The April 16 story “GOP-led motion to consider workers’ comp bill fails,” included a subheadline, “Rep. Paul Harris takes swipe at newly appointed Rep. Sharon Wylie.” He remarked “it only took her one day to be swallowed by her party leaders,” referring to Wylie’s vote on the bill. That statement caused me to wonder about Harris’ voting records, and how it tallies with his party loyalties.
Out of 630 votes cast by Harris (http://washingtonvotes.org.), Harris voted against the majority of his own party members exactly 33 times. Two of the 33 had an equal number of Republicans voting against and for their party. Of the remaining 31 votes, almost all were within a 10 percent spread of the middle number of Republican votes. In other words, 45 to 55 percent of Republicans also voted for or against those 31 bills.
In only six votes out of 630 did Harris stand against his party in a group of less than 25 percent of all Republican legislators, and not one of the six votes was on his first day at the Legislature.
Once again Harris shows his standard for the performance of others to be very different than the standard he uses for himself.
