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Capitol anti-tax protests planned

TEA PARTIES: Olympia events target policies of Obama administration

BRAD SHANNON; The Olympian | • Published June 22, 2009

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More big protests against the Obama administration are planned at the state Capitol on the next two weekends, but a top state Democrat says he’s not yet worried about the effort to build a backlash movement against the new president.

The protests include a June 27 “TEA party” rally at Heritage Park with popular right-of-center motivational speaker Bob Basso, who dresses up as patriot Tom Paine, and longtime Republican political operative Floyd Brown.

A second event – tied to national “Taxed Enough Already,” or TEA, events across the country – is set for July 4 on the state Capitol steps.

The specific targets for both events include efforts by President Barack Obama’s administration to bail out automakers, rescue banks from insolvency, create a cap-and-trade proposal to deal with greenhouse-gas emissions, and establish universal health care coverage.

“This is definitely aimed at Washington, D.C., and reining in the uncontrolled spending. … We’re concerned about how the Constitution is simply being shredded. Laws are being broken. People who run the government don’t seem to understand what the Constitution says,” said Ken Morse, organizer of Saturday’s rally.

Morse, a local septic-system designer who also organized a TEA Party march at the Capitol on April 15, said he hopes to draw 6,000 people to his latest event.

Anton D. Rehling, organizer of the Fourth of July event, predicted he could draw 20,000 to 30,000 people. That would make his gathering one of the biggest ever at the Capitol and certainly the largest since schoolteachers showed up in force in 2003 over education funding.

The two Olympia-area men said they are not in competition.

“What we want to do is do these very often. You are going to see more and more TEA parties happen closer and closer together. The protests are going to get larger and larger and larger,” said Rehling, known as “Dan” to his friends.

State Democratic Party chairman Dwight Pelz didn’t sound worried by the effort to build a public backlash against Obama. The right-of-center activists compare the administration to socialists.

“I have to say I kind of welcome the public display of opposition to the president … because I believe the thoughtful people of Washington and America support the president as he confronts the profound issues of the day,” Pelz said. “President Obama has a strategy for getting the economy back on track, providing health insurance for all Americans, and energy independence.”

“There are clearly tough times ahead as we wait for the Obama solutions to kick in,” Pelz added, acknowledging that jobless rates rose to 9.4 percent in Washington state in May despite big federal outlays and tax cuts. “But doing nothing is not an option. George Bush did nothing, and look where we are today. … He wasn’t trying to create jobs; he was helping his buddies.”

Pelz also took at shot at Republicans and the activists, saying, “The ‘Party of No’ and the TEA-baggers know what they are against, but they don’t have any vision of what they are for.”

State Republican Party chairman Luke Esser said recently that his party hopes to make the spending efforts by Obama and congressional Democrats an issue in the next election cycle. He said Friday that the “TEA party” events are developing as “grass-roots events. It makes the case that this is not a Republican right-wing conspiracy but a people’s movement.”

Brad Shannon: 360-753-1688

bshannon@theolympian.com

www.theolympian.com/politicsblog