OLYMPIA — After getting soundly beaten by Gov. Chris Gregoire in November, former Republican standard bearer Dino Rossi is out of politics and back in the private sector.
But around the Capitol, you can still catch some glimpses of how a Rossi administration might have acted. And for hard-core Democrats, this is the rough part: The epicenter for those Dino-esque pronouncements is none other than Gregoire.
In the first months of her second term, Gregoire has taken some steps that are distinctly Republican in flavor, if not downright echoes of Rossi’s record and campaign platform:
n She proposed a no-new-taxes budget that slashes spending on human services and education, and abandons raises for state workers, even those mandated by the voters.
n She’s called for sweeping government reform, saying the bureaucracy is too bloated, and has suggested the private sector and charities may be better stewards for some things presently done by government.
n Gregoire now supports a deep-bore tunnel replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle — an option Rossi was virtually alone in backing during the campaign.
It’s a side of Gregoire noticeably different than the image she projected on the campaign trail, when she and her allies criticized Rossi as a slick-talking, tightfisted right-winger who didn’t share the priorities of mainstream Washingtonians.
“His values are not the values of this state,” Gregoire said in a campaign press release on Sept. 21. “When he was in charge of the budget, he cut funding for children’s health care and cut a billion dollars from education.”
Today, even though the details of her plans are different, Gregoire’s budget would do both those things.
Backlash from allies
The shift has brought backlash from Democratic Party stalwarts, including labor, environmentalists and health care reformers. While they’re not willing to directly, publicly criticize the governor, the displeasure of some of her biggest allies is plain to see.
Several unions are suing Gregoire, incensed that her budget left out the money to pay for their newly negotiated contracts with the state.
Some environmentalists are crestfallen over the notion that a mega-tunnel might replace the viaduct, saying that plan would only worsen greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and trucks.
Health system reformers, who were pleased by the expansion of state-subsidized care in Gregoire’s first term, are pleading with lawmakers to abandon her austere budget blueprint.
“I don’t think there was a lot of creativity there. Instead, what I think was there was a lot of cuts,” said Robby Stern, a longtime labor activist who heads the Healthy Washington Coalition.
Gregoire’s proposal to ax the Basic Health Plan budget by about 40 percent, Stern said, “just made no sense” at a time when people are losing their jobs, and their health care plans along with them.
Lawmakers from Gregoire’s own party are clearly unhappy with the outlines of her budget. They also may be hampered politically by her reluctance to acknowledge new taxes could be needed to solve the problem.
A complicated situation
Of course, criticism that Gregoire is simply parroting Republican principles doesn’t capture the complexity of the situation she faces as the state’s chief executive.
The budget deficit is simply gigantic — much worse than the problem Rossi helped solve in the early part of this decade. The most apt modern comparison, longtime observers say, are the devastating budget shortfalls of the early 1980s.
Gregoire had little choice but to make heavy cuts. That was a problem of her own making, since she uncorked a very comprehensive no-new-taxes pledge during the campaign. But Democratic legislative insiders also acknowledge that raising taxes during a recession could be crippling for recovering businesses and consumers.
The governor herself doesn’t pretend to like the course she took — in fact, she says she hates her budget. But her team is unhappy about comparisons to Rossi, which spokesman Pearse Edwards called “laughable.”
Gregoire is sticking to her priorities, particularly children’s health, the environment and education, even in the face of the shortfall, Edwards said.
While Gregoire’s budget was heavy on spending cuts, she did preserve previous growth in kids’ health coverage. Gregoire’s long-term efforts to clean up Puget Sound fared well in her proposed budget, and she also preserved most of the money to pay for a lower class-size initiative.
Rossi doubts comparisons
Rossi supporters see the similarities, but they aren’t happy about it — bristling at the change in Gregoire’s tone, particularly on health care. But those outside the immediate Rossi circle are showing a bit less animosity, at least in public.
Top Republican legislators, for instance, were among the few people dispensing any sort of praise on the day Gregoire rolled out her plan.
Rossi isn’t exactly enthused about the comparisons between his record and Gregoire’s.
In short, he thinks she’s trying on the costume of a fiscal conservative, but doesn’t really have the substance or will to enforce her positions. He thinks the viaduct tunnel is a good idea generally, but differs on the details of how it should be done.
Rossi didn’t watch Gregoire’s inaugural speech. But he chuckled after hearing about some of its more conservative highlights: Her criticism of three different state agencies managing natural resources and her questions about whether the state needs even half its hundreds of small government boards and commissions.
“Wow,” Rossi said. “If I believed any of that, I’d be a supporter.”
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