Category: Monthly Meetings

Please join ERC at the Red Lion Bellevue at 6PM on June 4 when our topic will be Environmentalism and Socialism: Harmful to the Environment, Economy and Liberty. We’ll be pleased to welcome as speakers Todd Myers and Luis Beresi. 

Todd Myers is the Director of the Center for the Environment at Washington Policy Center. He is one of the nation’s leading experts on free-market environmental policy. Todd is the author of multiple studies, articles and books including: Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism Is Harming the Environment.  He was a Wall Street Journal Expert Panelist for energy and the environment. Todd’s in-depth research on the failure of the state’s 2005 “green” building mandate continues to receive national attention. He formerly served on the executive team at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, and was Director of Public Relations for the Seattle SuperSonics and Director of Public Affairs for the Seattle Mariners. Todd holds a Master’s degree from the University of Washington.

Luis Berbesi, the Chair of the 32nd LD, has over 20 years of engineering experience in technology and cyber security which have taught him persistence, business acumen, and the notion that he can overcome any challenge. Luis is a frequent advocate at both the Washington State legislature in Olympia and King County, speaking against proposed legislation that fails to serve the best interests of Shoreline residents. He focuses on issues over party lines, and advocates for budgetary actions that prioritize primary services over tax increases. Luis originally hails from Venezuela where he witnessed the quick decline of a country that chose the path of socialism, and advocates against it in his new home country. He sees this as only achievable through the preservation of the inherent human rights enshrined in the Constitution of the United States.

Eastside Republican Club’s monthly meetings are held at Red Lion Hotel Bellevue; click here for location information and directions. Monthly meetings cost $20 per person and include a light buffet. Food and networking are at 6:00PM, and the program begins at 6:30PM. Please RSVP online if you plan to attend the upcoming meeting.

Please join ERC at the Red Lion Bellevue at 6PM on May 7 when our speaker will be former State Senator Mark Miloscia speaking on Protecting Human Life. In addition to hearing from Mark, we will also hear the moving story of a woman who survived an abortion. Please invite your friends from church and prayer groups in addition to your fellow Republicans! 

Mark Miloscia serves as executive director of Family Policy Institute of Washington, a state-wide Christian policy and advocacy organization focusing on uniting Christians on Life, Family, Marriage, Parental Rights, Religious Freedom, and Christian Social Justice.

Mark served in the Washington State Senate as a Republican from 2014-2018 after serving as a State Representative for seven terms as a Democrat from 1999-2013. He is known as both a pro-life leader and in the efforts to combat homelessness and drug addiction. He served on the National Board of Examiners for the U.S. Department of Commerce Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, where he has assessed the performance of many organizations. He has worked as a lobbyist for the Washington State Catholic Conference, as a substitute school teacher in the Federal Way School District and Catholic Archdiocese, as a Director for Goodwill Industries, and as the Executive Director of Federal Way Youth and Family Services. Mark also previously served as an elected commissioner for the Lakehaven Utility District.

Mark served as an Air Force officer and a B-52 pilot and contract manager for 10 years. He has a BS in Engineering from the Air Force Academy, an MA in Clinical Psychology from Chapman University, and an MBA from the University of North Dakota. Mark and his wife Meschell have been married for 38 years and have three children and eight grandchildren.

Eastside Republican Club’s monthly meetings are held at Red Lion Hotel Bellevue; click here for location information and directions. Monthly meetings cost $20 per person and include a light buffet. Food and networking are at 6:00PM, and the program begins at 6:30PM. Please RSVP online if you plan to attend the upcoming meeting.

Please join ERC at the Red Lion Bellevue at 6PM on April 2 when our speakers will be Tim Eyman and Glen Morgan, speaking on “Fearless Activism“.

Tim Eyman is best known for sponsoring many conservative ballot initiatives in Washington, including I-695 (“$30 Car Tabs”), I-747 (1% limit on property tax levy increases), I-18 (reducing the King County Council from 13 members to 9), I-900 (government performance audits), I-960 (2/3rd legislative vote to raise taxes), and many others. This year he’s promoting Initiative 973, “Bring Back Our $30 Car Tabs”, which would repeal the onerous Sound Transit car tab tax among others, and Referendum 80, “Give Them Nothing”, which would repeal recent pay raises for state legislators and statewide elected officials. He has stood strong in the face of legal persecution by the Washington State Attorney General, who is demanding he be permanently banned from political activity in Washington. His web site is http://www.permanentoffense.com/. 

Glen Morgan is Executive Director of the Citizens Alliance for Property Rights. He was the Grassroots Director and the Property Rights Director at Freedom Foundation from 2011 until 2015. He enjoys creating videos documenting Big Government’s abuses of citizens, particularly on property rights issues. He frequently testifies on property rights issues at local government hearings and at the Washington State Legislature.  He has filed over 430 campaign finance complaints with the Public Disclosure Commission (from late 2016-2019) which have resulted in over 50 lawsuits against state legislators, county Democratic Party committees, labor unions,  judges, and other politicians who violated Washington’s campaign finance laws. His web site is http://www.wethegoverned.com/. 

Some activists write letters to the editor. Groups such as  the American Coalition for Equality (ACE) hold state politicians accountable. Organizations such as Family Policy Institute of Washington (FPIW) and Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR) alert citizens to bills that affect their families and candidates that support property rights.

Eastside Republican Club’s monthly meetings are held at Red Lion Hotel Bellevue; click here for location information and directions. Monthly meetings cost $20 per person and include a light buffet. Food and networking are at 6:00PM, and the program begins at 6:30PM. Please RSVP online if you plan to attend the upcoming meeting.

Please join ERC at the Red Lion Bellevue at 6PM on March 5 when our speaker will be Christopher Rufo.  A Discovery Institute Research Fellow, filmmaker, and writer focused on cities, inequality, and social capital, Christopher has directed four documentaries for PBS — “Roughing It”, “Diamond in the Dunes”, “Age of Champions”, and “America Lost”. “Age of Champions” grossed $1.5 million and reached more than 3 million viewers on PBS, iTunes, Amazon, and Netflix.  He’s appeared on NPR, CNN, ABC, CBS, HLN, and FOX News, and his writing has appeared in National Review, The Federalist, Seattle Times, Crosscut, Puget Sound Business Journal, Filmmaker, and Indiewire.

Christopher is the Executive Director of the Documentary Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to producing and distributing documentaries about the American experience. His most recent film, “America Lost”, tells the story of families struggling for survival in three forgotten American cities.

Christopher is active in Washington State public policy, both as a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the City of Seattle’s income tax and as a board member for the Washington Policy Center Young Professionals. In September 2018 he announced his intention to challenge Mike O’Brien for a seat on the Seattle city council, but withdrew his candidacy in December after he and his family were subjected to extreme harassment and hatred by progressive activists.

Christopher graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and lives in Seattle with his wife and two children.

Here are links to Christopher Rufo’s article in the City Journal  and to a WPC podcast interview. 

Eastside Republican Club’s monthly meetings are held at Red Lion Hotel Bellevue; click here for location information and directions. Monthly meetings cost $20 per person and include a light buffet. Food and networking are at 6:00PM, and the program begins at 6:30PM. Please RSVP online if you plan to attend the upcoming meeting.

Late Breaking Change!

Please join ERC at the Red Lion Bellevue at 6PM on February 5 to watch President Donald Trump deliver the State of the Union Address from the House chamber in Washington DC. We’ll have a light dinner, watch the address on a big-screen TV, and share our thoughts and comments with each other afterward. Doors will open at 5:30PM so everyone can arrive early and get settled in for the address.

Christopher Rufo, who had been scheduled to speak to us on February 5, has graciously agreed to accommodate the change in date for the State of the Union address and will instead be with us March 5.

Happy Lunar New Year to all our Asian friends!

Jun Tang, from the 1st Legislative District, is a principled conservative who had the great honor of speaking at Donald Trump’s rally in Everett in 2016.  He will speak on how people of Chinese descent support conservative principles and want to work with other Americans to make our state and county a better place. Click Here to read Jun Tang’s remarks.

Eastside Republican Club’s monthly meetings are held at Red Lion Hotel Bellevue; click here for location information and directions. Monthly meetings cost $20 per person and include a light buffet. Food and networking are at 5:30PM (special start time for this month), and the program begins at 6:00PM. Please RSVP online if you plan to attend the upcoming meeting.

Our speaker for the October 2nd meeting with be Gary Smith, Executive Director of the Redmond-based Independent Business Association. IBA is the largest broad-based small business organization based in Washington State, helping over 4200 small business owners. IBA publishes the monthly Small Business Report sent to IBA members across Washington State as well as a number of special reports on specific issues affecting small businesses.

Gary is an expert on small businesses and the regulations with which they are burdened.  He has lobbied on behalf of small businesses for over 45 years.  On a national level, he attended the 1980 White House Conference on Small Business and attended the President’s signing of the Regulatory Flexibility Act for Small Businesses.  In Washington State, he has been an expert on the Governor’s state Small Business Conference for government regulations and convinced Governor Gregoire to issue an Executive Order to stop imposing new regulations on small businesses in 2010.  Gary has been a speaker on government regulations for Washington Policy Center’s Small Business Issues conference.  He has an outstanding show-and-tell on the regulations small businesses in Washington State must comply with.

At the October meeting, we will also receive campaign updates from several Republican legislative candidates.

Eastside Republican Club’s monthly meetings are held at Red Lion Hotel Bellevue; click here for location information and directions. Monthly meetings cost $20 per person and include a light buffet. Food and networking are at 6:00PM, and the program begins at 6:30PM. Please RSVP online if you plan to attend the upcoming meeting.

When a free and prosperous nation has citizens voting for socialists, tearing down historical monuments, and violently disrupting free speech, then something is broken.

Please join us on September 4 when the topic will be “Fixing a Broken Education System.” The discussion will focus on school choice, restoring parental control, the dangerous school-to-work pipeline, and returning to an accurate, knowledge-based curriculum designed to prepare children to be self-governing citizens in a free and sovereign nation.

Liv Finne is the Director of the Center for Education at Washington Policy Center. Prior to that position she served as an adjunct scholar focusing on education policy issues, authoring in-depth studies including An Overview of Public School Funding in Washington and Early Learning Proposals in Washington State. She is the author of Washington Policy Center’s Education Reform Plan: Eight Practical Ways to Improve Public Schools, Learning Online: An Assessment of Online Public Education Programs, Review of Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) Programs for Child Care Services, and more.

Vicki Alger is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, and author of the book Failure: The Federal “Misedukation” of America’s Children. She holds Senior Fellowships at the Fraser Institute, headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the Independent Women’s Forum in Washington, D.C. Alger is also President and CEO of Vicki Murray & Associates LLC in Scottsdale, Arizona. She served on President-elect Trump’s Transition Agency Review team for the U.S. Department of Education.

Meeting Materials

This handout provides lots of ideas how you can protect your children and grandchildren from indoctrination, data collection, invasive surveys, group-think and more.

The Women of Washington Focus Group on Education has compiled this summary of some of the challenges parents face when protecting their children (data collection, personalized learning, socialized learning, school-to-work etc.)

Freedom Center has a published an excellent brochure called Leftist Indoctrination in our K-12 Public Schools. Give copies to friends and family. Send to people and agencies responsible for education (school superintendents, board members and teachers). Provide copies to legislators.

Eastside Republican Club’s monthly meetings are held at Red Lion Hotel Bellevue; click here for location information and directions. Monthly meetings cost $20 per person and include a light buffet. Food and networking are at 6:00PM, and the program begins at 6:30PM. Please RSVP online if you plan to attend the upcoming meeting.

Thanks to the more than 90 people who joined us at the ERC Picnic on July 10 and the sell-out crowd for the showing of “Death of a Nation” on July 31! We had a great time and hope you did, too. If you missed our special preview showing of the movie, it opens in theaters nationwide on Friday!

Please join us on September 4 when the topic will be “Fixing a Broken Education System.” Liv Finne, Director of the Center for Education at Washington Policy Center, will be joined by several other speakers. The discussion will focus on school choice, restoring parental control, the dangerous school-to-work pipeline and returning to an accurate, knowledge-based curriculum designed to prepare children to be self-governing citizens in a free and sovereign nation.

Public-sector unions use compulsory dues to elect Democrat candidates, support liberal causes, and bargain for salaries, pensions and accommodations not available to most of the taxpayers who are forced to pay for them.

The Supreme Court is about to rule on the Janus v. AFSCME case; see the article here for details. A positive verdict in the case will restore the First Amendment freedoms of those currently forced to join public-sector unions, and could potentially reduce the amount of money that flows to liberal candidates and causes. At our meeting, Caleb Jon Vandenbos of Freedom Foundation will discuss the upcoming decision and implications of the Janus case.

Also at our June meeting, Caleb Heimlich, recently-elected Chair of the Washington State Republican Party, will discuss the very important 2018 election.

Note: We will have our book exchange at the meeting (cash or check only for purchases). Thanks to all who have donated! Proceeds will purchase school supplies for children from disadvantaged communities. This will also be the final meeting to bring unused toiletry and hygiene items for donation to YouthCare which supports homeless teens.

Eastside Republican Club’s monthly meetings are held at Red Lion Hotel Bellevue; click here for location information and directions. Monthly meetings cost $20 per person and include a light buffet. Food and networking are at 6:00PM, and the program begins at 6:30PM. Please RSVP online if you plan to attend the upcoming meeting.