For once, lawmakers let their true colors show

OLYMPIA – Washington’s Seahawks-crazed legislators traded their usual dressed-for-success garb and no-nonsense decorum for team regalia and Super Bowl hoopla on Friday.

The Senate honor guard paraded a “12th Man” flag down the center aisle, right behind the American and state flags, in honor of Seattle’s notoriously loud fans.

The Senate chaplain closed his prayer, “Amen … and go Seahawks!”

Reader boards at the front of the chamber, usually a sober listing of the order of business, said “Go Hawks!”

Members were given special dispensation by their presiding officer, Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, to wear Seahawks caps and regalia, and most did. Ties, jerseys, caps, sweat shirts and large 12th Man buttons brightened the chamber.

Sen. Luke Esser, R-Bellevue, a former sportswriter whose district includes the team’s Kirkland headquarters, said the dress-down allowed serious legislators to let their inner fan emerge.

Some lawmakers were traveling to Detroit for Sunday’s game, including Esser, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, whose district includes Qwest Field, and Sen. Bill Finkbeiner, R-Kirkland, whose district is home to many of the players and staff.

“I’ve been to World Series games and NBA finals, and for an old member of the Pro Football Writers, it’s an incredible experience to go to the Super Bowl when the beloved Seahawks are playing,” Esser said. “And the (Rolling) Stones are playing!”

The House was a bit more buttoned down, but Seahawks fever struck there, too. For those with no regalia, Rep. Jeanne Darnielle, D-Tacoma, handed out bead bracelets in green and blue.

The presiding officer, John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, wielded an unusual gavel: a wooden football marked “Steelers,” which he said allowed him to “pound the Steelers two days before the Seahawks do.”

A Seahawks footnote: Mike Gregoire, the governor’s husband, served as host for a Friday lunch at the executive mansion for an Everett man who as a schoolboy in 1982 won a pair of Seahawks tickets donated by the Gregoires. Bryan Boyle won an essay and drawing contest at the school where Mike Gregoire’s mother taught.

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