Anonymous wrote:
^ From "The Stand" article:
From the Bellingham Herald — Sen. Doug Ericksen missed floor votes during travel to El Salvador — State Sen. Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) has missed more votes on the final passage of bills out of the Senate this session than any other senator, records show. For some of those missed votes, he was in El Salvador, where he was observing elections that took place Feb. 28… The report on Ericksen’s trip may sound familiar. He observed Cambodia’s 2018 elections at the invitation of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government. Ericksen praised those widely condemned elections. He’s a registered foreign agent for Cambodia, and the company he launched with former state Rep. Jay Rodne has a $500,000 contract with the country’s government.
EDITOR’S NOTE — The Washington Post reports that the sweeping victory of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who had close ties to the Trump administration, has the country sliding toward authoritarian rule. Here’s the not-voting-Senator Ericksen praising El Salvador’s “large military and police presence” at polling places as “reassuring” rather than “intimidating.” He adds that “the United States could learn a few things” from the great election there.