U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a rising star in GOP politics from Washington state, is being mentioned seriously as a running mate for Mitt Romney.

Yet another major conservative voice is touting Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers as a viable choice as eventual Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate.

A few weeks ago, Townhall magazine listed the four-term Spokane Congresswoman as one of a dozen or so on the GOP screening committee’s short list. This month, The American Spectator singles out McMorris Rodgers as perhaps more than just a dark horse.

“Frankly, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of McMorris Rodgers,” writes author Quin Hillyer, the publication’s senior editor and a senior fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom. “I’d sure like to see how she polls in Washington state as a whole, and how focus groups in more likely swing states respond to her.”

McMorris Rodgers, just 43, serves as vice chair of the House Republican Conference and is the highest-ranking female in GOP leadership. She served five terms in the Washington State Legislature.

Hillyer describes McMorris Rodgers as an “(i)ncredibly impressive and likeable rising star, wonderfully conservative, with a useful portfolio of issue leadership including women’s health, child-support enforcement, health and education.”

His enthusiasm is tempered by her youth and relative inexperience – even her legislative credentials are far more extensive than Barack Obama’s were four years ago.

“(McMorris Rodgers offers) probably no geographical advantage,” Hillyer writes, “as Washington state seems a lost cause. Plus, as just a four-term U.S. House member (albeit the House Minority Leader in her state legislature before that), she might strike some as not quite yet qualified for the job.”

A spokesperson  for McMorris Rodgers will say only that, “She’s flattered and honored that people would mention her as a contender for the position, but she’s 100 percent committed to her job as a member of Congress.”

Hillyer doesn’t list her among his Top 10 potential running mates, but concedes she comes close to cracking the list.

“Maybe the next installment will include her as choice 10B,” he said.

Attorney General Rob McKenna filed his paperwork on Thursday and is now officially a candidate for governor of Washington state.

Rob McKenna, the presumptive Republican nominee for Washington state governor this fall, officially filed his paperwork for the office on Thursday afternoon.

The two-term state attorney general’s filing was announced a few minutes before 5 p.m. just one day ahead of the deadline. His likely Democratic opponent, former U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, filed his paperwork on Tuesday morning.

“A dedication to public service is something that is passed down in my family and it has been truly humbling to serve the people of Washington state as attorney general for the last eight years,” said McKenna. “It is an honor for me to be able to file today to become the next governor of our state, and I look forward to continuing my service to the people of Washington in a new role.

Earlier in the week, the McKenna campaign invited supporters to enter into a drawing to participate in McKenna’s filing. George Herrion, a veteran from Spokane, was selected and joined McKenna in Spokane as he filed electronically.

“I’m really thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this process and part of Rob’s campaign,” said Herrion. “I wish we could fast forward to Election Day and Rob’s victory speech.”

“I’ve heard the same thing from workers, business owners, students and retirees as I’ve traveled the state — that Olympia is broken,” McKenna said. “I look forward to extending across all of state government the bipartisan record of achievement that we’ve had in the Attorney General’s Office.”

Attorney General Rob McKenna has a day and a half left to file his paperwork to run for Washington state governor this fall.

Three days and change into filing week and Rob McKenna is still a no-show.

The state attorney general has been campaigning actively for the office for more than a year, but to date, he hasn’t turned in his paperwork with the Secretary of State’s Office. The filing window, which opened on Monday morning, closes on Friday.

McKenna’s likely Democratic opponent, former U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, turned in his paperwork on Thursday.

In other filing news:

* Former three-term state Rep. John Koster became the first Republican to file for the District 1 seat in the U.S. House of Representatives Inslee relinquished this spring to run for governor.

Because Inslee left office early, and because the district’s boundaries were changed by the state Legislature this year, there will actually be two elections for the same seat on the November ballot. The first will pick someone to replace Inslee for the one-month period in between the November election and the January date on which his successor will take office; the second will select a permanent replacement.

Koster is running for the permanent seat.

* Gig Harbor teacher Karin Ashabraner has jumped into the 26th District state representative race as a Democratic opponent for two-term Rep. Jan Angel (R-Port Orchard). The seat is interesting because Angel has already vowed to run for senator from that district if incumbent Derek Kilmer wins his bid to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks in November.

Kilmer is only halfway into his four-year term in the state Senate, meaning that if he wins a seat in Congress, the 26th District Democratic leaders would have to appoint a replacement for one year  until a special election to fill the seat permanently could be held in November 2013.

If Angel wins her re-election bid, she could be running again the following year for the Senate.

* Oak Harbor Republican Rep. Barbara Baily has filed to challenge incumbent Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-Camano Island). Haugen chairs the powerful Senate Transportation Committee, but she angered many of her constituents this fall by changing her position and ultimately casting the deciding vote on the controversial same-sex marriage bill.

Former U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee has filed his paperwork to run for governor of Washington state. Attorney General Rob McKenna, his likely Republican opponent, still has not.

Attorney General Rob McKenna, the presumptive Republican front-runner in the race for Washington state governor, was still not officially in the race as of noon Wednesday on the first week to file for state offices.

He is expected to do so any day now, however.

Former U.S. Rep, Jay Inslee, his likely Democratic opponent, filed his paperwork on Tuesday morning. He resigned his District 1 seat in Congress earlier this spring, forcing the state to pay $770,000 for a run-off election so the district will have representation for the one month in between the November general election and the date in January when the new office-holder will be seated.

Because this year’s redistricting process signficantly altered the boundaries of District 1, the state will simultaneously run a second election to pick Inslee’s permanent successor.

On the Democratic side, Snohomish County councilman Brian Sullivan announced this week he would seek the one-month position, but he has yet to enter the race officially. Bainbridge Island attorney J. Byron Holcomb and Kenmore resident Brian Berry have filed paperwork for the office, but as yet there is no Republican opposition.

“The Washington State Republican Party will not actively spend any time or resources to find a candidate for that race,” said state GOP Chair Kirby Wilbur. “We are focused on the elections that count – those that will bring proper representation to the people of Washington state.

“If Ex-Congressman Inslee and the Democrat Party were so concerned about proper Congressional representation for the First District, they would have called for the special election to be held in April, not in November,” Wilbur said. “Instead, they have left constituents of that district high and dry, purely to serve their own political interests.

In other statewide offices:

* Former House Majority Leader Bill Finkbeiner has officially filed as a Republican to unseat incumbent Democrat Brad Owen as lieutenant governor.

* A pair of King County Council members — Bob Ferguson, on the Democratic side and Republican Reagan Dunn — have filed to replace McKenna as Washington’s attorney general.

* Incumbent Schools Superintendent Randy Dorn is opposed so far by Bellingham teacher and school administrator James Bauckman.

* In the 28th District, University Place Council member Eric Choiniere filed to run for the Position 2 House seat currently occupied by Democrat  Troy Kelley. His opposition so far is attorney Steve O’Ban, a Republican. Choiniere had anounced plans earlier in the year to challenge incumbent Sen. Mike Carrell, also a Republican, but changed his plans when Kelley announced he would run for state auditor.

* Democratic Rep. Andy Billig will attempt to fill the District 3 Senate seat vacated last week when Majority Leader Lisa Brown announced she would not seek re-election. Spokane Councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin is this only Republican opponent to have filed thus far for the seat.

* Cheney School District Superintendent Larry Keller and Spokane attorney Jeff Holy, both Republlicans, have filed for the District 6 House seat being vacated by incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Baumgartner, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.

* Lynnwood physician Art Coday, who dropped out of the U.S. Senate race in 2010 to run unsuccessfully for state representative instead, has filed again for Cantwell’s seat.

The Thurston County commissioners decided this spring -- with the assistance of hundreds of incensed hunters -- to shelve a proposed shooting ban. But in doing so, they may have violated the state's Open Meetings Law.

Just because the Thurston County commissioners ultimately made the correct decision doesn’t made it correctly.

That’s the message about two dozen property rights advocates delivered on Tuesday with respect to the county’s recently scrapped shooting ordinance.

“While I agreed with the commissioners in this decision, process is policy,” said Glen Morgan, property rights director at the Olympia-based Freedom Foundation. “And when you fail to follow the clear legal process as provided in state law, then we must ask you to correct your mistakes.”

Earlier this year, the commissioners proposed an ordinance would have created no- or controlled-shooting zones in the urban-growth areas of Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater and Grand Mound, portions of Eld and Henderson inlets and some residential areas zoned for one or two dwellings per acre.

It also would have prohibited shooting within 300 yards of the ordinary high-water line along Puget Sound, limiting areas for waterfowl hunters.

The idea outraged property rights advocates, who believe the core issue is more than safety or gun rights.

Glen Morgan

“The bigger conversation about the no-shooting ordinance, of course is why our county government spent two and a half years and countless staff hours on five of an ordinance that was unnecessary and clearly illegal,” Morgan said. “All the reasons provided by this commission for not voting on this ordinance were accurate. But those justifications were provided to this commission two years ago, and you still chose to squander our resources and staff time.”

The Thurston commissioners ultimately decided by a 2-1 margin in April to scrap plans for the shooting ban – presumably encouraged by the 1,800 e-mails they received and the 3,200 signatures on a petition opposing the ordinance.

Commissioners Cathy Wolfe and Sandra Romero voted to kill the measure, while Commissioner Karen Valenzuela said she wanted to see the issue taken to the next step.

In reaching their decision, however, the commissioners held several closed-door meetings to discuss strategy.

Morgan and others at Tuesday’s hearing believe the county violated the state’s Open Meetings Act.

“Specifically, this violation occurred when the commissioners made their majority decision to not pursue the no-shooting ordinance on April 17 – just a few weeks ago,” Morgan said. “This may not be the only violation in Thurston County, but we will no longer allow this commission to make these violations with impunity moving forward.”

Pierce County Council member Dick Muri, a Republican, on Monday became the first official candidate for Washington's newly created 10th seat in the U.S. Congress.

As of noon on Tuesday, 301 candidates had filed for statewide office since the filing period opened a day earlier.

The State Secretary of State’s Office has been accepting applications for two weeks, but they become official this week — once elections officials verify the qualifications of prospective candidates.

A total of 30 offices ranging from U.S. Senate to governor will be up for grabs across the state. Those who survive the Aug. 7 primary will advance to the Nov. 6 general election.

Complicating issues this year is the new redistricting plan that formed new boundary lines for state and federal offices.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee was the first candidate to file for the governorship being vacated this fall by two-term incumbent Christine Gregoire. Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna has spent months campaigning for the office but hasn’t yet filed his paperwork.

State Sen. Derek Kilmer (D-Puyallup), meanwhile, was first in line to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks in the 6th District. So far he has no opponent, although Republicans Jesse Young and Doug Cloud — both of whom challenged Dicks two years ago — are expected to seek the office again.

Republican Dick Muri, a member of the Pierce County Council, became the first to file for the newly created 10th District Congressional seat, which encompasses most of Thurston County but also includes Joint Base Lewis-McChord, McNeil and Anderson islands, the cities of Shelton, Tenino, University Place, Puyallup, Fife, Edgewood, Sumner, and the parts of Milton and Pacific in Pierce County.

He was joined on the ballot later in the day by fellow Republican Stan Flemming, former state representative from the 28th District, member of the Pierce County Council and mayor of University Place.

Elesewhere, Republican Scott Sutherland, a a technologist and technology manager at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has filed for the District 7 seat currently held by uber-liberal U.S. Rep. Jim McDemott — who has yet to file but is seldom seriously threatened in his heavily Democratic Seattle-based stronghold.

Puyallup resident Keith Swank, a former Seattle police sergeant, is currently running unopposed in the newly redrawn 8th District as a Republican hoping to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Dave Reichart, who is expected to seek re-election.

Karen Porterfield joined the race on the Democratic side.

In state offices, Puyallup Rep. Jim Kastama, former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and Kathleen Drew, whose husband is Thurston County Assessor Steven Drew, have filed for Secretary State as Democrats, as has Republican Thurston County Auditor Kim Wyman.

Incumbent Secretary of State Sam Reed is retiring.

Republican James Watkins has already filed to challenge incumbent State Auditor Brian Sonntag.

Republican Rep. Kirk Pearson has already filed to replace retiring Republican Sen. Val Stevens in Washington’s 39th Legislative District, while teacher Elizabeth Scott, Monroe Mayor Robert Zimmerman and Everett resident Gregory Lemke — all Republicans — have filed to fill Pearson’s soon-to-be-open seat.

Incumbent 39th District Republican Rep. Dan Kristiansen currently has no opponent.

Elsewhere, Republican Rep. Bruce Dammeier, from Puyallup, filed on Monday to fill Kastama’s seat in the state state Senate. He will be challenged by retired state trooper Bill Hilton and Puyallup resident Eric Hingsberger on the Democratic side.

With Republicans needing only three seats to capture the Senate, the race to succeed Kastama is seen as a strong possibility for a GOP gain.

In the 28th District, Lakewood attorney Steve O’Ban has filed for the Position 2 seat as state representative currently held by Troy Kelley. He ran unsuccessfully for the same office in 2010. Fellow Republican Paul Wagemann, a retired Marine fighter pilot and businessman, has filed for the Position 2 seat held by Rep. Tami Green.

Sitting Justice Susan Owens, in Position 2, has filed for re-election to the State Supreme Court, as has Steve Gonzalez in Position 8. Sheryl Gordon McCloud and Bruce Hillyer have filed to replace the retiring Justice Tom Chambers in Position 9.

Update No. 1: Republican State Rep. Michael Baumgartner filed to run against incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell on Monday morning. He was joined by fellow Republican Chuck Jackson. Cantwell has yet to file.

Update No. 2: Republican Reagan Dunn has filed to replace fellow Republican Rob McKenna as attorney general. McKenna is currently running for governor.

Update No. 3: Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, a Democrat, will have at least one Republican opponent this year, as state Rep. Glenn Anderson, from Fall City, filed his paperwork on Monday afternoon.

Editor’s Note: This story will be updated throughout the week as candidates continue to file. The complete list of candidate filings can be found here.

The authors of Referendum 74 -- one of two ballot measures that would overturn Washington's same-sex marriage law -- say they'll have no problem gathering enough signatures to qualify for the November general election.

The success in North Carolina on Tuesday night of an amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriages is seen by advocates of a much narrower measure in Washington as a sign of validation.

“It just proves what we’ve been saying all along,” said Joseph Backholm, president of the Family Policy Institute of Washington. “Despite what the media want you to believe, most people still think marriage should be between one man and one woman.

“That’s why same-sex marriage has failed in every state where it’s been on the ballot,” he said. “We’re 31 for 31 now, and Washington state will be 32.”

Backholm is currently an organizer of Preserve Marriage Washington, which is promoting a referendum that would overturn a law passed by the 2012 legislature that legalizes same-sex marriages in Washington state. The law is currently on hold waiting to see whether the voters will strike it down.

Joseph Backholm

Referendum 74 is actually one of two proposed ballot measures that would have the same effect. The other, Initiative 1192, would establish a state law limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

In order to be included on the November general election ballot, the authors of both measures are required to collect thousands of signatures on their petitions by June 6. Because of the large numbers of duplicate or unverifiable signatures that always show up on the documents, organizers typically turn in an extra 20 percent more just to be sure.

With a little less than a month remaining until the deadline, Referendum 74 has around 75,000 of the 125,000 signatures in hand, while I-1192 has just over 45,000 and needs an additional 200,000.

“I’m new to this, so it makes me a little nervous that we still have so much ground to make up,” Backholm said. “But people who do this all the time tell me it’s not unusual for more than half of the petitions to be turned in the last week alone.

“We’ve sent thousands of petitions and we know where all of them are,” he said. “Mostly they’re still sitting on people’s desks or kitchen tables waiting to be turned in. We’re not worried. We’ll get there. Both (of the ballot measures) will.”

Backholm said he’s not discouraged by public opinion polls that show the measures losing in Washington state.  “That’s fairly typical in these contests,” he said. “The media are often the ones who conduct or sponsor the polls, and they have a vested interest in discouraging opposition.”

Nationwide, he said, the polls tend to overestimate the strength of same-sex marriage support by 5 to 7 percent.

“In California, there was never a poll that showed Proposition 9 passing,” Backholm noted. “But when the votes were counted, it passed 52-48. That should tell you something about the polls. I’m actually very excited about where we are right now.”

Stephen Pidgeon

Stephen Pidgeon, who is overseeing the I-1192 campaign, admits his forces have a daunting task ahead of them, but he noted that Costco generated 300,000 signatures in three weeks last year in its successful attempt to privatize state liquor sales.

“Obviously most of the people collecting signatures want to have as many as they can, so they don’t  turn in their petitions until the very last minute,” he said. “We’re confident we’ll have enough.”

Pidgeon believes his efforts are complicated, however, by an opinion paper written by Attorney General Rob McKenna several years ago that treats petition signatures as public information subject to disclosure requests by anyone who wants them.

A website called WhoSigned.org in 2009 requested and published the names of everyone who signed Referendum 71, which sought to overturn the state’s just-passed domestic partnership rule. Many on the list were subjected to harassing phone calls and e-mails, Pidgeon said, and the experience is making them think twice about going public this time.

He also cited the experience of a Yakima man who in April was quoted in the newspaper as promising to bring the R- 74 campaign to that community. The same night the quotes appeared, referendum opponents vandalized and totaled his wife’s car.

“There’s a climate of fear in this state,” he said. “Am I saying the left is violent, intolerant and bullying? Yes, absolutely I am.”

Like Backhold, Pidgeon wasn’t surprised by the outcome of the North Carolina constitutional amendment vote and believes it bodes well for Washington.

“Homosexuals who want to marry represent less than 1 percent of the entire population,” he said. “This isn’t about equal rights for homosexuals. It’s about crushing values, and people are starting to figure that out.”

“The other side’s argument in favor of same-sex marriage consists entirely of, ‘You’re a bad person if you disagree with us,’” Backholm said. “But for us, there’s strength in numbers.

“When you look at how the vote went in North Carolina and everywhere else it’s been tried,” he said, “it’s hard to make the case that same-sex-marriage is only opposed by bigots when the bigots always seem to be in the majority.”

Artist's conception of light rail on the I-90 Bridge -- assuming a lawsuit being appealed to the State Supreme Court by the Eastside Transportation Association doesn't derail the project.

Opponents of a plan to allow Sound Transit use of the center two lanes on the Interstate 90 Bridge in order to extend light rail from Seattle to Bellevue are planning to take their case back to the state’s highest court.

Representatives from the Eastside Transportation Association, including former State Sen. Jim Horn and Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman, announced on Tuesday they will appeal a Kittitas County Superior Court ruling that in March dismissed the group’s lawsuit, which named Gov. Gregoire, Department of Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond and Sound Transit as defendants.

The case dates back to 2009 and was originally heard by the Supreme Court in September 2010, but the justices ruled in April 2011 the plaintiffs could not prevent the Washington State Department of Transportation from transferring the lanes before the fact.

Kemper Freeman

Sound Transit plans to connect Seattle’s Central Link with Bellevue and the Eastside’s future East Link by building light rail line along Interstate 90 where the carpool lanes currently are.

Sound Transit hopes to start construction of East Link in 2015 or 2016 and launch passenger service in 2023.

In its effort to thwart the project, the ETA argued that, “any transfer of the lanes” from an original plan for the I-90 bridge, one that did not include light rail at the time as it predated Sound Transit 2, “would essentially be an unlawful diversion of motor vehicle fund money” and that the state is prohibited “from entering into ‘any agreement’ with Sound Transit for use of the two center lanes of I-90 for high-capacity light rail.”

The Supreme Court rejected the first argument but left open the possibility of a future lawsuit.

ETA responded by filing a similar action last fall, only to see it thrown out by Kittitas County Judge Michael Cooper, who declared that the East Link light rail project, approved by voters in 2008, conforms to plans and agreements that have been in place since before the bridge was built.

ETA’s appeal has not yet been officially filed with the State Supreme Court, which could still decide to hear it.

A resident of tiny Chattaroy, in Washington’s northeastern corner, is waging a one-man offensive against a school district he believes has employed unethical and possibly illegal methods to pass a hotly contested levy measure.

Most recently, Leonard Terzenbach has evidence officials of the Riverside School District registered special needs students and instructed them to vote in favor of the levy.

“It’s sad what they’re resorting to,” Terzenbach said. “This is a small community and they’re pitting neighbor against neighbor.”

The district, in fact, ran two levies on the February ballot. When both were defeated easily, the district offered a scaled-back alternative on the ballot in April, asking for $3.42 per $1,000 of assessed property value each year for three years, designed to replace an expiring tax.

Elections officials began a hand recount in the Riverside School District last week.

“They already lost once,” Terzenbach said, “and my beef is, 60 days later they can come back and do it again.  And I don’t think they should be able to do that.”

When the votes were tallied on election day, the third measure was found to be deadlocked at exactly 2,135 apiece.  A procedural re-count finished late last week, however, showed the levy passing by a mere 11 votes.

Terzenbach, who had campaigned actively against the levy, dipped into his own pocket to fund a hand recount, which commenced late last week.

At 25 cents a vote, the recount is costing Terzenbach $1,038.25, but he believes the effort will uncover enough fraud to overturn the outcome.

Leonard Terzenbach

He’s already documented at least one example of the school district using questionable tactics to generate support.

The mother of an 18-year-old special needs student at Riverside High School contacted Terzenbach last week and told him her son’s teacher had asked her class whether any of the students were old enough to vote for the levy. When he said he was, they sent him to the principal’s office to obtain an application form, helped him fill it out and issued him a voter registration card.

“They not only told him how to fill out his ballot, but they also told him to bring it back to them and they’d turn it in for him,” said Rayna Orgill, the young man’s mother.

Orgill said her son has an IQ of 55, roughly equivalent to that of an 8-year-old. When the ballot arrived in the mail, she said, he told her what he’d been instructed to do.

“I told him if he could read the ballot and explain to me what he was voting for, he could do it,” she said. “Naturally he couldn’t, and he agreed he had no business voting for anything. There’s a reason they don’t let 8-year-olds vote.”

Orgill said she could have filled the ballot out herself, voting against the levy as she did on her own, but, “I couldn’t see why I was entitled to two votes, so I just threw his ballot away.”

She said she called the school’s vice principal to complain, but he just took her report and said he’d look into the matter.

“My son turned 18 in December,” Orgill said. “If they thought it was such a good idea for him to vote, why didn’t they register him then instead of waiting for an election where it was so close it came down to 11 votes?”

Orgill said she doesn’t know how many other special needs students are over 18, nor does she know whether any of them were registered and encouraged to vote for the levy. But she assumes her son wasn’t the only one.

“I have a problem with teachers using their students as pawns to get what they want,” she said. “My daughter is a freshman at the same high school and she said the principal there got on the intercom and told the students to tell their parents if they didn’t vote for the levy there’d be no band or football team or anything like that.

“You’ve got 7- and 8-year-olds coming home crying because their teachers have scared them to death about something they can’t understand,” Orgill said. “That’s just not right.”

At least two experienced observers think Sen. Ed Murray, right, could be in line to replace Sen. Lisa Brown, left, as majority leader. Brown announced last week she would seek re-election this year.

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown’s abrupt announcement last week that she won’t seek another term in the Washington State Legislature has Olympia buzzing with two questions – why and who’s next?

The Spokane Democrat revealed on Thursday that after 20 years in the Legislature, she intends to retain her part-time teaching position at Gonzaga University in Spokane, but otherwise is going to “wait and see what comes along.”

For the immediate future, she said, her plans do not include running for another political office.

“It wasn’t something I was planning to do, it was just one of those epiphanies,” she told The Associated Press. “It just felt like the right time, while I can still be open to other challenges.”

“I suppose she could just be burned out, but that doesn’t sound like the Lisa Brown I know,” said Patrick Connor, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business. “Tough as she is, I find it hard to believe she’d walk away from the job.”

The question is whether she was pushed.

This spring’s legislative session, Connor noted, was highlighted by an almost unprecedented revolt within the Democratic ranks, as three members of the caucus crossed the aisle and voted with Republicans on a reform-minded budget during a marathon floor fight.

The incident resulted in hard feelings between both parties, with a fair share of Democratic anger also directed the three members who supported the GOP bill.

It’s possible, Connor said, some within the caucus questioned her ability to keep the troops in line.

“Certainly this was a bruising session,” he said. “She’s not one to shrink from a fight, but if there was ever a session that could topple a leader, this was the one. That explanation makes about as much sense as any other.”

With the filing period for statewide offices set to open a week from today, it’s highly unlikely Brown could change her mind at this point and field an organization that would enable her to run for another other post.

Nor is it likely she has her eye on a position with a state or federal agency, given the uncertainty of Democratic prospects for both governor and president.

“The other possibility is she sees a very real chance Republicans could take back the Senate this year and she doesn’t relish the idea of being in the minority,” suggested Tom McCabe, longtime executive vice president of the Building Industry Association of Washington who currently heads Allied Communication Strategies, an Olympia political consulting firm.

“She’s dished it out to a lot of Republicans over the years,” he said. “Maybe she doesn’t want a dose of her own medicine.”

Like Connor, McCabe said he was shocked by Brown’s announcement and believes there’s more to the story than meets the eye.

As for who might be in line to replace her as majority leader, both men agreed no one in the current Senate Democratic leadership really looks like a slam dunk.

“You’ve either got people who are too young, too old or otherwise unsuited for that job,” Connor said. “I’m guessing they’d have to look for someone who isn’t already in a leadership job.”

One name that showed up on both men’s short list is Seattle Sen. Ed Murray, the openly gay author of this session’s divisive same-sex marriage bill. While the choice might seem a little in-your-face at first glance, McCabe said that’s not a liability where the Democrats are concerned.

“That’s their signature accomplishment this session,” he said. “And obviously he’s popular with the other members of his caucus. How else could he have persuaded them to let him hold the Legislature hostage for two weeks over this issue when there was so much important work to be done.”

Connor said the only thing that might keep Murray from the majority leadership is his interest in another office.

“There have been rumors for years Murray wants to run for mayor of Seattle,” he said. “I don’t know whether there’s anything to it, but that’s out there, too.”

Another potential contender could be Kent’s Karen Keiser.

“She’s a tough presence on the floor and behind the scenes,” Connor said. “You’d be foolish to overlook her if she decides to pursue the job.”

“If they decide to circle the wagons and go with another woman, they might also consider (Majority Caucus Chair) Karen Fraser,” McCabe said.

As the second-ranking Democrat in the current leadership, the Thurston County lawmaker hasn’t been out front on a lot of high-profile issues, but she’s been a reliable voice for issues near and dear to the hearts of those on the left.

“On environmental and property rights issues,” McCabe said, “she’s been a very strong leader – and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. She’s probably done as much damage in those areas as anyone else in the Legislature.
“Why wouldn’t they want someone with her credentials,” he asked.