Susan Hutchison has made much hay in recent days about an email from County Councilmember Reagan Dunn that allegedly shows he was concerned that he would lose funding for projects within his district if he didn’t vote for a ferry district tax sponsored by Dow Constantine.
In his Nov. 5, 2007 e-mail to County Council attorney Jim Brewer, Dunn asks if “vote-trading” is legal in Washington, and asks whether council members can legally “remove projects located in one Councilmember’s district when that Councilmember refuses to vote in favor of tax increases.”
Dunn said today he was worried that senior centers and other programs in his district would lose funding if he voted against the tax to fund passenger-only ferries.
At first I just wrote off Dunn’s alleged concerns to woosy naivete, or perhaps naive woosiness. I mean, horse trading in politics? Heaven forfend!
But as it turns out, Dunn is just a shameless hypocrite, as evidenced by how proud he is over his councilmanic arm-twisting to restore funding to the King County Fair in Enumclaw:
King County Councilman Reagan Dunn is pushing the issue in Seattle, urging his fellow council members to include at least $318,000 in the 2010 budget to make the fair a reality. … Dunn said he’s working on the rest of the county council, calling in favors when necessary.
“This is budget politics at its best,” he said, referring to the give-and-take that occurs when nine elected officials must come together to pass a working budget.
So let’s see… when Republican Dunn twists arms and calls in favors to save projects in his own district, that’s “budget politics at its best,” but when Democrat Constantine allegedly does the same, well, that’s a clear sign of corruption.
Uh-huh.