A necessary first step...

...in the campaign to secure equal rights for gay and lesbian Washingtonians has damn little to do with enlisting more corporate support and a lot to do with the composition of the State Senate. In fact, amid all the brouhaha about Microsoft's off again, on again support for equal rights legislation in Washington State, not really a surprising development to those familiar with the company's traditional political ineptitude, it seems to have escaped notice that the Microsoft position on the legislation seems to have had exactly no effect on its failure to pass for the umpteenth time. Nor did their previous support give the bill a legislative majority. And regardless of where they're at on it next session, they likely won't have any particular impact then.

We were simply short of the votes we needed in the Washington State Senate, because the Democratic majority simply isn't big enough to withstand impact of conservative Democrats like Senator Jim Hargrove, or of fraudulent Democrats like Tim Sheldon, who is a Democrat only by virtue of stealing our Party's ballot line in some of the elections he runs in.

That's why the most encouraging development for the passage of equal rights legislation in Washington isn't Microsoft's red-faced return to the fold, but the State Party's apparent new resolve to defend our ballot line against Tim Sheldon. The Stranger reports that...

Motivated by the fact that Sheldon regularly voted with the Republicans last session (no on stronger car-emission standards, no on stem-cell research, no on anti-discrimination laws to protect gays), State Democratic Party Chair Paul Berendt has now decided to make the complaint against Sheldon--which could remove Sheldon from office--a priority.

"This is a front-burner issue," Berendt says. The complaint, filed by Seattle Democratic busybody David Coffman last week, isn't about Sheldon's votes; instead, it protests that Sheldon--who was elected to the Mason County Commission in 2004--is violating state rules by holding two elected offices at once.

That's right, in addition to his State Senate seat, Sheldon's also a County Commissioner. When he ran for the County office, which is partisan, though, it wasn't as a Democrat, but as an independent.

Runs independent. Votes Republican. Some Democrat.

Earlier this year I noted that Democrats in Olympia ought to shun Sheldon because he broke with the Caucus on sustaining the legal election of Governor Gregoire. That, I felt, was the equivalent of voting for Republican leadership in the Senate - an unforgivable breach of partisan obligation. My own views on mandatory Party loyalty are pretty forgiving, but that one seemed to cross a pretty broad and bright line.

Failing his removal for violating the law which seeks to avoid conflicts of interest by forbidding multiple offices, every available resource should be made available to recruit, finance and elect a Democratic candidate over Sheldon in his next primary. It's not unlikely that the kind of Democrat that will be needed will be unsatisfactory to many of the Seattle liberals who provide the State Party with a lot of its financial punch. Mason County ain't Capitol Hill. I'm not even sure we can get a vote for G/L/B/T rights out of there. Doesn't matter. Chairman Berendt deserves full support in his efforts to put a Democrat - any Democrat - in that seat.

I can't - I won't allow myself to - imagine that we can do worse than Tim Sheldon.