OLYMPIA, Wash., June 3, 2014—America’s voice of small business made its endorsement today of 48 Washington state legislators seeking re-election and of one representative running for a state senate seat.
“These are a different group of 49ers, not the ones challenging our Seahawks, but the ones blocking and tackling the all-too-frequent rushes at small-business solvency right here on the Main Streets of Washington state,” said Patrick Connor, Washington state director for the National Federation of Independent Business. “Unfortunately, our Legislature does not have a big political middle where listening and understanding are sincerely sought and compromise crafted. Instead, we have an extreme end that either willfully or ignorantly fails to understand that small businesses are not smaller versions of bigger business. They have different difficulties in keeping their doors open, and adding a new or higher tax or another regulation pushes those doors closer to permanently shutting for business. The 49 lawmakers we’ve endorsed today have shown they value small business’ significant contribution in employing half of all working Washingtonians and generating almost every new job.”
The Washington SAFE Trust (Save America’s Free Enterprise) of the National Federation of Independent Business, which has 8,250 small business members in the state, based its endorsement on a legislator’s having an 80 percent or better pro-small-business voting record for their most recent term in office. A list of the 49 legislators is available here, and a brief description of the 2013-14 bills or amendments and how each lawmaker voted on them can be found by clicking here.
A special media kit for reporters and editors in need of quick information about small business and NFIB can be found here. It contains one page of bulleted information on small-business size, the power of the small-business vote and other topics.
###
For more than 70 years, the National Federation of Independent Business has been the Voice of Small Business, taking the message from Main Street to the halls of Congress and all 50 state legislatures. NFIB annually surveys its members on state and federal issues vital to their survival as America’s economic engine and biggest creator of jobs. NFIB’s educational mission is to remind policymakers that small businesses are not smaller versions of bigger businesses; they have very different challenges and priorities.
National Federation of Independent Business/Washington
711 Capitol Way South, Suite 505
Olympia, WA 98501
Twitter: @NFIB_WA
