The Times recommends the re-election of Rep. Christopher Hurst in the 31st District

STATE Rep. Christopher Hurst understands there are many different flavors of Democrats, going so far as to list himself as an Independent Democrat on the ballot. A gimmick? Perhaps. But he did so to express dissatisfaction with über liberals who drafted an unsustainable state budget.

Hurst, a former cop in and out of office in the 31st Legislative District that includes parts of Pierce and King counties, is endorsed for another term primarily because he showed guts by urging big spenders in his party to cool it.

Hurst is a member of "Roadkill" Democrats, a loose affiliation of moderate, pro-business pols who support policies that would ultimately be run over by liberal majorities. He is a centrist who understands state employees have to live some years without cost-of-living increases and have to pay higher premiums for health care, increasing from the current 12 percent to 20 percent. If employees do not bend a little, the state cannot afford many important programs.

It will take exactly this kind of thinking to help the state dig out of another multibillion-dollar-budget hole next biennium.

Hurst favored contracting out state liquor stores that are losing money or shutting them down. In either case, such action would save money and the improvement would have originated in the Legislature. Now voters face two conflicting citizen initiatives that privatize liquor sales in different ways.

Hurst's Republican opponent, Patrick Reed, works in the corporations division of the Secretary of State's Office, where he is well liked and known as an earnest, hard worker.

He did not show up for an editorial board interview and has a terribly spotty voting record, having missed most primaries in the past decade.

Reed, of Sumner, should come back another time and make his campaign — and voting — a priority.

This year, Hurst's experience and clear-eyed sense of what ails Democrats make him the best choice.