Washington: Eighth District

Rep. Dave Reichert (R)

Dave Reichert (R) Elected 2004, 2d term up
Born:	08-29-1950, Detroit Lakes, MN
Home:	Auburn
Education:	Concordia Lutheran Col., A.A. 1970
Religion:	Lutheran
Marital Status:	married (Julie)
Elected  Office:	King Cnty. Sheriff, 1997-2004.
Military Career:	Air Force Reserve, 1971-76.
Professional Career:	King Cnty. police officer, 1972-1997.
DC Office	1223 LHOB, 20515 202-225-7761 Fax: 202-225-4282 Website: www.house.gov/reichert
State Offices	Mercer Island:206-275-3438;
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The land east of Seattle’s Lake Washington half a century ago was quiet countryside. Orchards and vineyards flourished in the rich, moist soil just below the rise of the Cascades Mountains, while farms and broad pasturelands spread toward 14,410-foot Mount Rainier like a living green quilt. But as Seattle has grown over the years, people have crossed the pontoon bridge across Mercer Island to Bellevue and have made this Eastside area one of the most vibrant parts of metropolitan Seattle. Bellevue, with 115,000 people, a quarter of them of Asian descent, and enough office space to make it an edge city, has grown out of the shadow of Seattle; its tallest skyscraper has hit the city’s 450-foot height limit, a departure from the strip malls and parking lots that that defined downtown a quarter century ago. While downtown Seattle specialized in banks and law firms and trading companies, Bellevue and other communities in Overlake specialized in high-tech startups. Redmond, just to the north in the 1st Congressional District, is the headquarters of Microsoft, and there are dozens of other firms here that make this one of America’s leading high-tech centers.

The 8th Congressional District of Washington includes most of the eastern edge of metro Seattle. It includes most of Bellevue, Mercer Island and the affluent suburbs on Lake Washington—Medina, Clyde Hill, Yarrow Point, Hunts Point, Beaux Arts—where Bill Gates has built his $60 million, 66,000-square foot high-tech home with a trampoline room with vaulted ceilings, video walls that can be electronically programmed with art from the world’s great museums, and a garage large enough to hold 30 cars: Seattle’s Xanadu. The 8th also includes the suburbs to the south in King and Pierce Counties. It goes east to the crest of the Cascades Mountains and includes all of Mount Rainier, one of the nation’s last inland old-growth rain forests. This is the most affluent district in Washington, rivaled only by the 1st; politically it is market-oriented on economics, more liberal on the environment and other cultural issues. Historically it is Republican, but George W. Bush lost this district twice, with 47% of the vote in 2000 and 48% in 2004.

The congressman from the 8th District is Dave Reichert, a Republican elected in 2004. Reichert was born in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, but his family moved to the Seattle area a year later. He graduated from Concordia Lutheran College in Portland and then joined the Air Force Reserves. He worked for 32 years in the King County sheriff’s office and was elected sheriff in 1997; he was a national leader on gun-crime reduction and methamphetamine prevention. During the riots that accompanied the 1999 international trade meeting in Seattle, he criticized city leaders and the police force for inadequate preparation. He gained national attention for his prominent role in capturing Gary Ridgway, the “Green River Killer” who had terrorized the Seattle area with a two-decade spree in which he murdered 48 women. After Ridgway's capture in 2001, Reichert was featured on national television shows and documentaries, and he published a book about the experience during the campaign titled, Chasing the Devil: My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer.

In January 2004 Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn announced that she was retiring after 12 years in the House. Republicans actively recruited Reichert to run. He had three opponents in the September Republican primary. Two of them ran TV ads criticizing his call for harsher gun ownership requirements and for being too close to Democrats; he refused to appear with them in any public forum. He won the Republican nomination with 43% of the vote; state senator Luke Esser and former U.S. Attorney Diane Tebelius each got 23%. The leading Democrat in the race was Dave Ross, a New York native and longtime Seattle radio talk-show host who stayed on the air until July, when he filed papers with the FEC. He won the September primary with 48% of the vote.

The general election thus featured two candidates who were widely known. Reichert argued that local law enforcement agencies should receive more money and equipment for homeland security. Sounding like a talk-show host, Ross said that he wanted to be the eyes and ears of the public “into what’s going on, who’s making the trades, where the money is going and whether it’s being wisely spent.” The national parties each swarmed in with well over $5 million in spending, visits by prominent leaders and ads to boost their respective nominees. Each candidate tried to portray the other as lacking in public policy experience and holding views too extreme for the swing district. A TV ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee suggested that Ross's opposition to the proposed missile defense system would “empower terrorists.” On the other side, the DCCC ran an ad criticizing Reichert's opposition to abortion. Both Seattle newspapers, with strong liberal traditions, endorsed Ross for his greater familiarity with issues, and suggested that Reichert was too conservative for this district. But Reichert won 52%-47%.

He got seats on the Homeland Security, Science, and Transportation and Infrastructure committees. After Reichert backed his bid to chair the Homeland Security Committee, Peter King rewarded Reichert with the Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee, making him the only freshman in his class to chair a subcommittee. He moved legislation that established standards for interoperable communications. After President Bush signed the bill, Reichert sent a letter to the White House to protest Bush’s “signing statement” that he planned to ignore a part of the bill that established employment standards for the FEMA administrator. Reichert voted to override Bush’s veto of the stem cell research bill after seeking input from female staffers in his office, and voted against a bill that would have kept the brain-damaged Terri Schiavo on life support. He also opposed a plan to allow more oil tankers in Puget Sound, but it was his vote against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that helped him demonstrate his independence from the national party, an asset in the 2006 elections.

Reichert’s polite demeanor stood out in the often partisan House, but he experienced some growing pains. He angered Appropriations cardinal Frank Wolf, when he proposed shifting law enforcement funding to restore $78 million in cuts to the COPS program; afterward he vowed to work with Wolf next time. He had more success with Don Young, when he approached the prickly Alaskan on the House floor to urge him to reconsider his plan to move the home port of the icebreaker Healy from Seattle to Alaska. The Coast Guard also opposed the expense and Young conceded.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee left little doubt the race would be a target in 2006 when it ran radio ads 18 months before Election Day hitting Reichert for a vote on military health care. Former Microsoft executive Darcy Burner, a political novice who was not recruited by national Democrats, banked over $330,000 in the first quarter of 2006 and got the attention of party leaders. In a competitive district where dissatisfaction with Bush would likely be a major liability, Reichert was unapologetic about appearing with Bush. “I know it’s controversial to have the president come to the northwest part of the United States. I don’t care. He’s the president.” Burner's campaign called him a “Bush Republican” and ran an ad that featured “Rubber Stamp Reichert” stepping off Air Force One with Bush. The candidates each spent $3 million on television ads and mail pieces; the national parties together poured in more than $4 million. Early results gave Reichert a slim lead, but uncounted absentee ballots delayed Burner’s concession for another week. Reichert won 51%-49%. Reichert has now successfully fought two competitive races in a swing district, but he can expect further opposition. Burner said she was running again in 2008, when Democrats hope to benefit from presidential coattails; state Senator Rodney Tom was also running for the Democratic nomination, but Burner's aggressive fundraising led him to drop out of the race in September 2007.

Committees

• Homeland Security (9th of 15 R)
  Intelligence, Information Sharing & Terrorism Risk Assessment (RMM); Border, Maritime & Global Counterterrorism.
• Science & Technology (13th of 20 R)
  Investigations & Oversight; Research & Science Education.
• Transportation & Infrastructure (24th of 34 R)
  Aviation; Highways & Transit.

Presidential Vote

District Demographics (More Info)

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D + 2
• Area size: 2,621 square miles
• Urban Population: 87.6%
• Rural Population: 12.4%
• Population 2000: 654,905
• Population 2005 (est): 719,454
• Median Income: $63,854
• Poverty Status: 5.1%
• Military Veterans: 14.0%
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 82.1% White; 2.0% Black; 7.8% Asian; 0.8% Native Am.; 0.3% Hawaiian; 2.8% Two+ races; 0.2% Other; 4.0% Hispanic Origin;
• Ancestry: 14.0% German%; 9.4% English%; 8.3% Irish%;
• Occupation: Blue collar 19.7%; White collar 68.6%; Gray collar 11.8%;