Will A House Divided Fall? 49-49 Deadlock At Capitol Puts Leaders In Ticklish Spot

On a post-Christmas morning, Rep. Frank Chopp towered over a near-empty state House chamber, and muttered a sound check into the microphone.

A lone technician in the back of the room made a bullhorn with his hands:

The system works, the man shouted, but once lawmakers fill the room, “there’ll have to be some adjustments.”

That’s putting it mildly.

When the 1999 Legislature convenes next week, ears will be tuned to the typically tumultuous House, where a 49-49 split between Democrats and Republicans leaves neither - yet both - in charge.

For just the second time since statehood, House members will be stuck in an odd political otherworld, where one party can’t even schedule a vote unless the other approves.

As a result, the sides will be forced to haggle over … well, just about everything.

Few seem less sure how it will work than the participants. Many of them guarantee only that it’ll be interesting.

“It’s like a group of horses who’ve never worked together suddenly being asked to pull as a team,” said Rep. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville. “No one can say what will happen.”

Already, in-coming House Speaker Chopp, a Seattle Democrat, has had to negotiate everything from office space to staffing to ground rules with Wenatchee Republican Rep. Clyde Ballard - the other incoming House Speaker.

Committee chairs, sometimes called “dictators” because they can unilaterally set agendas, are preparing to operate in pairs - one from each party. Some of those duos form a sort of ideological Jekyll and Hyde.

Lobbyists already are working double time because they have to make their pitches to both sides.

“I’ve heard from lobbyists I’ve never seen before,” said Rep. Brian Thomas, R-Renton.

For their part, Chopp and Ballard said signs point to a historic year of cooperation, where progress is made on bipartisan, middle-of-the-road issues, such as education and transportation.

Early dickering has been polite and productive, and lawmakers are approaching the session with curiosity rather than discomfort. But no one denies the peace is fragile.

“Worst-case scenario,” said Rep. Lynn Kessler, the Democratic majority leader, “it could be like living in a bad marriage for 105 days.”

Relationship experts - a marriage counselor, a psychiatrist and a psychologist - said lawmakers have their work cut out for them.

“The political process is actually structured like a bad marriage,” said Paul Domiter, a Spokane psychologist. “It emphasizes division and competition. People try to upstage each other. They try to make the other guy look bad.”

Furthermore, said Spokane counselor Kari Wagler, the biggest problem in most relationships is the partner who always has to be right. Politics, on the other hand, often rewards those who stick to their guns.

“They’ll have to give that up if they hope to cooperate,” she said. Yet in some cases cooperation may seem almost unnatural.

Co-chairing a state government committee this year will be Colville Republican Cathy McMorris - a proponent of less government - and Olympia Democrat Sandy Romero, whose constituents include state employees.

“If anybody can make it work, they can, but they definitely are 180 degrees apart politically,” said Rep. Alex Wood, D-Spokane.

Rep. Larry Sheahan, R-Spokane, will co-chair the Judiciary Committee with Seattle Democratic Rep. Dow Constantine - once a chief critic of a favorite Sheahan bill that dealt with tree-trimming.

Still, legislators, particularly committee chairs, uniformly said they were prepared to work with politically polar colleagues. The explosions, each insisted, will occur among other people.

“I predict at least one committee breaks down daily, with people yelling and screaming at each other,” said Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, co-chair of the Finance Committee.

Of course, he added, that won’t be his committee.

Adding more pressure, said Dr. Sharon Underwood, a Spokane psychiatrist, is the fact that legislators represent others who presumably share their views. Lawmakers may tend to “equate compromise with failure.”

That, too, could be tough to overcome.

When the House last was evenly divided, in 1979, Republican Speaker Duane Berentson was the sole member of his party to cross the line and vote with Democrats to pass a budget.

After the vote, he said, “I don’t think the people in the state of Washington will allow either body of this Legislature to perform this way again. Frankly, the people of the state are the losers.”

But the House took so long trying to adopt a budget that year that some senators, with nothing else to do, left town for vacation, recalled Republican Spokane Sen. Jim West, then an assistant sergeant-at-arms. To meet the letter of the rules, one senator had to stick around and, every few days, call himself to order before immediately adjourning.

Most disheartening to West, a conservative budget guru whose party is now the minority in the Senate, was that the 1979 spending package was 34 percent higher than its predecessor.

“Because neither side could prevent the other from getting anything without losing something themselves, … everybody got everything,” West said.

Already, Ballard and Chopp are struggling to balance fiscal discipline with the realities of shared leadership.

Since the two men will likely rotate days as speaker, they agreed to hire a second secretary of the House.

Office space is another issue.

Committee chairs generally get roomier corner offices near their nonpartisan legislative staff. But this year, twice as many people chair committees.

So Chopp and Ballard had their leadership teams negotiate a way to divvy up the space. The result: Contractors are knocking down walls to make more big offices.

Still, not everyone wins.

“Nobody wants a less desirable office, but I’m a big boy,” said Rep. Thomas, who was booted from his large office and moved to tinier digs. “You get what you get, and you move on.”

At this stage, most lawmakers admit they expect the session to go through stages where we’re “alternately laughing and screaming,” said Rep. Duane Sommers, R-Spokane.

But they disagree on what will cause the most tension.

Rep. Thomas and Ballard expect most pressure will come from outside the House, and will land squarely on Chopp.

With the governor’s office and the Senate both ruled by Democrats, Chopp will face frequent requests to find ways to pass bills Republicans just won’t support, they said. Also, after four years of a GOP Legislature, traditionally Democrat-leaning lobbyists - environmental groups and the teacher’s union, for example - may look to Chopp.

“He’s going to have people on his butt every minute,” Thomas said.

For his part, Chopp said he’s already warned ideological proponents against such tactics. “They’ve all lowered expectations,” he said.

And other lawmakers are awaiting the inevitable left-field surprise.

“I guarantee it,” Wood said. “Something nobody can predict will come out of nowhere and jam us up.”