Statehouse race draws early GOP interest

OLYMPIA – With a year to go, GOP candidates are already jockeying over who will try to recapture a long-Republican Statehouse seat won last year by Spokane Democrat Don Barlow.

Insurance agent John Serben, who lost the seat by 260 votes in November, filed campaign finance papers in March for a rematch. Now fellow Republican Kevin Parker, owner of a chain of coffee shops around Spokane, has filed as well.

“This district needs a representative with tireless energy and enthusiasm,” Parker said. “My goal is to outwork every candidate two to one.”

Serben, one of numerous GOP lawmakers ousted in what state Republican leaders at the time called a Democratic election “tsunami,” said he’s determined to get back to Olympia to work on health care and business reforms. A finalist this winter for House of Representatives’ GOP chief of staff, Serben said he bowed out of that opportunity to run again.

“I felt like I could still play, instead of coach,” he said. “I’d rather be out on the field than giving directions from the sidelines.”

The seat is one of two in the sixth legislative district, a crescent-shaped swath of suburban Spokane that starts north of Francis Avenue, south of 17th Avenue and west from roughly the Spokane River almost to Airway Heights. Until last year, the district had elected only Republicans to Olympia since 1939.

Barlow, a longtime Spokane school board member, won with a campaign that focused on more money for education, changes to the state’s tax system, making health care more affordable and attracting more business to the region. Serben promised “new answers and a new direction” for health care, a scrubbed state budget, and a new push for construction of the North Spokane Corridor highway project.

Serben’s narrow loss prompted extra hand-wringing by Republicans leaders, who wondered if they – and Serben – could have saved the seat with more aggressive campaign.

“I probably took Don a little bit for granted,” said Serben. “I didn’t realize that the national implications” – i.e. voter unhappiness with the war and Bush administration – “would reach that far down.”

A 39-year-old Spokane native, Serben said he has shown that he can work with Olympia’s Democratic majority, is well-known to GOP leaders and has an insurance and financial background that helps him understand pocketbook issues for the district.

For example, he said he would push to ease health insurance requirements, allowing companies to sell people cheaper, less-comprehensive policies. Maybe people in their early 20s don’t necessarily want state-mandated acupuncture or chiropractic coverage, he said.

He said he’d also push for a serious review of Washington’s tax structure, particularly on the state’s unique business tax on gross revenues. That hurts startup businesses who often struggle for years to make a profit, he said.

“It’s still a damned tough place to start a business,” he said.

Parker is no stranger to politics – he was a local staffer for U.S. Rep. Denny Smith, of Oregon, and worked on “about 10” campaigns – but this is the first time he’s run for office. He describes himself as “fiscally conservative and socially concerned,” and said that he was driven to run by concern about the region’s future.

“I believe the next 10 years are going to be one of the most crucial decades in our state’s history,” he said.

Parker, now 33, became acquainted with Spokane while attending Whitworth College. After stints in Colorado with the Christian youth ministry Young Life and five years running a financial services company in Oregon, he and his wife moved to Spokane in 2005 and launched their three-shop Dutch Brothers coffee chain.

“We knew a good thing when we saw it,” he said of the city.

His key issues, he said, are reducing education mandates and empowering teachers, allowing insurers to also sell basic health policies, pushing for more state road dollars and reducing Spokane’s role as a landing spot for sex offenders and other offenders getting out of prison.

With the election still months away, neither man has raised much money this year. But Serben – who collected more than $110,000 for his last race – starts with a fundraising advantage: about $18,000 left over. According to campaign finance records, Parker just began accepting donations, starting with $100 from former longtime state Rep. Duane Sommers.