US Senate

Presidents have (very) occassionaly favored Washingtonians with prominent appointments. Our senators' replies to whether they wanted to be vice president led us to look into other Washingtonians in presidential administrations.

Don't expect Washington's U.S. senators to be a presidential runningmate. In a survey of the U.S. Senate's membership not already running for president on whether they'd accept an offer to be vice president, The Hill newspaper found a variety of responses to the veepstakes question. Some were accompanied by laughs, others took the question seriously.

So, how did Democrats Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray respond?

Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Dave Reichert have gone kosher and sworn off the pork. Which sounds admirable but also correlates to their effectiveness rating, and will likely get them less goodwill than a couple of good projects for their districts would have. On the other side, Rep. Norm Dicks won Citizens Against Government Waste’s “April Porker of the Month” for trying to get the Air Force to buy from Boeing. What nerve!

First came a Democratic Presidential candidate who fell short of the mark, as Governor Chris Gregoire announced last week she would host a fundraiser featuring special guest Bill Richardson, the New Mexico Governor and fourth place finisher in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.

Now Gregoire has the help of the "real deal," 2004 nominee and current Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. PolitickerWA.com has obtained an e-mail sent to Kerry's supporters asking for their financial support to help Gregoire's re-election campaign.

Sen. Patty Murray is claiming that the Department of Veterans Affairs has lied about the number of attempted suicides by US military. The McClatchy news service reports that Murray has seen internal e-mails indicating some 12,000 attempts per year, as opposed to the 800 reported by the VA.

Gordon Mansfield, deputy secretary of the VA, apologized for the numbers discrepancy and told Murray and her Senate Veterans Affairs colleagues that there was no purposeful attempt to mislead. Still, Murray was skeptical.

“I used to teach preschool, and when you bring up a 3-year-old and tell them they have to stop lying, they understand the consequences,” Murray said. “The VA doesn’t. They need to stop hiding the fact this war is costing us in so many ways. They can be walking time bombs for decades,” Murray said. “I hope everyone in the VA understands this.”