Thursday, February 02, 2006

Once again, the King County GOP showed the way

Remember the King County party caucuses back in June?  You know, the ones that were—until the inane Cajun primary was tossed out on its unconstitutional ear—supposed to determine the official Republican and Democratic candidates for King County Council seats?  Remember how Steve Hammond beat Reagan Dunn for the Republican nod in the 9th Council district?  Remember the, ummm, unusual voting patterns in that race?  As Eric Pryne noted in the Seattle Times back then (emphasis added):

GOP disregards vote discrepancy

More ballots than voters?

Republicans, who made much of that and other 2004 election discrepancies in their unsuccessful court bid to unseat Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, found themselves with the same problem at their King County convention in Bellevue yesterday.

In the 9th District, 436 voting delegates were seated — but tellers counted 444 ballots, including one abstention, in the contest between Steve Hammond and Reagan Dunn to become the party’s official choice for the King County Council in the fall elections.

How did they reconcile the difference? They didn’t.

Apparently, the GOP caucus in the United States House of Representatives has been reading from the King County Republicans’ playbook.  In today’s balloting to replace Tom DeLay as head honcho of that particular GOP kleptocracy, the results of the first round of voting showed more ballots than Representatives in the room.  Not to worry, though ... no one got a majority of the votes, so they blithely ignored the inconsistency and went on to a second round.

On that second ballot, “reformer” John Boehner upset supposed heir-apparent Roy Blunt to become the new Majority Leader.  When it comes to House Republicans, of course, “reformer” means not quite as deeply entangled in the scandals as the other guy.

And so it goes…