WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2006
Election 2006 "a resounding success for working families"

Working families in Washington state not only elected labor-endorsed candidates to Congress and State Legislature on Tuesday, voters went three-for three on important statewide ballot measures and three-for-three in re-electing nonpartisan labor-endorsed Supreme Court justices facing well-financed conservative challengers.

"These results confirm not just voters' anger and frustration with the Bush administration, the Iraq War and a scandal-plagued Republican Congress, they also show that working families were paying attention to nonpartisan races and issues all the way down the ballot," said Rick Bender, President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO.  "I have no doubt that our aggressive Labor Neighbor activities and our targeted mail program -- combined with an exceptional response Tuesday from union volunteers for get-out-the-vote activities -- were key factors in making Election Day 2006 such a resounding success for working families."

Here's a roundup of what happened in Washington state (links will take you to the Secretary of State's web site for the latest results):

CONGRESS -- Once considered the U.S. Senate's most vulnerable incumbent Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell trounced well-financed challenger Mike McGavick, 58% to 39%. All six of the other labor-endorsed incumbent Democrats in Congress were easily re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives: U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee won 69%-31%, Rick Larsen 66%-34%, Brian Baird 65%-35%, Norm Dicks 71%-29%, Jim McDermott 80%-16%, and Adam Smith 66%-34%.

All eyes will remain on the hotly contested 8th Congressional District race for days, perhaps weeks, as Republican Rep. Dave Reichert holds a very slim 51%-49% lead -- about 2,600 votes -- over labor-endorsed Democrat Darcy Burner. That race's outcome will hinge on the more than 100,000 mail ballots yet to be counted, mostly in King County where Burner was running ahead of Reichert.

In Eastern Washington, labor-endorsed 5th District challenger Peter Goldmark came up short against Rep. Cathy McMorris, 55%-45%; and labor-endorsed Democrat Richard Wright lost to soon-to-be former House Ethics Committee Chairman Rep. Doc Hastings, 58%-42%.

STATE SUPREME COURT -- Incumbent State Supreme Court Justice Susan Owens became the third Justice to successfully fend off conservative challengers financed by corporate special interests. Owens easily defeated former Republican state legislator Stephen Johnson 60%-40%. The right-wing Building Industry Association of Washington sank an estimated $1 million into the three Supreme Court challengers' races -- including financing some of the most despicable attack ads of the election season against Chief Justice Gerry Alexander -- and lost all three of those races.

STATEWIDE INITIATIVES -- Labor went three-for-three on ballot measures. Voters rejecting both Initiative 920 to repeal the state estate tax (and cut education funding) and Initiative 933, the "pay or waive" property rights measure forcing local governments to pay developers just to obey the law. I-920 was rejected 61%-39%, and I-933 failed 58%-42%.

Meanwhile, Initiative 937, the labor-endorsed Clean Energy Initiative, was approved 53%-47%. I-937 will create family-wage jobs by guaranteeing that, by 2020, 15 percent of the electricity from Washington's largest utilities comes from home-grown renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.

STATE LEGISLATURE -- Pro-working family Democrats extended their majorities in both the State Senate and State House of Representatives. This was especially important in the Senate, where progressive legislation was sometimes stymied by the slim 26-23 majority because one or two conservative Democrats sided with the minority. Democrats appear to have picked up six additional seats to gain a strong 32-17 majority. Likewise in the House, Democrats extended their 55-43 majority by several seats, though a couple of close races will decide how many.

Here are the outcomes of Labor Neighbor targeted races. (The candidate listed in bold is the labor-endorsed candidate.) Click here for a complete list of state legislative results.

▪ 6th LD Senate -- Chris Marr 57% -- Sen. Brad Benson 43%
▪ 17th LD House -- Rep. Deb Wallace 59% -- Paul Harris 41%
▪ 23rd LD House -- Christine Rolfes 56% -- Rep. Beverly Woods 44%
▪ 24th LD House -- Kevin Van De Wege 55% -- Rep. Jim Buck 45%
▪ 26th LD Senate -- Rep. Derek Kilmer 61% -- Jim Hines 39% (open seat)
▪ 26th LD House 1 -- Rep. Patricia Lantz 58% -- Beckie Krantz 42%
▪ 26th LD House 2 -- Larry Seaquist 56% -- Ron Boehme 44% (open seat)
▪ 28th LD House 1 -- Troy Kelley 52% -- Don Anderson 48% (open seat)
▪ 28th LD House 2 -- Rep. Tami Green 54% -- Bob Lawrence 46%
▪ 31st LD House -- Christopher Hurst 53% -- Rep. Jan Shabro 47%
▪ 42nd LD House -- Rep. Doug Erickson 53% -- Jasper MacSlarrow 47%
▪ 44th LD Senate -- Steve Hobbs 55% -- Sen. Dave Schmidt 45%
▪ 44th LD House 1 -- Rep. Hans Dunshee 58% -- Mike Hope 42%
▪ 44th LD House 2 -- Rep. John Lovick 62% -- Robert Legg 38%
▪ 45th LD Senate -- Eric Oemig 54% -- Rep. Toby Nixon 46% (open seat)
▪ 47th LD Senate -- Claudia Kauffman 52% -- Mike Riley 48% (open seat)
▪ 47th LD House 1 -- Rep. Geoff Simpson 59% -- Donna Watts 41%
▪ 47th LD House 2 -- Rep. Pat Sullivan 59% -- Andrew Franz 41%
▪ 48th LD Senate -- Rep. Rodney Tom 54% -- Sen. Luke Esser 46%
▪ 48th LD House -- Deborah Eddy 58% -- Bret Olson 42% (open seat)

In the final four days leading up to and including Election Day, Labor Neighbor volunteers completed an estimated 2,000 shifts of neighborhood walks and phone banks, contacting tens of thousands of union voters. (This story will be updated with final Labor Neighbor volunteer tallies once they are compiled.)  Nationwide, the AFL-CIO reports that union get-out-the-vote efforts contacted an unprecedented 13.4 million union voters in 32 states.