July 24, 2008

9^th District lawmakers get small

businesses’ thumbs up

The representative group for Washington’s largest employer and biggest job-generator recently gave its endorsements to Senator Mark Schoesler and Representatives Steve Hailey (Position 1) and Joe Schmick (Position 2) for re-election to their 9^th Legislative District seats.

The 9^th District of the Washington Legislature includes parts of Adams, Asotin, Franklin, Garfield, Spokane and Whitman Counties, and the principal cities of Cheney, Clarkston, Colfax, Connell, Othello, Pullman and Ritzville.

In making endorsements, the National Federation of Independent Business Washington SAFE Trust, the political-action committee of NFIB/Washington, the state’s largest small-business advocacy organization, praised all three lawmakers for their pro-small-business voting records.

The endorsements were based on their support or opposition to 15 bills in the 2007 and 2008 sessions of the Legislature that were important to small business. The bills can be viewed at http://www.nfib.com/page/homeWA.html.

Legislative incumbents with an 85 percent or better pro-small-business voting record received automatic endorsements from the NFIB/Washington SAFE Trust.

The political endorsement of small business is no small matter. According to a survey conducted for NFIB on and after Super Tuesday this year, NFIB’s own polling of its members and prior surveys:

• Small business owners comprise 15 percent of all registered voters in the U.S.; by comparison, union voters make up 11.9 percent. When small business employees are added, the small business voting bloc swells to 43 percent.

• The most common public affairs and political activities in which small employers engage include initiating discussions with employees regarding the impact of a policy issue on the firm.

• Voters prefer candidates supported by small business by a margin of 3 to 1 over those supported by organized labor (Winston Group).

• Seventy-five percent trust small-business owners more than doctors, 66 percent, or lawyers, 25 percent (USA Today/CNN/Gallup).

• Sixty-eight percent say small-business owners are more honest than labor unions, seven percent; the federal government, three percent; or big business, three percent (Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates).