Democrats are scared of losing control of the State House – clearly their Seattle-centric, far-Left agenda is out-of-touch with Washingtonians. So, they are grasping at anything to make themselves appear more attractive to voters.
Only, their approach seems to be trying to take credit for Republicans’ accomplishments.
Democrat House Speaker Frank Chopp did it back in 2015 when he took credit for the higher education achievements produced by Senate Republicans, i.e. tuition reductions and freezes. Jay Inslee is doing it now, pretending Democrats have not cut education spending in favor of special interests and claiming credit he does not deserve in the Republican-led efforts to re-prioritize K-12 education spending.
So, it shouldn’t be so surprising when a rank-and-file Democrat like State Representative Luis Moscoso follows this lead as he attempts to convince his constituents to elect him to State Senate. Here’s what Moscoso claims in his Voter’s Guide statement:
“[h]e stood up to his own party to demand changes when the 405 HOV lane experiment failed. He will always stand against tolling 405.”
Of course, Moscoso’s claim is false.
As KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz points out, Moscoso “voted for House Bill 1382, which not only set up the I-405 ETLs, but indicated “[t]he legislature … intends to consider the implementation of express toll lanes on other facilities in the region in the future.”
That doesn’t sound a lot like someone who will “always stand against” the 405 tolling scheme.
Making Moscoso’s claim still more of a lie is the fact that he, as a member of the House Transportation Committee, joined Transportation Chair Judy Clibborn in blocking a GOP-led bill that proposed major fixes to the failed I-405 tolling scheme. In fact, Moscoso helped make sure the bill never even received a committee hearing.
Moscoso opposed any substantive changes to the 405 tolling scheme that were introduced by Republican state Rep. Mark Harmsworth. But, he did join Democrats’ political stunt in a pathetic attempt to cover his tracks for pushing tolling across the state. Via MyNorthwest.com:
A group of Democrats wrote a letter demanding changes of the I-405 toll lanes — pretty much the same changes Harmsworth’s bill had included. It appears they did not show Republicans the letter, nor ask for bipartisan support. Instead, Moscoso joined in a political stunt to try to take credit for fixing the problems Republicans originally tried to fix. And he did it by standing with — not against — his own party.
“I did know about the letter and I don’t believe any Republicans were asked to participate in signing the letter,” Harmsworth told me. “The change that was proposed in the letter is exactly what we’ve had in the bill all along.”
When I asked Moscoso if he thought it was fair to ask his colleagues if they even reached out to Republicans, he told me it wasn’t.
Moscoso’s blatant, stunning lie is unnerving — not least because of the brazen way he tells it. But, considering the fact that he is a Democrat, it is (sadly enough) more than expected.
Moscoso is just doing what liberal, secular-progressive democrats do so well, lie through his teeth.