Comments on Oly Action: Domestic Partners Expansion Passes Senate

Cheryl Pflug = MILF?

Uh, lez?

Cudos to Jamie Pederson and Ed Murray for the passage of this bill. It may not be romantic, but for someone who's been "married" for 38 years, it's about time we got some of the same rights as my married siblings get on the first day.

Is there a list of the 480 rights that married couples get anywhere?

It's Kudos, and this will be about defusing a challenger in the 5th.

judging by Cheryl's awful, 90's soccer mom, helmet hair, she's hoping to cozy up to the gays in an effort to get one of them to give her a badly needed make-over.

um, it passed on tuesday, not yesterday.

Cheryl has drafted a lesbian Democratic opponent when she runs for re-election this year. Phyllis Huster has already filed for office, and will be running against Cheryl Pflug this year for her Senate seat. Cheryl didn’t want to give her opponent any ammunition to use against her. That’s why Cheryl broke with her caucus, and voted in favor of expanding domestic partnership rights.

You got the right to sing the blues...

Pflug was a nice pickup, but the big surprise for me was Curtis King. Who would have ever expected a Yakima Republican loves the gays?

what about the right for a foreign partner of a washington resident to live and work in washington legally? or is that entirely federal?

regardless, that's a BIG one.

Take a # Harold. And have your eyes checked.

Never mind the fact that three Republicans voted in favor of the bill. Note that SIX Democrats voted against it.

Senators
Hargrove
Shin
Sheldon
Rasmussen
Hatfield
Kastama

Gotta boot those motherfuckers.

Shin in Edmonds/Lynnwood is the surprise Democratic Senator voting against the bill. The 21st district is very solidly Democrat in recent years.
Republican Pflug is Pfine by my book.

Shin was definitely a surprise. Kastama even voted for the original domestic partnership bill, yet switched his vote for this expansion. Is he concerned about his reelection this fall? I don't see any tough challengers on the horizon there. Tami Green changed her vote this year to support domestic partnerships and the 28th is a lot scarier for a Democrat than the 25th -- I guess she's the one with the balls in the Pierce suburbs.

As for the other Democratic noes, they're all rural Dixiecrats. Probably best for the party to just tolerate them so they can keep their supermajority. Both of the reps in Hatfield's districts are pro-domestic partnerships but are still on the conservative wing of the House Caucus. I'm sure the party will keep gunning for Sheldon but given his personal vote in Mason County I doubt he's beatable.

Brad @4:

You can get a list of the marriage-triggered statutes at LMA's RCW Project page. It's being updated at this moment, but it's close enough to get an idea of the breadth. The executive summary is here.