There apparently is no special consideration given to a former member of the Washington State Senate, not after he takes out full-page ads in multiple newspapers and attacks his former colleagues.

That's what former state Sen. Brian Weinstein, Mercer Island lawyer, has learned after he and his law partners paid for ads in The News Tribune, The Olympian, Skagit Valley News, Everett Herald and a lot of smaller newspapers. The ads accused Sens. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island and Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, of blocking a bill that Weinstein and his colleagues at Bergman Draper and Frockt really wanted to get passed.

For the record, Hargrove had not signed onto the amendments that Kastama and Haugen were promoting, changes that Weinstein's firm did not want. But he apparently was targeted in his local papers, too.

(Confidential to B.W. in M.I.: It was Hatfield, not Hargrove.)

Here is a link to my blog post of yesterday. But let me get to the retaliation first.

Not only is the Senate not going to vote on that asbestos liability bill that Weinstein and Co. wanted (SB 5964) -- "It's terminal," Haugen said. -- they also apparently have killed off SB 5895, more commonly known as the Homeowners Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights was Weinstein's pride and joy when he was in the Legislature and he got the Senate to pass it, and almost got it through the House. So killing that bill this year, even though it is now sponsored by Rep. Rodney Tom, D-Mercer Island, was more of a symbolic message than anything else.

"My caucus is totally outraged," Haugen said this afternoon. "The bills are terminal - dead."

Here is the letter of disavowal signed by both of the lobbyists for the Washington State Association for Justice (formerly the Trial Lawyers Association) as well as president John Budlong and past president Janet Rice. (Rice's firm, I'm told, is very, very active in asbestos litigation.)

"We are writing on behalf or our organization to express our sincere regret for the advertisements in your papers regarding your alleged positions on Senate Bill 5964," the letter begins.

[More:]

"It is not an approach we support, and we do not condone that it happened. We were not involved in this action........In our 20-plus years as an organization of being heavily involved with the legislative process, we have never used this tactic, and we disavow it."

Weinstein did not return my call yesterday, and I must admit I did not call the public relations firm to which I was referred. But one of Weinstein's supporters did comment yesterday on this blog and told me I should look more closely at Kastama, whose wife is a part-time lawyer for a firm whose clients would benefit from the changes that Kastama was proposing to the bill.

I have not checked out those allegations. I did call Kastama and he confirmed that his wife, Barbara, does work for a law firm. Sen. Kastama said the underlying bill would have benefitted his wife's law firm just as it would have benefitted Bergman's firm, if her firm's motivation were purely financial because the underlying bill would create more clients who need to be defended. Sen. Kastama said his wife's firm is not opposing his amendments.