Joe Marine picked for House seat

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, December 19, 2000

By SUSANNA RAY

Herald Writer

EVERETT — The Snohomish County Council picked the Republicans’ first choice Tuesday to replace state Rep. Renee Radcliff, R-Mukilteo, in Olympia.

But the other two GOP candidates think the Democrat-dominated council was just playing politics.

Joe Marine, a Mukilteo city councilman, will take Radcliff’s seat in the House. A few weeks after winning re-election last month, Radcliff resigned for personal reasons.

Marine beat out Stan Monlux, a software executive who ran against Rep. Mike Cooper, D-Edmonds, this year for the other district House seat, and Jeannette Wood, who represented the district in the Legislature for 10 years and served Woodway as mayor and city council member before that.

"It was just as … predicted," Wood said. "They picked the weakest choice, and Democrats will go after him in November."

Marine’s appointment is only for the upcoming legislative session, which starts Jan. 8. He’ll have to stand for election next fall to try to keep the spot for a full two-year term.

That election is expected to draw statewide attention, because if Democrats win the seat back, they’ll have a one-seat majority in both chambers of the Legislature.

Marine was the top pick of precinct committee officers, who met last week to choose three candidates for the county council to choose from. As the GOP chairman in the 21st Legislative District, he was well known among the officers. But he did appear to be the least prepared of the three candidates in Monday’s interviews with the county council.

"(Marine) would be the greenest in respect to those state issues because he hasn’t been exposed to them," said Gary Nelson, the council’s lone Republican, adding that he thought Monlux had displayed the most knowledge of contemporary issues.

Marine, however, pointed out that both Monlux and Wood have lost elections in the district. Monlux got 37 percent of the vote compared with Cooper’s 59 percent in last month’s election, and Wood got 45 percent compared with Mukilteo Democrat Paull Shin’s 55 percent two years ago.

"If they were looking for a weak candidate for political reasons, I don’t think there was one, so maybe they just decided to go with the first one on the list," Marine said. "I’d like to think they looked at all the candidates and chose the best, but you know how politics is. You don’t know what the motivation is sometimes."

Nelson said he told the precinct committee officers when they voted last week that he would honor their first choice.

"I don’t think anyone should read anything into this vote other than what was there on the surface," Nelson said, "Namely, that (Marine) was the first choice of the PCOs (precinct committee officers) in the 21st District, and that choice was respected by the county council."

Marine’s energy is "half the battle, because he’ll learn quickly," Nelson added.

"I think he has the motivation necessary to be a good legislator."

And as far as name recognition goes, "that will develop," he said.

County council chairwoman Barbara Cothern said the council picked Marine because "he’s a young man who’s already had some experience with government, he’s got the support of his PCOs, he’s got experience in his district, and just the feeling that he’s able to do it."

Paul Elvig, a former longtime county GOP chairman, reacted enthusiastically to the news and said Marine is far from being a weak choice. He said he’s worked with him in the party for about eight years, and both attend Northshore Christian Church in Everett.

"He makes a very good usher at church," Elvig joked. "Every Sunday he gives me a bulletin and finds me a seat, so that qualifies him."

Besides, most state lawmakers come from city councils and school boards, Elvig added, which are microcosms of state government.

"Joe will do just fine," Monlux said, but he agreed that politics probably came into play in the decision, although for a different reason than Wood believed.

Monlux pointed out that next month Democrats will go through a similar process to fill the county council spot vacated by Rick Larsen, who won a congressional seat last month. They may have chosen the Republicans’ top pick now so there wouldn’t be contention with their first choice later, Monlux said.

Marine said he’ll probably resign from his spot on the Mukilteo City Council as a result of his appointment.

"I’m going to need all my time and energy to focus on the representative seat, because there’s going to be a learning curve," he said. "I’m going to come in and basically just be catapulted."