King County Councilman Pete von Reichbauer expects the movement he launched in King County to take partisanship out of local government “will spread to other counties.”

Von Reichbauer said that after overwhelming voter approval of King County Charter Amendment Number 8 from Tuesday’s general election, he intended to “contact local county officials and interested citizens throughout the region to offer assistance in their counties to make local government non-partisan. This is a movement that has legs,” von Reichbauer said.

“On Sunday we turned the clock back for daylight savings. And today King County voters turned the political clock forward to open-up more doors to county government,” von Reichbauer said. “There are not Democratic potholes or Republican buses, but there are the core service needs, and these should be based on competency – not party labels.”

Von Reichbauer is the Metropolitan King County Councilmember from the 7th District that includes Federal Way and Auburn. He led the local effort to make King County government non-partisan when he introduced legislation two years ago before the King County Council to remove party labels from County elected officials when the run for office. The Council majority at that time opposed the effort on a partisan basis. Von Reichbauer’s proposal was then taken to the people by an initiative.

“I want to thank all the citizens who got behind this broad-based effort to make local county government less partisan and more responsive to people’s needs locally. Local government is about the ‘meat and potatoes’ of service,” said von Reichbauer.

Von Reichbauer also praised his chief of staff, Joe Fain of South King County, for organizing the campaign of volunteers and others who gathered more than 80,000 signatures to put Initiative 26 on the ballot. The initiative was supported by former governors Booth Gardner and Dan Evans.