Ed Borey, a Mukilteo resident and candidate for 21st District representative, thinks the business principles he has acquired in his life would serve him and the people of the district well in Olympia. 

Borey has been preparing for a role in politics for a long time, it seems. 

He studied government while getting his bachelor’s degree in Political Science and his first master’s degree in Public Administration. 

“This is the degree that city managers or those that want to work in executive positions within the government get,” Borey said. 

“My thesis was centered on building an earned value cost and schedule system to measure the progress and results of government programs.  The system was built and fully implemented by me.” 

Finishing that, Borey pursued a second master’s in Business Administration and decided on a career in business. 

Even his business career seemed to give him experience that would later be useful in politics. 

“My business career focused on working with distressed companies, establishing a new strategic direction for them and leading them to profitability,” Borey said. 

“I have done that as chairman, chief executive officer, chief operating officer, chief financial officer and various other executive positions in marketing, product development and manufacturing.  

“I have extensive global experience, living abroad several times and spending a significant portion of my 35-year career managing, traveling and working with foreign operations, global markets and international customers.  

“My primary experience is with global public companies, but I have worked with private startups as well.” 

And it’s just those experiences and education that make Borey want to enter public life. He sees things wrong in government, and he wants to right them. 

“I am running for office because we are spending beyond our means at the federal, state and local level,” Borey said. “Our level of spending has already lowered our standard of living, is putting our children’s future at risk, and is putting seniors on fixed incomes at risk.”

Borey has definite ideas on how to lower that level of spending, and feels his business experience is just what is needed to help change things in Olympia.
 

“I have a unique skill set that can contribute to restructuring state spending and reforming state government,” he said. 

“After all, it is what I have done my entire career in the private sector.  And I would like to contribute to a solution in Washington state.  

“The last thing any of us want is for our state government to be in the same shape as California.”

Borey said it would be an honor to represent the people of the 21st district and of Washington.

And Borey is quick to detail his plan, and explain just exactly what he will do if elected to Olympia.

“I would like to focus on attracting investment and jobs into our state,” Borey said.

“This takes two forms:  encouraging existing companies to increase their investment and jobs in Washington, and attracting investment and jobs from new companies to Washington. 

“In order to do that, we need to ensure our state is competitive with the other 49 states and D.C. as well as other countries.”

Being competitive means making it easier for companies to have a level playing field in this state.

“In building a business environment that is more competitive, we should have a market solution for workman’s compensation, reform unemployment insurance, reform our state regulatory system, and replace our B&O tax with a franchise tax such as the one in Texas,” Borey said.

Borey also feels the state needs to have a better way of doing business itself.

“We must be fiscally responsible,” Borey said. “Spend what we have, not what we don’t have.  To do that, we need to reform state government and restructure spending. 

“We need to adopt a priorities of government approach to determine the areas we are going to fund and adopt a pay-as-you-go statutory requirement to ensure birth-to-grave funding is earmarked for approved programs.

“We should not raise taxes but should reform our tax structure once we have reformed and restructured spending.”

Borey also thinks the educational system needs work and has specific ways to begin a transformation.

“Today, our education system serves the top third of our students pretty well, but there are issues with the bottom two-thirds of our students.” he said.

“Our dropout rates are at 30 percent, and students that graduate from high school often need remedial math and English when they enter community college.  We can do better than that. 

“I believe in a student voucher system that allows the students and their parents to decide on and fund the schools of their choice.

“We need to limit social promotion in schools.  We need to have mentoring programs in our middle and high schools.  And we need to strengthen our math, English and science curriculums.”

Borey knows that, in the end, funding programs is the hard part, and the people of the state need to determine what the priorities are.

“The people of Washington ultimately need to decide how much government they want, what they can afford and how they want to pay for it,” he said.

A political strategist and cunning operative, he is paid to get Republicans elected into the state House of Representatives where there’s been a shortage of GOP bodies the past couple years.

As the executive director of the House Republican Organizing Committee, Carns’ performance is judged almost solely on whether the caucus increases in size or not.

To put it nicely, it’s been a tough few years for him as Democrats multiplied in number and today hold 61 of 98 seats.

This year, with a tsunami of Republican victories forecast, Carns is confident his party will ride the wave back into the majority or come darn close.

He’s got roughly $700,000 in the caucus’ campaign kitty for helping candidates. How that money is spread around is what Carns and the leaders of the GOP brain trust are debating right now.

Should they pour dollars into trying to knock off Democrats who appear vulnerable because they received less than 50 percent of the vote in the primary? Or should they spend heavy to try to win seats where there’s no incumbent running?

For several Republican candidates in Snohomish County, what gets decided is crucial. They all are looking for a little juice from the caucus coffers and think it could make the difference between a narrow victory and painfully close defeat.

Here’s where Carns and his bosses may spend the most in this county.

1st District

The departure of Democratic Reps. Al O’Brien and Mark Ericks leaves two seats open and Republicans think they can pick up at least one.

Significant money should be coming the way of Heidi Munson, a staunch conservative with a business background who notched 50 percent against two Democrats in the primary. Dennis Richter will likely enjoy support though probably not as much. He came in second in a crowded field and is not building the kind of traction among Republican voters as Munson.

Democrats aren’t conceding the seats. Luis Moscoso and Derek Stanford, who are battling Munson and Richter respectively, are running strong campaigns. At this stage they’ve raised more money and knocked on more doors than their opponents. Each will get financial help from the party to help counter the GOP influence.

21st District

Though this district tilts Democrat, Republicans think they’ve got a chance to knock off Rep. Marko Liias, D-Edmonds. Liias’ liberal voting record and a not-too-distant bankruptcy make him susceptible to attack on various fronts, something Carns is all too glad to do. Republican Elizabeth Scott, a Tea Party-bred candidate, is a sturdy campaigner for whom the party could make a strong case though she may, on balance, be a bit too conservative for this electorate.

For the other seat, businessman Ed Borey is an intriguing candidate up against another liberal, Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, D-Lynnwood. Borey has outraised Scott and Munson, knocked on 15,000 doors and put up hundreds of signs yet he’s not getting as serious a look as those women. His latest ad may gain him attention; it tweaks Roberts for supporting legalization of marijuana.

44th District

No election cycle goes by without Republicans making at a run at Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish. And this year, the stars may be aligning for them.

Dunshee drew attention to himself when he didn’t top 50 percent in the primary against two unknown Republicans. When he applied to be the next state parks director — a job for which he’s no longer in the running — it incited talk about him getting burned out as a legislator.

Republicans think the venerable partisan is ripe for a fall in this political climate but know their candidate, Bob McCaughan, can’t do it alone. He entered the race at the last minute and until a couple weeks ago hadn’t raised but a few dimes for the general election.

Now he’s getting a little money from established Dunshee detractors and a lot of advice from Republican lawmakers like Rep. Mike Hope of Lake Stevens. That’s got a few Republicans wondering if this might be the party’s most memorable conquest of the year.

That would make it an unforgettable year for Carns.