Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi will give testimony some time before the Nov. 4 election in a deposition that's part of a lawsuit against one of his biggest financial backers.

King County Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas on Monday denied Rossi's request to delay giving a deposition in the case between two former state Supreme Court justices and the Building Industry Association of Washington after the election.

Plaintiff attorney Knoll Lowney called the ruling a "big win for voters."

"Dino Rossi will have to tell the whole story about his role in the BIAW's illegal fundraising campaign -- before the election," Lowney said in a statement.

Rossi is not a party to the lawsuit, which was brought against the BIAW by former state Supreme Court justices Robert Utter and Faith Ireland. They claim Rossi improperly worked with the group to help raise money for a campaign war chest.

Rossi and the BIAW have both said they did nothing wrong.

Rossi's campaign spokeswoman issued a statement Monday saying Rossi would have to cancel campaign appearances, but he would "of course" comply with the judge's order.

"Whenever Christine Gregoire gets into political trouble, she sends her friends to court to try to win what she is losing with voters," spokeswoman Jill Strait said in the statement.

The time and date of the deposition have not been set, but it will occur before the election Strait said.

The county council members are proposing to forego 2 percent of the 3 percent automatic pay raises they are scheduled to get in 2009, in sympathy with the employees they are asking to take off two weeks next year without pay.

Since council members are paid $120,413 this year, that means they would "give back" $2,372 of the $3,612 pay raise they are supposed to get next year.

Of course, they also get two weeks off.

"We believe that as elected officials we need to make the same personal sacrifices that we are asking of our valued County employees."

Hmmmm. The same personal sacrifices?

By my calculations, two weeks' pay at a 2009 salary of $124,025 a year works out to $4,770. That seems a bit more than the $2,372 that they would giving up.

Not a bad deal for the council members. But then, it might not be such a bad deal for citizens either. After all, the "legislative branch would close for 10 days" and that might be good for the King County citizenry in general.

Statement from County Council leadership on unpaid employee furlough

Councilmembers to reduce their COLA; legislative branch to close ten days without pay

We are proud of the willingness of our represented employees to sacrifice ten days of wages in order to help prevent additional cuts in public safety and public health services and further loss of service to the public. The legislative branch is committed to making similar sacrifices and ensure that every agency does its part to preserve core services.

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Scott Blonien, assistant secretary of the Washington Department of Corrections, said a few minutes ago that his staff estimates 70 to 75 ex-convicts were released from community supervision too early.

An undetermined number of additional inmates -- that could be several hundred or more -- also were classified incorrectly. That means they were given lower risk scores than they should have had and therefore were not monitored as closely when they got out of prison.

Blonien blamed the classification errors on a new "risk assessment tool" that was developed by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy.

No one was released from prison too early, he said.

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Gov. Chris Gregoire is leading Republican challenger Dino Rossi 51 percent to 45 percent with 4 percent undecided according to The Washington Poll.

The just-released data show that Gregoire is "greatly benefiting from the coattails" of the Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, said Matt Barreto, an assistant professor of political science at the Univerity of Washington.

In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry won in Washington state by seven percentage points over President George Bush, yet the governor's race that year was a virtual tie between Gregoire and Rossi.

This time around, Democrat Gregoire still is "under-performing" the presidential advantage, but the presidential advantage is larger, Barreto said. Obama is leading Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain 55 pecent to 34 percent, according to the poll.

Gregoire's decision to endorse Obama back in February is paying diviends, Barreto said. It may have had something to do with Obama running mate Sen. Joe Biden's Oct. 19 visit to Tacoma, too.

It's the second poll in less than a week showing Gregoire with a significant lead over Rossi. Last week, Seattle pollster Stuart Elway released data showing Gregoire leading Rossi 51 percent to 39 percent in his company's polling.

Barreto cautions, "However, we need to remember that there is still over a week left in this election and Dino Rossi has run a very effective campaign, so we could still see the race tighten down the stretch."

The Washington Poll results, which include the governor and presidential races as well as initiatives 985, 1000, 1029 and the Proposition 1 Sound Transit measure, are online here.

Click ahead for the full text of Barreto's analysis.

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This word just in from the Secretary of State Office's Dave Ammons:

A King County judge has dismissed a case challenging Senator Obama’s “native-born” status and thus his right to be on the ballot in Washington state. A federal judge in Philadelphia dismissed a similar lawsuit Friday night. Jeff Even of the state attorney general’s office represented our office. The state election, already underway, continues, with the Obama-Biden ticket listed as the first ticket among the choices, since Senator Kerry won the state four years ago. Ballot order is spelled out in state law. There are eight tickets on the Washington ballot.

UPDATE: Ammons sent the order of dismissal, too.