The congressman from the 8th District is Dave Reichert, a Republican elected in 2004. He is a party loyalist on economic matters but regularly joins Democrats on environmental issues. Read More

The congressman from the 8th District is Dave Reichert, a Republican elected in 2004. He is a party loyalist on economic matters but regularly joins Democrats on environmental issues.

Reichert (RY-kurt) was born in Detroit Lakes, Minn., and his family moved to the Seattle area a year later. He graduated from Concordia Lutheran College in Portland and then joined the Air Force Reserves. He worked for 32 years in the King County sheriff’s office and was elected sheriff in 1997. He was a national leader on gun crime reduction and methamphetamine prevention. During the riots that accompanied the 1999 international trade meeting in Seattle, he criticized city leaders and the police force for inadequate preparation. He gained national attention for his prominent role in capturing Gary Ridgway, the “Green River Killer” who had terrorized the Seattle area with a two-decade murder spree that left 48 women dead. After Ridgway's capture in 2001, Reichert was featured on television shows and in documentaries, and he published a book about the experience, Chasing the Devil: My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer.

When Republican Rep. Jennifer Dunn announced that she was retiring after 12 years in the House, Republicans actively recruited Reichert to run. He defeated three opponents in the September Republican primary, winning the nomination with 43% of the vote. The Democratic nominee was Dave Ross, a longtime Seattle radio talk show host.

In the general election, Reichert argued that local law enforcement agencies should receive more money and equipment for homeland security. Ross said that he wanted to be the eyes and ears of the public, checking “into what’s going on, who’s making the trades, where the money is going and whether it’s being wisely spent.” The national parties stormed in, spending well over $5 million and organizing visits by prominent leaders. Each candidate tried to portray the other as lacking in public policy experience and holding views too extreme for the swing district. Both Seattle newspapers, with strong liberal traditions, endorsed Ross for his greater familiarity with issues and suggested that Reichert was too conservative for the district. Still, Reichert won 52%-47%.

He is one of the House’s most green-friendly Republicans, earning a 67 out of 100 score on the League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard for the 111th Congress (2009-10). He supported the 2009 House-passed bill to cap carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming, and in April 2011, he was the lone House Republican to support a Democratic amendment putting the chamber on record as accepting the scientific view that human beings are a major cause of global warming. He co-sponsored a 2005 bill to designate wilderness in Washington state as off-limits to development and he opposed oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge while backing tougher fuel economy standards for cars and trucks.

But Reichert has opposed President Barack Obama’s major economic initiatives, and in 2009 was rewarded with a prized seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He joined several Republicans in releasing a March 2011 report critical of AARP’s venture into the for-profit insurance business as an argument for potentially revoking the giant senior organization’s tax-exempt status. His district depends heavily on trade, and a year earlier he led several Ways and Means members in seeking to prod Obama to move on stalled free trade agreements.

When Reichert arrived in the House, he backed New York Rep. Peter King’s bid to chair the Homeland Security Committee and was rewarded by King with the chairmanship of the Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee, making him the only freshman in his class to chair a subcommittee. He won enactment of a bill that established standards for interoperable communications. He later sponsored a successful bill to fund programs fostering intelligence sharing with state and local governments.

National Democrats have targeted Reichert since he first ran for re-election in 2006, but he has beaten well-financed Democrats who worked for Microsoft. In a competitive district where dissatisfaction with Bush would likely be a major liability in 2006, Reichert was unapologetic about inviting him to the district. Former Microsoft executive Darcy Burner, the Democratic nominee, dubbed him “Rubber Stamp Reichert.” The candidates each spent $3 million, and together, the national parties poured in more than $4 million. Reichert won 51%-49%.

Burner was back for a rematch in 2008. She outraised Reichert $4.3 million to $3 million, but he won 53%-47%. Two years later, he drew a new Democratic opponent in Suzan DelBene, who had been a Microsoft executive for three years. She ran a strong campaign and got substantial national party help, but Reichert again won, 52%-48%.