By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Evergreen State voters have an interesting and somewhat unusual situation on their hands as the Tuesday, Aug. 6 state primary election, with at least three former county sheriffs on the ballot, one running to become the state’s next governor and two others vying for positions in the legislature.
All three are running as Republicans.
The highest-profile of this trio is former King County Sheriff—and former seven-term Congressman—Dave Reichert, considered the front-running Republican in a race to wrestle the Governor’s office from four decades of Democrat control. He is running hard against state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, considered by many to be a candidate with all the extreme left positions of current Gov. Jay Inslee, including a history of gun control.
Democrat Ferguson has about twice the money in his campaign fund as any other candidate, but that could narrow following the Aug. 6 primary narrows the field to a single challenger.
Reichert has statewide name recognition, he was well-respected in Democrat-dominated King County (Seattle is the county seat), and he managed to be re-elected to seven terms in the U.S. House. He’s also credited with bringing the notorious Green River Killer to justice.
It could be a race with national implications, but it is not the only case of a former county sheriff seeking political office in Washington.
Over in Eastern Washington, former Chelan County Sheriff Brian Burnett, who retired in January 2023 after losing a re-election bid in 2022, is now running for the state House seat in District 12, according to the Wenatchee World. He currently is the director of law enforcement services for Seattle’s Finest Security and Traffic Control, a private company.
In a telephone interview with TGM, Burnett was in law enforcement for 25 years. He was elected sheriff first in 2010 and served three terms.
His legislative district is an odd one, stretching from western to eastern Washington, making his race similar to Reichert’s congressional experience. Reichert’s congressional district also stretches from eastern King County to Chelan and Kittitas counties, making it one of the most diverse in the state with a strong mix of Democrat and Republican voters.
The third ex-sheriff now running is John Snaza, former top lawman in Thurston County. He lost his bid for re-election in 2022 and is now running to replace departing Rep. J.T. Wilcox, the former Republican House leader.
Snaza, according to the Centralia Chronicle, is running for a spot in the Second Legislative District. He was also first elected sheriff in 2010, and has the distinction of serving in that position while his twin brother, Rob, served as sheriff in neighboring Lewis County. His platform focuses largely on public safety.
The common denominator among all three former lawmen is a professed devotion to public service. Reichert, for example, had retired from politics but was drawn back in because of the state’ plummet to dead last in the per capita number of officers of any state in the country.
Ferguson, now offering a plan to hire more police officers, may have a recruiting problem, considering his history of prosecuting police under a state police accountability law. His office unsuccessfully prosecuted retiring Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer in a racially-charged incident, and then prosecuted three Tacoma police officers in another racially-charged case involving the death of a man named Manuel “Manny” Ellis. He also lost that case when a jury acquitted the officers last year. Seattle radio personality Jason Rantz accused Ferguson of mounting “a relentless crusade against cops, driven by transparently political motives,” at MyNorthwest.com.
Evergreen State gun owners know Ferguson as the man who pushed for legislation banning so-called “assault weapons” and “large capacity magazines.”
