Category: Monthly Meetings

Please join us at 6PM on October 1 at the Red Lion Bellevue to Discover the Discovery Institute!

Our guest speaker Steve Buri joined Discovery Institute in 2000 as Executive Director and was appointed president in 2011. He was worked in various capacities in local, state and federal government including as a senior staff member to U.S. Senator Slade Gorton. In 2009 he founded the Roanoke Conference, a statewide political conference designed to connect activists and elected officials with students and young professionals.

Founded in 1991 by Bruce Chapman and George Gilder, Discovery Institute is headquartered in Seattle but has scholars and fellows all over the country and internationally. Steve Buri explains: “Discovery Institute is more than a think tank. While we still maintain an interest in public policy, we are increasingly a cultural institution — one that examines and challenges the worldview assumptions and cultural influences that drive public policy.”

In addition to hearing from Mr. Buri, ERC has invited Republicans running for local offices in the November general election to come to the meeting and tell us about their campaigns.

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.

Some say that education will be the issue for the 2020 campaign. It should be! While we created a strong and prosperous economy, built communities and raised families, utopians have been hard at work as well. In their long march through our institutions, they have taken over media, the courts, universities, entertainment, corporations, charities and even the churches. In our schools, our children are being steeped in socialism, oppression studies, climate alarmism, moral relativism and multiculturalism. They are being dumbed down, sexualized, surveilled and marketed. What is happening in our schools is nothing short of child abuse and treason.

Whether you have children or grandchildren in the system doesn’t matter. This affects all of us! Government schools are how we get people like AOC elected. It is how they can propose policies like the Green New Deal and produce voters who never question how much it will cost us when everything they offer is “free!”

Please join us at 6PM on September 3 at the Red Lion Bellevue to learn about how you can fight back and save our children and in so doing, restore this nation. We can make a difference!

We will be viewing a dramatization of James Clavell’s short story The Children’s Story. Chilling! Following that, ERC board member Marty McClendon will lead an outstanding panel of experts including the following education experts:

J.R. Wilson has more than 30 years of experience working in public education. In addition to being an elementary school principal, he has taught every grade kindergarten through sixth grade and middle and high school math. He earned an M.Ed. and an Ed.S. at the University of Georgia. He has worked as a curriculum specialist, as a staff development coordinator and has helped write science and math standards. He served on the Washington state Where’s the Math? Executive Committee. Mr. Wilson participated in the U.S. Coalition for World Class Math review of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. He is one of the co-founders of Truth in American Education and currently blogs at The Underground Parent.

Jorge Ramos will lead us through how to opt out of some of the most egregious programs. He joined Pacific Justice Institute as the full-time staff attorney to open their Seattle office in 2018. He received his law degree from Seattle University School of Law in 2010 and was admitted to the Washington State Bar in 2011. His seven years of expertise in various jurisdictions, practicing many areas of law, complements PJI’s desire to take on the many religious liberties issues emerging in Washington State.  

Karen Larson will take us though how we can support homeschooling as an alternative to government schools. She understands homeschool laws and can explain how to transition children from government schools to homeschooling.

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 100 people who joined us at the ERC Picnic on July 9! We had a great time and hope you did, too.

There’s no ERC meeting in August. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, September 3, when the topic will be Education. Speakers to be announced!

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.