[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwMIa7l246s[/youtube]

Former KIRO TV anchor, King County Executive candidate Susan Hutchison, has been disclosing a series of emails that she obtained through public records requests that, she says, show how her opponent, King County Council Member Dow Constantine, pressured his colleagues to vote for a ferry tax.

It's a pretty weird premise for a critique. Getting his colleagues to vote for legislation is what Consatantine is paid to do. The legislation passed 8-1, with three of the four council Republicans on board with Democrat Constantine.

Hutchison's first version of this attack was admittedly pretty good, though. In that iteration, she found emails preceding the 2007 ferry  vote where Constantine threatened to vote against the flood district if his colleagues didn't support the Vashon Island ferry tax. (Vashon is in Constantine's district.)

The flood district, obviously, is a sensitive issue right now thanks to fears that the Howard Hanson dam isn't prepared to handle flooding.

Constantine actually voted for the flood district, but the emails contradicted statements Constantine has made during the campaign saying he never played politics with the flood district.

We didn't have time to do PRR the day Hutchison's flood district hit came out—so, no official grade—but I did give it a thumbs up here, calling it "pretty hot."

However, Hutchison's latest version—without the flood district example—falls flat. I explain why in the video.

I've posted the press release and the emails below the fold.

[Editor's note: In the video, I say Constantine's portion of the ferry program came to $4 million. I was forgetting that  his program included both the Vashon ferry and the West Seattle water taxi. Total: $5.4 million.]

Hutchison's press release:

Dow Constantine: “What the hell is this?”

The Julia Problem

King County, WA—Another public disclosure request email confirms Dow Constantine actively coerced fellow Councilmembers into supporting his ferry district by threatening to vote against other projects – this one related to his Democratic colleague Julia Patterson.

On October 16, 2007, Chairman Constantine forwarded an email from Julia Patterson requesting a “Meeting to Discuss Ferry District Issues” to his Chief of Staff.  In that email, Constantine asked, “What the hell is this?”  A day later, Constantine’s chief of staff sent a memo outlining potential issues regarding the costly and unnecessary ferry tax, one of which was “The Julia Problem.”

According to Constantine’s chief of staff, Councilwoman Patterson was not supportive of Constantine’s taxpayer-funded ferry system and would be voting against it.  In order to manipulate her vote, Constantine was told, “She needs to know that this is very important to you and that she may not get your cooperation on other issues coming before the council if she doesn’t back you on this.  I won’t go into great detail here about Julia, but this is definitely something we should discuss.”

“This is another disappointing example of how Chairman Constantine strong-armed his fellow Councilmembers into supporting a very expensive and irresponsible ferry tax.  Dow is a bully, and he thinks King County is his schoolyard,” said Susan Hutchison.  “Chairman Constantine played politics with public safety, and King County doesn't need anymore bully politics, or wasteful spending.  That is what got us into this mess.  I intend to get us out of it by working collaboratively with the Council, and enacting true fiscal discipline.

“Chairman Constantine used the absolutely essential flood district as a political bargaining chip to pass the ferry tax and when he felt that wasn’t enough, he began threatening to remove important projects in other Council districts.  That is not leadership and it just one more example of the reckless spending that created the worst financial crisis in the history of King County.”

The emails: Oct. 16th Constantine Email and Oct. 17th Constantine Email.