Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, has set up a scenario in which he might not vote on key legislation in 2011, includling a state budget, in order to keep Democrat Nick Harper from being seated.
Hewitt doesn’t believe Harper should be sworn in until questions about the conduct of the primary election are cleared up. He’s supporting Sen. Jean Berkey’s request to defer seating Harper who defeated Berkey and conservative Rod Rieger in that primary.
Hewitt, in a letter sent Monday to Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, and copied to all senators, says he understands the difficulty Brown might face with one less caucus member. He said in those cases where the 38th District vote would make the difference, he’d recuse himself.
In other words, Hewitt would effectively be Brown’s 25th vote.
From his letter (which is attached too):
I realize that leaving this seat vacant will result in a 48-member Senate in the meantime, and I realize that this likely deprives your caucus of another member. In the bipartisan tradition of the Senate, we have in the past had a member from the other party change their normal vote to accommodate a colleague across the aisle that was absent due to sickness. In this unique situation, I would be happy to recuse myself from voting on a specific matter if you thought that the absence of your 38th District vote would make a difference in the outcome on a specific issue.
I believe this to be a matter that transcends our typical partisan caucus concerns within the body, and that it affects the whole institution, as well as public perceptions of fairness and faith in our electoral system. In any case, I am not proposing this as a permanent solution, but rather only to act as a stop-gap gesture of good faith to restore public confidence in the process and give the courts the time they need in which to work through this matter.
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