Jay Inslee talks charter schools to WEA

Jay Inslee talks collective bargaining to WEA

Job creation may be the main talking point of the two main candidates for governor, but another topic is rivaling jobs as a top issue in the campaign.

That’s thanks in part to outgoing Gov. Chris Gregoire, who has loudly backed the creation of new taxes to support the state’s Constitutional requirement to provide quality basic education.

The state Supreme Court ruled early this year that the state hasn’t met its obligation to adequately fund education programs.

But both Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna, and Democratic Congressman Jay Inslee — Gregoire’s pick to succeed her — disagree with her assertion that more taxes are necessary.

Gregoire spoke strongly last week to the Washington Education Association for the need for “new revenue” to raise an extra $1 billion in the next two-year budget. The teachers union held its annual convention at the Spokane Convention Center.

The next day, however, Inslee addressed the WEA convention and largely avoided the topic of how to address the the Supreme Court ruling.

In an interview before the speech, Inslee said he would focus efforts to improve education funding on improving the economy, which would increase tax revenue.

“The most fundamental thing we need to do is get people back to work in this state,” he said. “That’s the real driver of revenue creation in our state.”

Inslee said he also would find savings by instituting efficiency programs that have grown popular in corporate America as well as in some city’s like Spokane under former Mayor Mary Verner.

McKenna says growing the economy is important, but says Democratic administrations have allowed the percentage of the state budget devoted to education to shrink as other programs have grown. He said he would reverse that trend.

“Moving forward we have to focus on reform and on spending more of the state budget on education,” McKenna said in an interview last week. “That means we’re not going to spend as much on other parts of the budget – that we won’t allow other parts of the budget to grow as fast as they have been growing.”

Inslee gives a campaign speech on the Capitol steps after filing for office.

OLYMPIA — In front of a crowd that included babies in arms, senior citizens and union members in hard hats, Democrat Jay Inslee tried to energize his gubernatorial campaign after making it official.
One of a handful of candidates to file paperwork and pay his fee Tuesday, Inslee gave a campaign speech on the Capitol steps after completing the process inside the building to run for governor.
State Republicans were quick with a counterpunch, saying voters shouldn’t choose Inslee to be governor after he decided he couldn’t serve out his congressional term and run for office at the same time. Inslee resigned his seat earlier this year to campaign full time.
“Ex-Congressman Inslee is obviously not concerned about the welfare of (Congressional) District One, so how can he be concerned about the welfare of the state?” State GOP Chairman Kirby Wilbur said in a prepared statement a few hours after Inslee filed.
After his speech, Inslee talked with reporters about plans for education improvements  that would build on successes around the state and pay bonuses to the best teachers willing to be mentors to new teachers. He shied away from the term charter schools, saying at one point it has different meanings to different people, and for some signifies a lack of control by locally elected school boards. Changes under his plan would be controlled by school boards, and possibly funded by state grants, he said.
Inslee also disagreed with fellow Democrat and retiring Gov. Chris Gregoire, who said he and Republican candidate Rob McKenna need to acknowledge the fact that the state faces a new source of revenue — that is to say, a tax increase — to cover a $1 billion jump in spending to comply with a recent state Supreme Court ruling on fully funded basic education. No new taxes are needed, he said, if the economy gets back on track, more people get back to work, and the state finds savings elsewhere in the budget, like reducing health care costs.

For the 5 p.m. update on the list of candidate filings, click here to go inside the blog.

Everyone thinking about running for political office this year, take note: You have less than a week to make up your mind. Everyone talking about running and acting like they’re already a full-fledged candidate, take note: It’s not official until you file your paperwork and pay your fee.

Candidate filing week starts Monday morning, and ends when the office where that paperwork and fee must be deposited closes on Friday. Here’s a tricky part – because of budget cutbacks, some county elections offices close as early as noon on Fridays, others at 4 p.m., and some stay open until 5 p.m. Anyone planning to wait until the very last minute to build suspense would be wise to make a phone call to the appropriate office and check when that last minute is.

For some positions that’s the county elections office in the county seat; for others, it’s the Secretary of State’s office in Olympia. How do you know what goes where?

Go inside the blog to read more, or to comment.

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Jay Inslee spent today in Spokane reminding Eastern Washington voters that he's the only candidate with political and professional experience on both sides of the state's Cascade Curtain.

“Every race needs one candidate who knows how to buck hay,” Inslee joked over coffee at Chairs Coffee house in North Spokane, explaining that he grew hay on part of his property while living and working in the Yakima area for nearly 20 years.

It's both a figurative and literal description of what Inslee is bringing to a tough race pitting him against Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican with two successful statewide campaigns under his belt.

“I have an understanding of Eastern Washington's economy,” Inslee said, adding that he's also toured the region's growing aviation industry and its alternative energy companies.

In the weeks ahead, look for Inslee to continue pushing his jobs plan, which he describes as being built around strengthening Washington's middle class families by focusing on key industries and the training needed to supply the workers. McKenna has a competing jobs plan, which both candidates say they're eager to compare and contrast, point by point if necessary.

Washington candidates are scrambling to announce endorsements this week as filing week approaches.

The gubernatorial candidates are taking turns touting nods from “first responders.” Former U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, the likely Democratic nominee, is in Spokane today to pick up the endorsement of Fire Fighters Local 29. They'll have a formal laying on of the hands at 2:15 p.m. at the union hall, 911 E. Baldwin.

Attorney General Rob McKenna, the all-but-certain Republican nominee, announced Monday that he'd been endorsed by the Washington State Troopers Association.

The State Labor Council weighed in over the weekend with its endorsements, which were, depending on one's point of view, strongly pro-Democrat or anti-Republican. The council is backing Rich Cowan against U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers in the 5th Congressional District, and picked a D in eight of the other nine districts. For District 3 in Southwest Washington, they didn't have a good Democratic option, so they came out opposed to Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler.

In Spokane Legislative races, the labor council showed an ability to shift quickly to the winds of Sen. Lisa Brown's surprise retirement last week. endorsing Andy Billig for the now open Senate seat and Marcus Riccelli for Billig's former House seat. One problem with the quick turnaround: They misspelled Riccelli's name. Also on their list: Amy Biviano in the 4th District and Dennis Dellwo in the 6th.

Speaking of that potentially crowded 3rd District House race, Democratic leaders seem eager to jump in line behind Riccelli. Brown endorsed her former aide this morning, as did former state Sen. Chris Marr, former Reps. Alex Wood, Jeff Gombosky, John Driscoll and Don Barlow, and most recent past county party chairpersons.

That's a pretty quick closing of the ranks, considering the seat became open less than a week ago, and at least two other candidates — Spokane businessman John Waite and Spokane City Councilman Jon Snyder — have expressed interest in filing.

Filing week, by the way, begins Monday morning.

OLYMPIA — A week after the Legislature's overtime session wrapped up, Democrats accused GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna of delaying the final compromise by bringing politics into the process.

Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, joined members of the campaign for Democratic governor hopeful Jay Inslee to accuse McKenna of using the budget stalemate “for political purposes” to push reform proposals.

A spokesman for the McKenna campaign called the accusations “nonsensical.” McKenna did talk about budget principles he would follow as governor, but “didn't try to inject himself into day-to-day negotiations,” Charles McCray III said.

Murray and the Inslee campaign were merely being “protectors of the status quo,” McCray said. “It's the status quo mentality in Olympia that is the reason it took so long.”

McKenna did support a maneuver by all 22 Republicans and three breakaway Democrats late in the regular session that pushed through an alternative budget. Murray questioned how McKenna, who has called for increased spending on education, could support a budget that cut public schools and colleges.

McKenna later said he “wasn't thrilled” with the education cuts in that alternative budget, which later was revised in the House. At a campaign press conference during the third week of the special session, he said if he'd been involved in discussions over that alternative Senate budget “I would've gone to them and said 'Let's not make the education cuts.'”

At that press conference, McKenna accused Democratic leaders in general, and House Speaker Frank Chopp in particular, of holding up negotiations by refusing to allow votes on reforms.

The partisan lines over the reforms aren't so clear-cut. The original proposal on a four-year balanced budget, a constitutional amendment, came from a Senate Democrat, one of the three who joined Republicans on the budget vote.

Murray said that's a stricter rule than any state in the union has, and “forces you to predict something in the future that is almost unpredictable.” The negotiated settlement over the budget and reforms is a statutory requirement, with some exceptions, for a four-year budget, which would be easier to amend by future Legislatures.

“It took us to bring some common sense to it,” Murray said.

On his website, McKenna details a series of ideas to reform the budget process he would push as governor. But he doesn't mention balancing the budget for four years, rather than the current two years. At his press conference earlier this month, he said he supports a four-year balanced budget but “I don't know if it requires a constitutional amendment.”

The likely Republican and Democratic candidates for governor will debate this June in Spokane. An on-again, off-again match up of state Attorney General Rob McKenna and former U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee in front of a major state business group appears on again, for good.

The Association of Washington Business announced, and the campaigns confirmed, Inslee and McKenna will debate at The Bing Crosby Theater on June 12 as part of the group's quarterly meeting, in an event co-sponsored by Greater Spokane, Inc. As recently as Monday, the Inslee campaign was refusing to debate at that particular time and place, accusing the AWB of bad faith in announcing the event before all details were worked out…
  

OLYMPIA — Jay Inslee’s not-so-timely departure from Congress could result in a special election in Western Washington. Special, the way the Church Lady used to say the word on “Saturday Night Live.”
The Secretary of State’s office is exploring the possibility of a special election this fall to fill the remainder of Inslee’s term in Washington’s 1st Congressional District. But there's a catch…

To read the rest of this post, or to comment, click here to go inside the blog

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee resigned his congressional seat today to concentrate on his run for governor.

Inslee announced he'd leave Congress on March 20, saying he was not one “half-measures or half-hearted efforts.”

“It was a difficult decision, but what I need to do right now is focus all my attention on talking to people about what’s really important – creating jobs and growing our economy,” he said.

Inslee is considered the likely Democratic nominee against Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna for this year's governor's race. They are the “name” candidates for both parties for the open seat.

But Inslee's campaign has come under fire from some Democrats for a slow start, and Republicans criticize hom for any missed vote that's a result of his being in the state to campaign.

“I look forward to hearing Congressman Inslee explain how 15 years in Washington, D.C. have prepared him to lead our state, now that he is quitting Congress,” McKenna said.

What may well be the first gubernatorial debate of the Washington election season could happen June 12 in Spokane.

Or not.

The Association of Washington Business, which has a long  history of gubernatorial matchups in front of its membership, wants to have Attorney General Rob McKenna and U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee face off the Bing Crosby Theater during the group's annual spring meeting.

But after it announced the debate this week,  the Inslee campaign said it was still working on the schedule and  hadn't yet committed to that event or any other debate, forum or joint appearance.  (Editor's note: an earlier version of this post said the debate was set.)

“It's on our list of things we wanted to schedule,” Jaime Smith, campaign spokeswoman said, adding she was aware the group has a long tradition of holding a gubernatorial debate but was baffled that AWB's announcement came before a formal commitment. “We've got lots of invitations.”

Jocelyn McCabe, a spokeswoman for AWB, said scheduling a debate is a bit like planning a wedding. You get the place, the date, the time first, then handle some of the other details like format and lining up media partners a bit closer to the event. It has Greater Spokane Inc., as a co-sponsor of the debate. The group needed to schedule its spring meeeting in Spokane and book the hall for the debate now. It told the Inslee campaign it would announce the matchup in early January. And did.

“We're having the debate,” McCabe said.

And if Inslee can't make it? They may be having a conversation with McKenna, because it requires at least two people to debate.

Also on the AWB's planned fight card — oops, debate schedule — will be state attorney general candidates Reagan Dunn and Bob Ferguson.

The debates will take place before either race is officially set, because the state primary isn't until early August. But that isn't a concern for the Inslee campaign. In fact, he's called for six debates across the state, divided geographically, and with some focusing on set issues, so to wait until after the primary for a half dozen debates would require cramming the debates pretty closely together.

McCabe, spokeswoman for AWB, said both campaigns would be given a set number of tickets to watch the debate along with the group's members.

Moderating both debates would be Austin Jenkins of Northwest News Network. The Bing has been the site of several memorable political debates for local offices.

Now it might  be the back drop for what is a regular feature of most hotly contested races: a debate over debates.

OLYMPIA – Washington Republicans are exorcised over a wrinkle in state election laws that restricts some candidates, but not others, from raising money during a legislative session. Their concern is logical, although not necessarily consistent. It goes like this:
No state elected official can raise money for a state office while the Legislature is in session. That means Rob McKenna, the state attorney general who would like to be governor, can’t hold fundraisers or dial for dollars while, or shortly before, the legislators are ensconced in Olympia.
Given the bleak prospects for legislators settling the budget problems any time soon, Republican McKenna is at a disadvantage with Democratic Congressman Jay Inslee, who is not a state official and is under no such restriction.
States have limited ability to tell members of Congress how they can or can’t raise money – it’s a federalism vs. state’s rights thing – but an argument can be made at some point this gets seriously out of whack in the money-grabbing department. Maybe if the Legislature goes from its current special session into a regular session a few weeks later, then needs another special session to finish work (as it has the last two years), McKenna should be allowed some sort of catch-up period in which he’d be allowed two fundraisers for every one of Inslee.
Restrictions on money-raising during a session were approved to keep some people from donating to a candidate not because they think he or she is the best person to hold the office being sought, but to influence legislation in the session at hand. It’s a good, if imperfect, law.
But Republicans might want to think before protesting too loudly, because if one were to expand it logically, it also would bar legislators who are running for Congressional office from raising money during the session. That’s currently allowed, and a good argument can be made that it’s closer to the public goal of separating campaign contributions from current job performance.
There’s a fair number of legislators running for Congress in 2012, including state Sen. Mike Baumgartner, R-Spokane. This kind of rule would put him at an even greater disadvantage in his fledgling race against U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.
Strangely enough, a bill introduced by several Republican legislators to address the McKenna-Inslee situation doesn’t get around to the Baumgartner-Cantwell situation. There may be federal court fights in the wings for either change, but if they were really serious about the good government aspect of this, seems they’d cast a wider net.
  

OLYMPIA — The upcoming special session of the Legislature may complicate campaign cash-grabbing for some candidates, but give others a leg up.

State law bans state elected officials from accepting campaign contributions during a special session and from 30 days before a regular session until that session ends.

The freeze, as it's called, starts on Nov. 27, the day before the special session starts, and continues until that session ends. If the special session lasts past Dec. 10 (something for which you could get really good odds, if Vegas bookmakers were foolish enought to bet on Legislatures) the 30-day ban in front of the regular session kicks in, so the freeze continues into January, February … and however long it takes for the Legislature to finish the rest of its business.

Will they need a special session to get everything done? Who knows. But they've need them for the last two years.

So incumbents up for election in 2012 might not be accepting checks from Thanksgiving weekend until sometime in mid March, at the earliest. Their challengers who aren't in office can.

Also affected are state elected officials who will be running for some other state office. So State Attorney General Rob McKenna's campaign for governor is frozen out, starting Nov. 27. But his chief Democratic challenger, Rep. Jay Inslee, isn't because the law doesn't — in fact, can't — cover federal officials.

That principle that a state can't put limits on federal candidates works in reverse, too. State Sen. Mike Baumgartner, R-Spokane, for example, isn't barred from raising money for his campaign for U.S. Senate against incumbent Maria Cantwell. Neither are any of the other legislators who might run for Inslee's old seat, once they know where the boundary lines are.

OLYMPIA – Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna won’t withdraw from a multi-state lawsuit against federal health care reform, even though the other states are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to do something McKenna says he doesn’t want.
Throw out the entire law.
Washington Democrats contend McKenna, the likely GOP nominee for governor next year, should be held responsible if the Supreme Court scraps the law and leaves thousands of state residents without health care…



J
To read the rest of this item, go inside the blog.

OLYMPIA — For those who are Jonesing for some campaign-style polling, a Seattle political consulting firm is trying to supply a fix.

It has a new poll of 500 voters that suggest if the election were held today,  Republican Rob McKenna would beat Democrat Jay Inslee for governor. And President Barack Obama would beat either of the two current GOP frontrunners, Rick Perry or Mitt Romney, for president in Washington state.

Two initiatives on this November's ballot would also pass, according to the Strategies 360 poll.

But there are some caveats and some details beneath the surface of the raw numbers, Kevin Ingham, the firm's vice president for polling, explained Monday morning in the big rollout of the numbers.

To read the rest of this item, click here to go inside the blog.

OLYMPIA — The 2012 Washington governor's race may have seemed pretty quiet this month to the voters who will decide it. But it remains on top of the list of gubernatorial contests compiled by Politico.

The likely matchup between Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna and Democratic U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee got a mention for the ongoing debate over Inslee's campaign funding and a brief dustup over a Dem operative being barred from a McKenna speech. It beats out races in Montana, North Carolina, Missouri and West Virginia, which are ranked 2 through 5. See the whole story here.

But the real question seems to be, if Washington can stay on top with so little going on, how terribly boring must those other states' races be?

OLYMPIA — The likely leaders in Washington's 2012 governor's race “went nuclear” today, although on slightly different aspects of the nuke waste issue.

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, the likely Republican nominee for the job, announced in Seattle that he was filing new court action over the federal government's decision to step away from the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. He filed a writ of mandamus with the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., arguing that the Department of Energy is improperly “withholding action” on finishing off the repository.

“It’s the federal government’s responsibility to clean up Hanford,” McKenna said in a prepared statement. “This lawsuit seeks to compel the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to immediately resume consideration of the application to build and operate a repository at Yucca Mountain.”

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, the leading Democrat for the nomination, meanwhile laid into a special commission set up to figure out what to do about nuclear waste. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (yes, blue ribbon is part of the official name) released its draft report on nuclear waste with some really terrific recommendations — find a repository site through a “consent-based approach” build a permanent repository promptly, build at least one interim repository promptly, do some innovative stuff in nuclear energy. 

Thanks for the hard work, Inslee said, but the report is “deeply flawed” and will lead to the United States wasting billions of dollars more.

“The Commission declares that a lack of community support killed Yucca and that a new ‘consent-based approach’ for future facilities is required,” he said in his prepared statement.  “The Commission admits that a consolidated geologic disposal facility is the solution, but seems unable to admit that a solid, scientifically assessed site already exists which could mean billions more in cost for ratepayers.”

So it would seem McKenna and Inslee agree on at least one thing: Washington should get to ship the nuclear waste at Hanford to Nevada, and keep it there for centuries.

Although the election is still 15 months away, Washington's gubernatorial race has a lofty ranking of No. 1.

On the Politico list of top governor's races in the country.

The political website put the match between Attorney General Rob McKenna and U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee at the top of the best 10 state executive races for 2012, even though it notes there is no current polling.  It was No. 1 in June and No. 2 in May.

OLYMPIA — Washington's nascent gubernatorial race between Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna and Democratic Congressman Jay Inslee pulled in more than $1 million in its first official month.

Both Inslee and McKenna formally announced their campaigns and started collecting campaign money in June. Candidates must report last month's contributions this week, and the first tally in the gubernatorial race shows McKenna ahead for total dollars collected, but Inslee ahead for cash-on-hand.

Public Disclosure Commission reports show McKenna with almost $668,000 in contributions, about $26,000 of it moved over from money collected by his re-election campaign for state attorney general. He's spent about
$190,000, with more than $110,000 going for direct mail advertising or contribution requests.

Inslee has raised about $513,000, and paid out about $21,000 in expenses, most of it wages for campaign staff. But his PDC reports also list bills for about $42,500 for consulting, legal and accounting services the campaign owes but had not been paid at the time the reports were filed.

How did they get so much, so fast? In part by getting the maximum amount the law allows — $3,200 total for the primary and general elections — from big donors. Inslee and McKenna each have 32 donors who have already maxxed out with $1,600 for the primary and $1,600 for the general.

As for incumbent Chris Gregoire, who announced last month she would not run for a third term, her campaign fund is essentially empty after returning about $26,000 of the $367,000 she'd raised. The rest had been spent on pre-campaign expenses like consultants and mailings.

People who want to be elected to statewide office in 2012 are already wandering around the state, announcing their campaigns and trying to establish their bona fides with the good folks hereabouts.

Most candidates for state office have to come from Seattle, or at least the greater Pugetopolis, to have a chance of getting enough votes from the West Side of the state. This is not surprising, because to paraphrase Willy Sutton, that’s where the votes are.

But to prove they seek to represent the whole state, they must also campaign on the dry side of the Cascades, and cite their ties to Spokane or Walla Walla or Curlew, whether they be strong or tenuous. Jay Inslee’s swing through Yakima and Spokane last week as he kicked off the gubernatorial campaign was an example of someone with real, if somewhat dated, ties to the East Side. Inslee represented Central Washington’s 4th District for a term in the U.S. House, in 1993-’94.

Some candidates try to do more with less. I recall one candidate for statewide office who talked about his fond memories of Spokane, where the family always stopped on their way to the lake cabin when he was a child. Being remembered as the gateway to Idaho or a pleasant pit stop never seemed like much of a vote-getter.

When candidates start laying claim to knowing Spokane and understanding its people and their issues, then do something foolish like saying how they’re such a big fan of Gon-ZAH-ga basketball, it sometimes helps to give them a pop quiz on issues a real Spokanite would know. We've put some inside the blog.

Maybe you can think of other questions to test a candidate’s true ties to Spokane. Click to go inside the blog and leave them in a comment box.

Jay Inslee on gay marriage

Jay Inslee on North Spokane freeway

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee appeared to criticize his fellow Democrats when introducing his campaign for governor to Spokane on Tuesday.

“Frankly, we need some new blood in Olympia,” Inslee said in his speech. “Having not been in Olympia, I think I'm in pretty good shape to bring a little new blood to Olympia and stop some of the ossification that has happened there.”

Democrats control the state House, state Senate and governor's office.

Besides highlighting his time outside Olympia, he also stressed his time outside the Puget Sound.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a governor who's lived outside the shadow of the Space Needle for once?” Inslee said.

Inslee, who lives on Bainbridge Island, lived near Yakima when he first served in Congress in the early 1990s.