Working Washington-Organized Protest at U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert's Office Attracts 200 People

Protesters came with signs and songs, and even danced in the streets on Mercer Island, to send their message to  (R-Wash.) for most of Thursday morning.

Over 200 protesters gathered at the intersection of Southeast 28th Street and 78th Avenue Southeast to call for legislative action to create local jobs.

Calls of "We need jobs! Jobs, jobs jobs!" were occasionally met by good-natured banter from a small group of Tea Party counterprotesters who yelled, "Ask Obama!" and "God help us!"   

Several protesters occupied the intersection around 10 a.m., temporarily blocking the street until Mercer Island Police arrived to move the crowd back to the sidewalk. The protest was the third in a month targeting Reichert, primarily for his votes on the debt limit. 

A nearby "soup line" including a large cauldron of tomato soup and paper cups in front of Reichert's office — served as an allusion to the Great Depression and the high levels of unemployment. Citing 2011 U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics that Washington state's U-6 unemployment rate (including discouraged workers seeking employment) is 18.7 percent (tied for fifth-highest in the United States with Oregon), Working Washington spokesperson Anne Martens said it was time Reichert tried to focus on helping middle-class workers instead of "voting for policies that benefit the very rich at the expense of the rest of us."

"I think we're all tired of the distractions," she said. "People have been talking about the debt ceiling and the deficit. The truth is there's a jobs deficit." 

The Working Washington website features several anecdotes from local residents and examples of what they view as anti-job actions taken by large businesses in the area, including Chase, Weyerhauser and Lowe's.

The protest drew a small counter-protest of about a dozen people from the . State Coordinator Woody Herzog said the Tea Party actually agreed with the need for more local job creation, but strongly disagreed with the solutions offered by the protest organizers. He ticked off their three organizing principals: Fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited constitutional government.

"We don't agree with MoveOn.org or Planned Parenthood's vision for America," he said. "We have a different vision."

The protest was organized by labor-friendly group Working Washington and several other political action groups, such as MoveOn, Rebuild the Dream, Center for Community Change, and labor union SEIU.

Editor's note: Kendall Watson is editor of Mercer Island Patch.