Overstreet not running

As I’ve blogged on occasion, one of our representatives to the Washington state legislature in Olympia, Jason Overstreet, is not among my favorite politicians. Go here for one reason why. Recently Underroad surprised us all by announcing that he would not run for re-election. There’s the usual scuttlebutt about why, with some local pol-watchers assuming it’s because he felt he wasn’t able to make any headway with his agenda and others, perhaps more realistic, concluding that his abysmal record made him unelectable. In his two terms he did, indeed, carve out new ways to be “abysmal.” Not one single piece of legislation he offered or sponsored ever made it out of committee. Now that’s a record that can only be tied.

In fact, his reputation was so bad that when I was working with a local government agency to develop a minor “text amendment” (i.e., a simple rewording of a clause in the state’s code) I suggested that we should ask all of our local representatives to sponsor it. The agency’s lobbyist cringed at this. “Well, we can approach the others, but not Overstreet.” “Why not?” I asked. “Because,” he said, “as I learned early on, if Jason sponsors a bill it is functionally equivalent to having it backed by Kim Jong Un. No one will consider anything he sponsors.”

But all this speculation aside, the deep question is why did he really decide not to run? We’re all tired of the “want to spend more time with my family” gambit but, guess what. That’s exactly what we got. Only we got it in a manner that was classically Overstreet — and it made my blood run cold. Here is the first sentence in his statement:

“It’s time for me to spend more focused time with my growing family, raising them in the fear and admonition of The Lord ….”

Could someone please call Family Services.