Washington: Gop

State Rep. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, took issue with an earlier posting in which I let House Republicans complain that they were being shut out of the "bipartisan" process.

Joe,
This is unfair and somewhat deceptive. I don't think the measure of bipartisanship is how many bills are left in the Rules Committee as we head for the cutoff. Instead, you should really be reporting how many bills have passed out of the House that are sponsored by members of each party.

As of now, we have passed 270 bills out of the House, 52 of which have Republican prime sponsors.

This is a follow-up to my post from Tuesday.

House Republicans wanted to put Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, on the spot and force him to make a ruling on whether it takes a two-thirds supermajority vote to eliminate a tax break. Alas, Chopp's stand-in, Rep. Jeff Morris, D-Mount Vernon, said as acting speaker he wasn't going to make a ruling because the bill that Republicans chose as a test case was not up for a final vote. So it was too early.

Here is the GOP take on things. Their news release has the full verbatim exhange, all of which was pretty much scripted to make a clear record.

Steadily and surely, GOP use of technology in communications is improving. If you're on Twitter you're already aware to the degree to which conservative leaders & activists are using it both as a communications and organizing tool. Our own Cathy...

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray dismantled Republican challenger George Nethercutt in the 2004 election cycle, beating him by 345,000 votes.