Bob Ferguson, a King County Councilmember in Washington reflects on his first run for office, the money he needed to fund it, and the reason he supports a move towards full public financing of election in his county in this op-ed for the Seattle Times.

Cool!  Washington Governor Christine Gregoire has signed the Local Choice/Local Option bill into law, opening the door for municipalities in the state to pursue Clean Elections public financing programs for their elections. Since a 1992 ballot initiative banned public financing in the state, this bill is the first hurdle to clear in moving Clean Elections policy forward.  Already City Council members in Seattle are talking about reviving public financing options for their races.

Trent Lott is not alone in cashing in his Senate office chips for a seat at the lobbyist's high rollers table. As Joel Connelly of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes in this column on the other Washington, many a lawmaker has heard the siren song of power and profit margins calling them away from public duty and accountability.

An article in The Seattle Times on earmarks for defense spending and its correlation to campaign contributions received by Washington legislators has touched a nerve for readers and sparked this point/counterpoint in the letters to the editor section about the need to address this problem via full public financing of campaigns.

Your letters to the editor continue to be published in newspapers across the country, today I saw two more excellent submissions: one courtesty of Mark Hruby in Minnesota's St. Cloud Times, and one by Richard Rawlings in Washington state's The Olympian (fourth down). To keep up our efforts behing the Fair Elections Now Act we need to keep getting the word out, so thanks to all of you taking time to write your letters!

David Postman at The Seattle Times is reporting that Governor Christine Gregoire has proposed a public financing pilot project for statewide judicial elections modeled on the public financing systems in place in North Carolina, Arizona, and Maine.