This is news that puts a real bounce in the ol’ step this morning. From the Spokesman Review -
“I’m just ready to go,” Brown, a former state lawmaker and most recently chancellor of Washington State University in Spokane, said Wednesday afternoon. “And I know a lot of people are ready.”
Brown has been spending her summer meeting with groups throughout Washington’s 5th Congressional district, which hasn’t put a Democrat in office since Tom Foley was ousted by voters in 1994. The 60-year-old, who spent 20 years teaching economics at Eastern Washington University, was elected to her first term in the state House of Representatives two years earlier.
(all emphasis mine)
She is a well known and well loved representative and has worked so incredibly hard for Spokane and eastern Washington. And we are seeing results here! And she actually lives here in Spokane. Cathy is a bit of a stranger these days.
The Spokesman Review is correct here-
Brown’s pitch for office against longtime Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers has the hallmarks of Foley’s opponent in that race 25 years ago when Republican George Nethercutt argued Foley had been in Congress too long. Nethercutt’s campaign led to a shocking upset of Foley, the sitting Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“There’s a sense that our current congressional representative has become out of touch with the district,” Brown said. “I think there is a danger, when you’re in a position for a long time, that you get into that Beltway mentality.”
LIsa Brown is right on the issues that matter here- “Brown said she believed health care, policies promoting economic growth and the rising costs of higher education would be key issues in a future political campaign”. She has name recognition, and she has a long history of serving Eastern Washington. And while McMorris Rodgers served in the state house as minority leader, Lisa Brown has served as majority leader in the state senate.
We have all been waiting for her to make a decision about running!
But she said her decision hastened with the House of Representatives’ approval of the GOP health care bill this spring that would have priced millions of Medicaid recipients out of coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Brown also pointed to the ensuing ceremony that occurred on the White House lawn, headed by President Donald Trump, heralding the end of what he and GOP congressional leaders called the damaging effects of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
And the “money quote”
“I gave up my job at WSU so I could do this full time over the next year,” Brown said. “I will be also relying more, probably, on people power, frankly, because it will be hard to match the dollars on the other side.”
Stayed tuned for a link for contributions. We ALL need Cathy McMorris Rodgers out of the House. As many signs say around here- Repeal and Replace Cathy!