The Washington Federation of State Employees this weekend did something rare for them: They decided to withhold support for many Democratic candidates this year, especially many in the state legislature.

Here’s what their statement said: “The delegates, meeting in Seattle, evaluated the performance of state senators and representatives and concluded most of them have waged a systematic campaign to dismantle human services and inflict extraordinary and unnecessary sacrifices on state employees. . . .

“it was the discussion of the legislative races that generated the most discussion and anger. “We’re tired of being under constant attack,” said Dennis Eagle, the Federation’s director of legislative and political action. The delegates endorsed House incumbents they concluded had gone the extra mile to delay and mitigate the furlough bill, fight for the $65 million needed to keep out-of-pocket health costs level and support vital institutions and safety net programs. “Our lunchbox depends on decisions made by elected officials,” Eagle said. And with 25 percent of the state budget wiped out by the global economic crisis, that lunchbox is much lighter. State employees had already given up $1 billion in wages, benefits, pension funding and layoffs before the 2010 session. So delegates weren’t interested in endorsing incumbents who pooh-poohed state employee concerns about saving the safety net or who seemed to relish finding new ways to make state employees sacrifice.”

The usual thought here is that legislative races are binary and zero-sum: That which harms or diminishes the efforts of one side helps the other. Is the Federation really interested in switching the seats of Democrats to Republicans? Probably not; more likely, this simply is an explosion of anger at Democrats who haven’t been as supportive of their agenda as they would like.

But Washington Republicans looking at dismantling that big Democratic majority in the legislature – and to some degree or another, it is very likely to be dismantled this year – have go to be enjoying this.