Higher Ed Officials Fear Craswell College Leaders Say Gop Candidate’s Proposed Budget Cuts Would Devastate School System

If Republican Ellen Craswell defeats Democrat Gary Locke in the Washington governor’s race, it would be “the worst election for higher education since the Great Depression,” says the former director of the state community college board.

John Terrey and two other past leaders of Washington’s higher education system announced their support for Locke at a Monday news conference, saying the conservative Craswell’s proposed 30 percent budget cut would hurt the state’s colleges and universities.

“It is incomprehensible that in a progressive, dynamic state like this that we would even think about pulling out the superstructure of the state - the higher education system,” said Terrey, who was joined by former Washington State University President Glenn Terrell and former University of Washington President William Gerberding.

Craswell says the effects of her budget proposals on colleges are being overstated, although “universities have got to shape up, do more with less and do it better.”

Locke appears ready to add money to every area of state spending, she said in a prepared statement.

“Nothing will happen if our leaders continue the politics-as-usual response to throwing more money at every problem,” Craswell said. “If we wanted this kind of leadership, we could just keep Mike Lowry.”

But Gerberding said an effort to cut the University of Washington’s budget by 15 percent several years ago was “devastating.”

With a 30 percent cut, he said, “you can forget about our being competitive nationally. You can forget about our attracting faculty and students. You can forget about our serving the drastic number of new students coming into the system over the next several years.”

Meanwhile, the president of the Building Industry Association of Washington - one of the state’s most anti-tax special interest groups - also came down against Craswell, as well as Locke.

Craswell “supports a fiscal policy that would, in my opinion, be disastrous to our industry,” association President Ken Donohue wrote the group’s members.

He cautioned them against endorsing her, saying, “She is likely to lose badly in this election and the association can ill afford to sustain the negative impact associated with her loss.”

At the same time, Donohue wrote, Locke’s “voting record on matters of concern to us is dismal, and there is no reason to believe that he will change once he is elected. … I believe it would be foolish and frankly a sellout for us to even pretend to support him.”

He advised members to sit out the governor’s race.

Craswell spokeswoman Kathy Mears said the candidate “was very sorry to hear that the BIAW is not supporting her. They always supported her in her (state) Senate races, and many of their members have supported her individually.”

Donohue’s letter was sent on association stationery, but in an interview, he said it expresses his personal opinions, not the association’s.

The building association does not plan to endorse either gubernatorial candidate, although its political action committee, the Washington Affordable Housing Council, may endorse Craswell.

Donohue said that while Craswell often has voted for lower taxes and fewer regulations, her proposals, “in my opinion, would cut state revenues far below that line (needed to run state government), and to me, that doesn’t spell good, sound fiscal policy.”