PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles real estate broker Dan Gase will run for the state House of Representatives seat now held by state Rep. Kevin Van De Wege.

Gase, 56, announced his candidacy Tuesday morning.

Gase is a Republican.

Van De Wege, 36, a Sequim firefighter and paramedic, is a Democrat and is seeking his third two-year term in Olympia.

Van De Wege is one of three legislators representing the 24th District, which includes Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County. The other two legislators are state Rep. Lynn Kessler, who is not seeking re-election, and state Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, who will be up for re-election in 2012.

Filing for the August primary election is in June.

The top two vote-getters regardless of political party will face off in the November general election. No other candidates have announced they will run against Van De Wege.

‘Bad priorities’

Gase said he is “appalled by the bad priorities” in the Legislature, including tax increases and “more state government.”

He noted that Van De Wege, along with Kessler and Hargrove, voted to boost a host of taxes — including on beer, water, soda pop and candy and some service industries — to help close a $2.8 billion budget shortfall.

“Proposals for an income tax, the rollback of the two-thirds majority that had been required for tax increases, the tax increases themselves — all this speaks negatively about their attitude toward the people,” said Gase in an interview with the Peninsula Daily News.

“These are bad priorities — instead of job growth, the priority of our state government is just more taxes, and more state government.”

Dan Gase is the former president and CEO of Coldwell Banker Uptown Realty in Port Angeles.

Last December, Gase sold his ownership in Uptown Realty and now works at the firm as a real estate broker specializing in commercial marketing.

He is a former president of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce, has served on a number of other club and association boards and has been working to help market the former Gottschalks building in downtown Port Angeles to retailers.

Gase said he had not yet met with GOP party officials in Clallam, Jefferson or Grays Harbor counties.

Dick Pilling, who heads the Republican Party in Clallam County, said he plans to have Gase appear before the party’s central committee and predicted that Gase would be endorsed by the Clallam group.