Scene from Muri’s 2010 congressional campaign as he appeared at a tea party rally at the Capitol.
OLYMPIA, May 31.—Republicans rushed to replace the late Sen. Mike Carrell Thursday night at a hastily called meeting of precinct committee officers from the 28th Legislative District. Top pick for the Tacoma-area Republicans is former county councilman Dick Muri, but recently elected state Rep. Steve O’Ban, R-University Place, is running a close second.
Republicans are in a scramble to replace Carrell, who died Wednesday morning after a session-long struggle with a pre-leukemic condition. Carrell’s death has left the Senate in a 24-24 tie, as the 25-member Majority Coalition Caucus is now down one vote. The Senate Democratic Caucus, with its 24 members, is now even-up. And given the fact that the majority coalition was born this session amid a power struggle that left Democrats fuming, suspicious Rs fear frustrated Ds might attempt a restoration. In any tie vote, Lt. Gov. Brad Owen would cast the tiebreaker.
The final decision is up to the Pierce County Council, which will select from the list of three candidates named by the party Thursday night. Exactly when that meeting will be held is a matter of question: While there is some speculation that the council cannot act until June 11 because of advance-notice requirements, some hope that the decision will be moved up to its meeting on June 4.
At Thursday night’s meeting, precinct committee officers from the suburban Tacoma district met at Pierce County Republican headquarters in Tacoma and demonstrated a clear preference for Muri and O’Ban. Muri won 21 votes and O’Ban picked up 15. On the first go-round, there were no votes for a third-place finisher, but in a runoff election, the precinct committee officers named University Place councilman Javier Figueroa. The decision was immediately ratified by the Pierce County Republican Central Committee and sent on to the Pierce County Republican Central Committee.
Dick Muri on the campaign trail in 2012.
Muri, 59, is a two-time candidate for Congress and is best known outside of Pierce County as the Republican candidate for the 10th District congressional seat won by Democrat Denny Heck in the last election. He is a nine-year veteran of the Pierce County Council. His district included much of the same territory covered by the 28th Legislative District – Lakewood, Parkland, DuPont and Joint Base Lewis McChord. Muri told Washington State Wire Thursday night that he wants to “carry on the kind of legacy Mike Carrell established, in that he was definitely for the little guy. Mike fought the bureaucracy for the little guy; he knew that the cost of government is eventually passed on to the consumer, and he worked hard to make sure that we have an efficient and effective government.”
State Rep. Steve O’Ban, R-University Place.
The contest certainly isn’t over. Though Muri is the top pick of Republican partisans, the Pierce County Council is under no obligation to pick him. O’Ban’s effort may have been stymied to a degree by the fact that he was not present at the meeting: Carrell’s death came as he was traveling across country by car after attending his son’s graduation at the West Point military academy. He spoke by phone from South Dakota, as a cell phone was held up to a microphone. O’Ban’s supporters distributed a letter at the meeting from Carrell’s wife Charlotte, indicating that O’Ban was Carrell’s first choice as a successor.
Muri noted that the county council normally assents to the top party pick in an appointment process, but not always. Back in 2003, when Muri was up for a vacancy on the council, he was the top pick of the precinct committee officers, but the council went with the third-place choice instead. He ran in that year’s election and won by 19 points. Whoever gets Carrell’s seat will have considerably longer to prove himself in the job, however, as Carrell’s death came after Washington state’s filing week for 2013, thus removing the decision to the 2014 ballot.
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