Regarding your editorial: “Kim Wyman deserves second term”: I wish you would have consulted me to validate the facts regarding this comment in your recent editorial:
“…she worked with former Rep. Luis Moscoso, D-Mountlake Terrace, to get the legislation passed in the House this year, though it stalled in the Senate.”
I never worked directly with Wyman in any of the four years I was the prime sponsor of HB 1745, Enacting the Washington voting rights act. In a previous session, the secretary’s staff did meet with me and stakeholders regarding concerns several of us had. I never heard from staff or the secretary about what she may have thought about the bill. To my knowledge, Wyman has never made any public statements about the bill after opposing it during her first campaign. She certainly never made any visible effort to help pass the bill in this biennium.
The one time Wyman spoke about voting rights to me was in a coincidental conversation we had last spring. I was standing outside the governor’s office after a bill signing when Wyman came up to me. I remarked that I had just seen a video where she was speaking against the Voting Rights Act (http://tinyurl.com/WymanVRAvideo) and that I was concerned about her opposition.
She then told me that she “wished (she) had met with me during the session” and “looked forward to working with me in 2017.” I acknowledged that her staff had met with me in 2013 and told her it was too bad she didn’t contact me this year if she had really changed her mind about the bill. I think it would have made a real difference as we only had one stakeholder, the Washington State Association of Counties, still holding out. Sen. Schoesler told me if we could have brought the WSAC along we could have passed it this year.
Too bad Wyman didn’t step up.
P.S. I’m not a “former” representative yet either.
Rep. Luis Moscoso
Washington State House of Representatives
Mountlake Terrace
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