Group Calls Senators Rude Spokanites In Olympia To Discuss Welfare Decry Reception By West, Morton

They didn’t expect a red carpet, but they also didn’t expect rude treatment by their own legislators.

That’s what a group of Spokane area residents - many of them on welfare - said about their meetings Wednesday with two state senators.

The group traveled across the state to attend a rally calling attention to the problems faced by welfare recipients, said Morton Alexander, an organizer for Fair Budget Action, who helped plan the trip.

They also met with several lawmakers, most of whom were very pleasant, Alexander said.

But some left feeling insulted after meeting with Sen. Jim West, R-Spokane, and Sen. Bob Morton, R-Orient.

About twenty people crowded into West’s office for a morning appointment. What followed, participants say, was a short and hostile encounter.

“I’m not even sure I’d call it a meeting,” said Tracy Palm, a Spokane resident who attended. “He seemed very uncooperative and hostile.”

Palm, who attends community college, said she receives $642 a month in welfare for herself and her three children. She wanted to explain to West the realities of life on public assistance.

But Palm said West shooed the visitors out of the room after about 10 minutes, saying their time was up.

West said he didn’t kick anyone out, but he had other people waiting to see him.

“I’m sorry if they felt they were treated rudely. I don’t think they were,” he said.

“We’re a busy place. I’m sorry if they didn’t feel they got a lot of time.”

West’s attitude, not the length of the meeting, was what upset Raina Sanders of Deer Park. She said she used to receive welfare, but is now a graduate student at Eastern Washington University.

Sanders described West as “flippant” and said he seemed “irritable, cranky, anxious to get out of the room.”

Joyce Wright, a retired social worker who lives in Spokane, said she was “appalled at the arrogance and the rudeness of Senator West.”

Other lawmakers visited by the group included Rep. Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, Sen. Eugene Prince, R-Thornton, and Sen. John Moyer, R-Spokane. All were polite, even if they didn’t agree with the visitors on some issues, Wright said.

West said he wasn’t rude, but his visitors were. “They’re probably the rudest people I ever met,” he said.

West also said that Alexander, one of the group’s organizers, has been politically opposed to him for years and probably had a chip on his shoulder going into the meeting.

Later that day, eight of the women in the group met with Morton, who spent at least twenty minutes with them.

Sanders said Morton seemed unsympathetic to the plight of poor people in his district.

“He wanted to impress upon us that all our problems were our problems,” Sanders said. “They were not his problems and they were not the state’s problems.”

Sanders said she felt insulted when Morton suggested that people who don’t like the state’s policies could move to another state, or country.

Morton said he was simply trying to answer the visitor’s questions and tell them his views about welfare.

“I tried to explain to them the difference between socialism and the Republic,” Morton said.

He said it isn’t government’s responsibility to provide a job for everyone, and that people needed to work hard to help themselves.