While the world of partisan politics grown increasingly nastier on the national stage, U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert is finding friends across the aisle.
That was one of the tidbits offered when Reichert – whose Eighth Congressional District includes Bonney Lake and Sumner – took time last week for a telephone interview with The Courier-Herald.
“At my level it’s gotten better,” said the former King County Sheriff who is now a five-year veteran of Washington, D.C., politics. “I have a lot of Democratic friends.”
To highlight his centrist approach, the Republican Reichert tells of voting for a Democratic-sponsored bill; he directed his staff to do a quick bit of research and, after finding the measure had broad support, he went against the GOP tide and supported the bill.
Reichert also was one of 15 Republican members from the U.S. House of Representatives who helped repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on openly gay members of the U.S. military.
“When I push ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ I want to feel like I’ve collected all the facts,” Reichert said.
The political hostility viewed by the American people, he said, comes primarily from the top.
“The rhetoric is so divisive and it’s gotten worse,” Reichert said. “Leadership on both sides demonize each other.”
The run-up to the presidential election is only making things worse in his view. As campaign season plows ahead, “the nastiness gets nastier,” he said.
Reichert shows his frustration by comparing Congress to a room of bickering children. Members of Congress are elected, and paid, to get things done and not assign blame, he said.
Too often, he concluded, political leaders put politics first and reaching solutions second.
When it comes to gays in the military, Reichert is supportive.
“As a society, we have progressed to where people are sharing that information through the entire community,” he said. “If they want to serve, government shouldn’t keep them out of the military.”
Reichert takes that stance despite some personal views on the broader topic of gay rights.
“I don’t agree with the lifestyle personally,” he said, noting his belief that marriage should be defined as a union between one man and one woman.
“But I’m not God, I’m not the judge,” he said.
