One of the campaign organizations set up to oppose the "Community Bill of Rights" mentioned in this morning's newspaper report has some familiar names.

Jobs & Opportunities Benefiting Spokane has hired Polis Political Services of Olympia and Brian Murray as political consultants.

Murray may be more familiar to Spokane residents. He was a senior aide to Jim West when West was in the state Senate, and was appointed to the seat when West was elected mayor of Spokane in 2003, finishing slightly ahead in the voting by precinct committee officers and getting the nod from Spokane County commisioners. Murray ran for the seat in 2004, but lost in the primary to Brad Benson, the state Representative who finished second in the precinct committee officer voting. Murray and another former West aide, Cody George, started Vintage Hill winery two years ago. 

Although based in Olympia, Stan Shore of Polis has been involved in Spokane area politics for many years. He, too, had ties to West and several of the Spokane Republican's legislative campaigns. He was involved  in 2000 in a last-minute attack against John Powers, part of an effort from a web of third party committees set up by Metropolitan Mortgage that led to a $10,000 PDC fine. A master of last-minute campaign mailers, he's drawn praise from allies and screams from opponents in several other city and legislative races. Because of his long-time ties to West, he helped with West's unsuccessful fight against recall in 2005, although he worked on that one for free.

Also receiving money from JOBS is Moore Information out of Portland, which has a long history of polling in Washington state, mostly but not exclusively for Republican clients. 

---

---