1998 through 2003 (apologies for the typo in past coverage which said "from 1999 through 2003") - or 12 of 21 elections from 1998 through this year's primary if you want to slice it another way. Yet, she claims: "They identify elections I could not legally vote in, since I do not live in Redmond's city limits." Stefan, who one can guess knows a thing or two about the King County Elections Office, has shown quite clearly that Burner did not vote in 9 of the 10 elections cited by the NRCC. Moreover, the 6 of 15 figure noted above has nothing at all to do with City of Redmond elections, which Burner seems to be using as her alibi.

If Burner wants to change the subject to Reichert that's fine; such moves are a time-honored tradition in politics. But she shouldn't lie about her own record when confronted with it.

New Demo ad against Reichert needs to come down, says TVW

Posted by David Postman/Seattle Times at 04:58 PM

A new TV ad attacking Congressman Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, violates TVW's copyright and user agreement and needs to be stop airing, says Mike Bay, TVW's vice president of programming.

The ad from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee uses what Bay says is a clip from a TVW recording of Reichert speaking in May to the annual conference of the Mainstream Republicans of Washington.

Bay said that people who purchase TVW tapes agree to a policy that says "you cannot edit it or use it for commercial or political purposes." He said he has called the DCCC to ask them to stop airing the ad and is waiting back to hear from someone in D.C.

The ad opens with a shot of Reichert speaking at the Cascade Conference:

Reichert: "So when the leadership comes to me and says 'Dave, we need you to take a vote over here because we want to protect you and keep this majority,' I do it."
Narrator: "And when they told Dave Reichert to give billions to big oil he did it;
and to vote against cracking down on price gouging, he did it. Three times.

Now we now why.

Dave Reichert, another vote for Bush's agenda.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.


The Reichert campaign issued a statement earlier today saying that the quote was taken out of context.

Congressman Reichert stands up to leadership and the President when their interests aren't in the best interests of the Eighth District," said Kimberly Cadena, Reichert's campaign spokesperson. "It's shameless that Darcy and the DCCC has taken a portion of Congressman Reichert's explanation of his stands against leadership out of context.
Here's the rest of what Reichert said in that portion of his brief speech: (Note: I mistakenly left off the earlier portion of his comments which I transcribed from TVW and have added that to this transcript. I think it gives the full context for the quote.)

I've been to district meetings here on this side, in my district, where people say, 'Why in the world would I vote for you. It's just like voting for a Democrat, for cying out loud. I'm going to vote Libertarian.' And I said, 'You know what sir, that'd be a huge mistake and here's why.'
...

I wanted to explain to this person how things work a ltitle bit back in Washington, D.C., and why certain votes have to be taken.

Sometimes the leadership comes to me and says, `Dave, we want you to vote a certain way.' Now, they know I can do that over here; that I have to do that over here. In other districts, that's not a problem, but here I have to be able to be very flexible in where I place my votes.

Because the big picture here is, keep this seat, keep the majority, keep the country moving forward with Republican ideals, especially on the budget, on protecting our troops, protecting this country. Right? Being responsible with taxpayer dollars. All of those things. That's the big picture. Not the vote I place on ANWR that you may not agree with, or the vote that I place on protecting salmon.

You have to be flexible. So when the leadership comes to me and says 'Dave, we need you to take a vote over here because we want to protect you and keep this majority,' I do it. There are some times when I say 'No, I won't.' There are times they have things come to the floor like Schiavo. I was one of five Republicans who voted with Democrats on Schiavo because it was the right thing to do. Government should not have been involved in that decision. Period.


UPDATE: DCCC communications director Bill Burton told me:

"We have heard from TVW and we are very carefully weighing all their concerns."
He said the Democrats got the tape from a "publicly available source." They didn't purchase the tape from TVW. Bay said anyone who buys a tape agrees not to use it for commercial or political purposes.

There may be a fair use argument to be made for a short clip off of TVW. But so far I can't recall anyone else using TVW tape in a political ad.

October 18, 2006

Darcy Burnocchio

Darcy Burner's latest ad delivers more lies. [Video]:[

Now newspaper reports prove that Reichert and his Republican friends aren't telling the truth about Darcy Burner's position on taxes. They know their attack ads are lies.
First, Reichert's ad [video] correctly cites Burner's statement on the "Equal Time" radio show ("We should let the tax cuts expire " Apr. 21, audio at 19:07 ), along with this Treasury press release explaining the consequences of letting the tax cuts expire.

Second, Burner is lying about the newspaper reports. The ad flashes the word "inaccuracies" citing the Seattle Times of 9/24. But that article said nothing about taxes.

Sheesh.

Ironicially, Burner's people recently accused Reichert of falsely citing the same article in the ad at question above. It was a substantively correct paraphrasing, erroneously braced with quotes. (The Reichert campaign acknowledged the error and said they would remove the quotes. My copy of the video linked above is the original). But the ad's allegation, that Burner's ads contained "inaccuracies" about Reichert's support for veterans' healthcare was actually an understatement, clarified by the Times editorial which said Burner's ad "shamelessly obfuscates the truth". And the only "inaccuracies" that the 9/24 article found on Reichert was that an NRCC flyer slightly overstated the number of elections that Burner failed to vote in (the flyer counted 10, when it was actually 9)

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Now I can see why you don't attribute some of this stuff Rory, it looks like you are getting a lot of it from that incredibly accurate yet unbiased soundpolitics.com!!!!

A new low.

You never answered my question KK

Do you support RAISING TAXES LIKE DARCY BURNER DOES?

It's an asinine question Rory and I hate being the one to point out the obvious!

Comparatively asinine question from the left to you.

Do you believe in the DESTRUCTION OF THE MIDDLE CLASS LIKE THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DOES?

Get it? Doubt it!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Tahoma,verdana,arial,helv">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Tahoma,verdana,arial,helv">Originally posted by Rory Bellows:
<strong> You never answered my question KK

<b> ***crickets***

Do you believe in the DESTRUCTION OF THE MIDDLE CLASS LIKE THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DOES?

Bush' tax cuts have greatly benefitted EVERYONE who pays taxs in this country (including the middle class)--They have spurred growth in the stock market, lowered unemployment and greatly increased the amount of money coming into the Trea$ury via revenue receipts.

*Unemployment is lower now (4.6%)than the averages of the 1970'.1980's AND the 1990's!!!!

*The DOW just hit an ALL TIME HIGH OF OVER 12,000 just today!!! (over 60% of America is directly or indirectly invested in the stock market)

*Interest rates are still historically low and the percentaqe of AMERICANS THAT OWN THEIR OWN HOMES IS AT THE HIGHEST PERCENTAGE IN OUR COUNTRIES HSTORY!!!

I didn't think you would get it!

"Try to find something that is credible, reliable, and respected in the field"

I always thought most of his C&P points were credible and respected in the field of stupidity.

The rise in the stock market in the 90's happened in spite of SLick Willy--He just happened to be lucky enough to be in the Oral Orafice when a very unique moment in history when the the explosion of the Internet, Hard and Software, Fiber Optics and Telecommunicartions happened all at once and took the stock market with it.

If It was Bill Clinton's policies that ushered this in then it would NOT have imploded--It imploded because stocks were artificially valued at unrealistic multiples of their actual value.

Thatr is why the huge increse we've seen in the stock market recently is SOOOOOO important and telling---The stocks are much more realistically priced (the market having learned a leason) so we aren't likely to see an adrupt colapse like we did in 2000.

What don't you understand Rosie?

The amount of revenue

What's your question KK?

I just tune you out when you become frustrated and overly emotional by launching into childish name calling and personal attacks.

Are you able to have a mature debate like an adult and attack ideas and not people?

The CBO is a communist organization.

Isn't it? :p

There are plenty of economists that favor liberal social agenda for America (Robert Reich for example) and want to see the democrats in power. Hell, even Jimmy Carter has economists that told him that his fiscal policies were sound and in America's best economic interets.

If you look hard enough you can find people that swear the earth is flat---

Deficit shrinking, revenues rising, says CBO

10/06/2006

The Congressional Budget Office is estimating "that the federal budget deficit was about $250 billion in fiscal year 2006, around $68 billion less than the shortfall recorded in 2005. Relative to the size of the economy, that deficit was equal to 1.9 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), down from 2.6 percent in 2005." Moreover, tax receipts have grown 12% in the last year, while corporate tax receipts have risen 21%, with the effect that "CBO estimates that the federal deficit was about $250 billion in 2006, down from $318 billion in the previous year ... [Which] is about $10 billion lower than CBO projected this summer, primarily because receipts of corporate income taxes were greater than expected."

(Congressional Quarterly's Midday Update notes that said deficit of "$250 billion equals about 1.9 percent of gross domestic product, down from 2.6 percent of GDP in 2005.")

So let's get this straight: tax revenues have risen, yet tax rates has not. Hmm, whatever could be happening that would explain this weirdness?

Finding #5: "James Horney of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said.."

And this was quoted directly by those right wingnuts at ABC

Nope.

He's a dumbsh!t that doesn't understand even the basics of economics and finance.

Plus, he's such a Bush ballwasher that anything Bush does, Rory defends.