The Democrats are gearing up to win back the state House of Representatives and Senate from the Republicans. If they're successful this year, it won't be because of anything they've done to win voters over; it'll be because the GOP is hampered by the threat of investigations, lawsuits, and defections from the party. How are they falling? Let me count the ways:

Sen. Jim West from Spokane, who is the lead budget writer in the state Senate, was arrested earlier this year when he left a death threat on a lobbyist's answering machine. West only escaped criminal charges because of the leniency of Thurston County Prosecutor Bernardean Broadus, who in a flight of linguistic fancy, interpreted "You son of a bitch, you better get me, 'cause if you don't, you're dead" to actually mean "If you don't get a candidate to beat me in November, your legislative agenda will be dead next session." Maybe teachers and classmates made similar blunders over Kip Kinkel's death threats--we'll never know. At any rate, according to Broadus, Sen. West had a habit of making such threats: "West was fond of the phrase 'dead' and frequently said things like, 'you're dead,' 'he's dead,' or 'they're dead' in a joking or angry manner." After Broadus let West off the hook, Olympia City Attorney Mark Erickson stepped into the breach to file misdemeanor charges against him.

Meanwhile, the state Republican Party is under investigation by the Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) for violating campaign funding laws during the 1996 campaign season. Caught red-handed, the Republican party was forced to admit to illegally financing several legislative candidates with over $200,000 of soft money (which can only be used for general educational purposes, voter registration drives, and party building activities). State law limits how much money each candidate can accept for his/her campaign from any single source or group, including political parties. Benefactors of illegal Republican largesse include: Steve Hargrove of Poulsbo, Grant Pelesky of Puyallup, and Don Benton of Vancouver, who received $20,000 over the limit in soft money to pay for their campaign expenses. In spite of the cash infusion, Hargrove and Pelesky lost their races. Benton, however, was elected in a key district that the Republicans needed to get a majority in the House, proving that their horrible majority of 1997-98 has been a fraud from the beginning.

The state GOP also admitted to illegally contributing $84,000 of soft money to a Republican legislative political action committee, the Speakers Roundtable. In a bit of creative bookkeeping, it also shifted $104,023 from its soft money account into its "federal account," where the funds were used to pay consultants for campaign work. In addition, the party accepted $24,250 of contributions over the legal limits from three organizations.

Particularly despicable is the way that these transactions were hidden. Roma Zubrod, former GOP deputy treasurer and a lifelong Republican (who resigned from office in April of this year), brought documents to the PDC that show how former party Executive Director Kelly Rogers prepared fake invoices to replace real ones in order to hide how the funds were spent. Rogers is now a lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Businesses in Washington, D.C. In a paranoid move to prevent any more leaks, the state GOP recently hired an ex- cop to guard their headquarters in Tukwila.

But that's not all. The Public Disclosure Commission found that the state Republican Party funded a $150,000 TV commercial that attacked Gary Locke during his race against Ellen Craswell for state governor in 1996. The commercial should have been paid for by Craswell's campaign, but the party used soft money instead. IN a humorous switch, the state Republican party has denied that the commercial was made to support Craswell (which, if nothing else, is indicative of the party's dislike for Craswell and her Christian Coalition, right-wing followers), but that hasn't saved them from the PDC's wrath.

There are also exciting indications that the party may be splitting in two. Ellen Craswell has decamped to the American Heritage Party, and is drawing a small number of former Republicans with her to run against Republican candidates this fall, which is sure to dilute the conservative vote in those districts. Linda Smith, a party "populist", who represents most of the same ultra-right-wing, anti-government, Christian constituency that Craswell does, is running in a heavily contested Senate race against Democrat Patty Murray. Frighteningly, Smith may win. If she doesn't, it's only because her own party has been hesitant to support her: many Republicans have thrown their weight behind her GOP opponent in the primary, former King County Prosecutor Chris Bayley. Smith recently was forced to resort to stealing the party's donor list to raise money for her campaign; some members of the state party are considering a lawsuit against her.

And last, but not least, the state GOP's most prominent fundraiser, Thomas Stewart, was fined $5 million for illegal campaign donations only three months ago. As a result, his business, Food Services of America Corp., lost millions of dollars in federal government contracts for providing food to the military, and the GOP lost its best moocher.

And finally, the GOP's populist mask is slipping; the state convention in Kennewick earlier this month brought few surprises. Some of the usual self-serving, pro-business, anti- populist positions in the party platform included: denouncing the tobacco bill in Congress (too tough on tobacco companies), opposition to the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty (too tough on local Aluminum companies and pulp mills), and a statement condemning campaign contribution limits, especially Initiative 134, which was sponsored by the GOP's own Rep. Linda Smith and passed overwhelmingly by voters in 1992 by a more than 70 percent margin. (Since they can't follow a law they sponsored, it's obviously time to change it.) Equally convenient was a vote to delete a section of the platform that withheld support from any candidate or office holder who violates the law-- clearly a nod to Sen. Jim West.

On top of a growing rift within the Republican Party ranks, all of the corruption, in-fighting, and hypocrisy may make Republican candidates go down in flames at the polls this year. We can only hope so.