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WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene took to the floor of the House of Representatives to honor the 43 lives lost 10 years before when a hillside collapsed near Oso and Darrington in Snohomish County.
“Karen Pszonka lost six members of her family, including her daughter, Katie, and grandsons Wyatt and Hunter,” DelBene said. “Three generations of her family were wiped out in less than two minutes, along with so many others.”
Noting the State Route 530/Oso landslide remains the deadliest in U.S. history, she urged Congress to renew federal landslide-preparedness laws that expire in September.
That’s a cause that means much to her. On Saturday morning, March 22, 2014, DelBene, in her second term, was at her Medina home when she first heard about the calamitous landslide in what was then the north end of her 1st Congressional District.
Leaders and first responders struggled through the first hours to understand the extent of the public damage and threat. When DelBene climbed on a helicopter with Gov. Jay Inslee, the devastation was hard to comprehend.
“It was massive. You couldn’t describe it to people,” she said Wednesday, after her House floor speech, a catch in her voice. “You had to see it to know how enormous it was. Devastation. And remember, there was a whole community that was gone.”
After a six-year effort, DelBene’s National Landslide Preparedness Act was signed into law in 2021. She’s reintroduced the bill with bipartisan support in both chambers. The law expands early warning systems, improves mapping technology and provides states with grants to improve preparedness, she noted.
Though DelBene was hoping to fly back to attend the SR 530 Slide Memorial opening and ceremony at 10 a.m. Friday, she had to stay in D.C. to keep the government running before that day’s deadline. About 90 minutes before the ceremony began, the House finally voted on the bipartisan agreement to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year. In the Republican-controlled House, Democrats provided most of the votes.
DelBene’s frustration with how Congress is running is palpable.
“The American people are frustrated with the extremism, dysfunction and chaos that they’ve seen from the Republican party. Their inability to govern,” she said. “Here we are trying to figure out how to fund part of the government that should have been funded long, long ago.”
That’s also a key reason why she sought appointment as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is devoted to recruiting and helping Democrats get elected to Congress nationally.
“One of the most important things we can do is make sure we have folks who are here to govern, who are here to protect our rights and our freedoms, to stand up for our democracy,” she said.
” … If we want to also move legislation and move us forward, we need people who are serious about governing serving in D.C.”
DelBene is serious about finding solutions. She is a leadership team member and former chair of the New Democrat Coalition, which describes itself as a center-left group comprising “nearly 100 pragmatic House democrats who work across the aisle and across the Capitol to advance innovative, inclusive and forward-looking policies.”
She followed fellow Washington U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer as coalition chair.
“She’s a terrific member and has a great combination of being a strategic, thoughtful policy wonk but also someone good at bringing people together to get things done,” said Kilmer, a Gig Harbor Democrat who is not running for re-election.
And DelBene’s competitive. Kilmer noted she is the member of Congress most likely to text during a Seahawks game, whether about a good or bad play.
“She may not give the flashy interview after the game,” Kilmer said. But: “The team is a lot more competitive and picks up a lot more yardage because of her.”
Flipping the House to Democratic control is high-stakes but possible. Currently, the DCCC calculates that four Republican seats need to be flipped.
DelBene likes the math, regardless of the confusion of polling at the presidential level.
She points to 17 Democratic “Red-to-Blue” candidates running for election around the country whom the DCCC deems as strong contenders to flip an R seat into the D column. Most are in California and New York, but one is in Oregon’s 5th District. A Democratic state representative is challenging the anti-abortion Republican incumbent.
In the money race, the DCCC is leading. Axios reported that, at the end of February, the DCCC had raised $59.2 million to spend on House races, which was $14 million more than its counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee.
If DelBene is coming at this campaign effort from the middle as she does in many other ways, that could bode well for the country, providing voters with choices between the extreme and the less so.
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