Democrats ask GOP for apology over ads
The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
January 31, 2006 Tuesday
Sunrise Edition
KAYLA WEBLEY
The Oregonian
OLYMPIA –Rep. Deb Wallace, D-Vancouver, and six other House Democrats have asked for an apology from Republican leaders for a series of ads that claim they refused to impose life sentences for violent sex offenders.
The postcards, automated phone calls and radio and television ads have scared some people who have mistaken them for announcements that sex offenders are moving into their communities, Wallace and others said in a letter to Minority Leader Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis.
“Fear-mongering, exploiting children for political gain, lying to the public –these are the kinds of stunts that should not be acceptable here in Washington state,” the letter reads.
DeBolt doesn’t plan to apologize for the advertisements because he wasn’t directly involved in the campaign, said John Rothlin, spokesman for the House Republican Caucus. The ads were sponsored by the Speakers Roundtable, a Republican political action committee.
Wallace and the other Democrats all are in swing districts and face re-election this year. The others are Assistant Majority Whip Tami Green of University Place; Bill Grant of Walla Walla, Derek Kilmer and Pat Lantz, both of Gig Harbor; and Geoff Simpson and Pat Sullivan, both of Covington.
The ad campaign focuses on a vote taken the first day of the legislative session when House Republicans made a motion on the floor for an immediate vote on a GOP-sponsored bill that calls for a lengthy mandatory minimum sentence for all sex offenders. The motion failed on a party-line vote, defeated by the Democrats who control the House 55-43. It now must go through the standard committee hearing process.
Though some Democrats support parts of the bill, they said they worry about how the state will pay to keep people in prison longer. The bill doesn’t explain where the funding will come from.
Rep. Jan Shabro, R-Enumclaw, the bill’s prime sponsor, said the state might end up saving money by keeping offenders in jail because costs devoted to defending the cases, monitoring offenders after their release and protecting victims will be unnecessary.
The postcards and ads started to show up in the past week. The postcards show a man with his eyes and name blacked out to conceal his identity. It reads, “This violent predator lives in your community.” The man actually lives in Pierce County, but the card with the same man was distributed to all the counties where the Democrats were targeted.
Wallace said she has received numerous phone calls from people worried about the danger presented to their children because the postcard looks like an actual notification, commonly sent out when a sex offender moves into a community.
The legislation, House Bill 2476, had a public hearing before the Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee, but members have yet to vote it out. The cutoff date for all bills to be voted out of committee is Friday, otherwise they die.
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