Money pours into Democrat-on-Democrat fight over natural gas

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Remember that Democrat-on-Democrat throwdown over natural gas we previewed a while back? Well, it looks like the first round ahead of the August primary will feature some high-dollar hardball.

The Jackson Legacy Fund, a political action committee that backs moderate Democrats, just dropped $150,000 into another PAC called Citizens For Legislative Accountability. The money, we’re told, will be spent on an independent primary campaign in support of union operative Trevor Smith in his bid to unseat Democratic Rep. Alex Ramel in the 40th District, which includes the San Juan Islands, Anacortes, Mount Vernon, and part of Bellingham. Ramel, who’s serving his first full term after being appointed in 2020, has emerged as one of the Legislature’s greenest members.

Here’s why you should care about this: $150K buys a fair-sized primary campaign in that district. It’s nearly double the $86K Ramel has raised for his campaign and dwarfs the $24K that Smith has pulled in so far. Expect it to get rough; nobody spends that kind of money to play nice.

This is essentially an expensive live-fire test of whether this kind of moderate-on-progressive challenge can work, and of the premise that progressives like Ramel are pulling the Legislature’s Democratic majorities too far left for voters’ liking. It’s a safe Democratic district with no Republican in the race, so the primary doesn’t technically matter, but a strong August showing for Smith would show that Ramel is vulnerable.

Much of the Jackson Fund’s money this year comes from blue-collar labor unions who are unhappy with Ramel’s support for legislation aimed at phasing out the use of natural gas in favor of electricity to reduce carbon pollution. Some of the unions, including Smith’s Laborers, represent the folks who build, install and maintain the gas infrastructure, from the big pipelines to the little copper tube that supplies gas to your stove. They’ve been fighting back hard on the various gas proposals, winning some and losing others.

The PAC has also pulled in big checks from the state’s biggest business players including the Washington Association of Realtors and real estate developer John Goodman, as well as corporate giants Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Annheuser Busch

While the Jackson Fund supports Democrats, the PAC that received the money has a distinctly Republican vibe. Citizens For Legislative Accountability is part of Enterprise Washington, a sprawling network of pro-business PACs that mostly supports Republicans. Its president is Paul Graves, who was the House Republicans’ appointee to the semi-infamous Washington Redistricting Commission last year.

That makes sense for a couple of reasons. Most of the Democratic operatives would shy away from working on an intraparty challenge to an incumbent, especially from the center. Meanwhile, Smith would need to win over many of the district’s conservative voters to have a chance at knocking off Ramel.

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