SPOKANE — Washington Republicans gathered at a state convention this week to wrangle over endorsements in key races in a move party leaders touted as a chance to unify on top candidates early in a big election year.
But in Washington’s marquee gubernatorial race, that plan quickly went off the rails in a chorus of boos and backbiting — leading the party’s highest polling and best known contender, former congressman and King County Sheriff Dave Reichert, to disavow the endorsement process as “deceitful and dishonest.”
The chaos erupted at the Spokane Convention Center on Friday after state GOP officials announced they’d disqualified Semi Bird, the former Richland School Board member, from an endorsement in the gubernatorial race because he “was not forthcoming” in the party’s candidate-vetting process.
As a result, they said, the party had decided to take the much anticipated gubernatorial endorsement off the table, giving it to neither Reichert nor Bird.
About 1,800 delegates — many of them waving Bird signs — reacted with immediate outrage after officials cited “new information” that had come to light, referring to a Seattle Times report on Bird’s 1993 conviction on a federal misdemeanor charge of bank larceny for falsifying a credit application.
As the announcement was made, Bird, seated in the front of the convention hall, said: “This is not 1960!”
His supporters, clearly the majority of delegates, quickly rebuked the ruling and voted to reverse the decision, restoring Bird’s eligibility for the endorsement vote, which is scheduled for Saturday.
“Folks rose up and said, no, you will not remove a person from the ballot. You will not usurp our voice or supersede our presence. We are here to make sure our voices are heard and our votes are counted,” Bird said, speaking with a cluster of reporters and supporters.
Reichert, who did not show up to the convention Friday, quickly announced he was withdrawing from the chaotic GOP endorsement process.
In an interview, he blasted the process as a sideshow and a waste of his time.
Reichert said Bird had been disqualified “for just reasons” from an endorsement, but Republican leaders fearing blowback had then decided to nix the vote for both candidates.
“In my opinion, it was a broken system and a deceitful system. As a cop … I have no patience for that kind of crap. I made the decision to disengage myself from this chaotic mess,” he said.
By Friday afternoon, a row of Reichert yard signs outside the convention center was taken down, leaving only Bird signs.
Reichert said Bird and his supporters have engaged in “dishonest spin from day one” and that Bird “has a long history of activity” that would be considered disqualifying.
In addition to the 1993 conviction, which Bird has said he accepted full responsibility for, Reichert supporters and other critics have publicized other problems, including an arrest for felony theft in 1996 after failing to turn in a sheriff-issued gun after leaving a law-enforcement job. The charge was later dismissed after the gun was found and returned.
Bird has decried the digging up of his past problems — a predictable development in a high-stakes political race — as character assassination driven by big-money donors and establishment political consultants.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you,” he said.
Functionally, the state party endorsement expected on Saturday could help Bird with some party financial and logistical backing, but Reichert has vowed to soldier on to the Aug. 6 primary, in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will move on to the November general election.
State Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh declined to comment immediately after the endorsement fight. He kept walking when asked by a reporter for any reaction or analysis of the impact of the convention dispute.
“It’s a beautiful day here in Spokane,” he said.
The convention on Friday also included speeches by Republican candidates seeking endorsements in an array of statewide races. The gubernatorial candidates were scheduled to speak, but that plan was called off amid the disqualification fight.
In another signal of the direction the GOP is taking, many in the viscerally pro-Donald Trump crowd reacted negatively to former U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, who is running for state public lands commissioner.
Herrera Beutler was greeted by a mix of applause, loud boos and cries of “RINO” — the result of lingering anger among many Republicans for her vote to impeach Trump over his stoking of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. As a result, she lost her bid for reelection in 2022.
“Simmer down, simmer down,” she told the booing convention crowd, before launching into a speech about the need to better manage state forests.
In an interview, Herrera Beutler said she’s faced tough crowds before and has no regrets about her impeachment vote or time in Congress.
“I feel like to live life looking backward with regret is a sad way to live your life,” she said.
Later Friday afternoon, Republican delegates in the 4th Congressional District also punished U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, voting to endorse Jerrod Sessler, a conservative businessman and Trump-endorsed challenger.
Like Herrera Beutler, Newhouse was among the 10 House Republicans who joined Democrats in voting to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 attacks. He narrowly won reelection in 2022 after facing a bevy of pro-Trump challengers who split the primary vote.
While convention delegates are expected to endorse Bird on Saturday, Reichert is open to talking to the party about supporting him later in the contest. But he’ll focus in the meantime on defeating his likely Democratic rival, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, in November.
“What I do is the right thing, and the right thing is to move forward,” he said. “They’ve got my phone number.”
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