Don’t tell the elected officials from the 21st Legislative District, but the 2007 session doesn’t begin until next Monday, Jan. 8.
The two veteran representatives and one senator already have hit the ground running in preparation for the budget-year session in which all have key roles. They expressed high hopes for real progress this session due, in large part, to the fact the Democratic Party, to which all three belong, has a stronghold in the House, Senate and Governor’s office.
The day Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, D-Lynnwood, was contacted by The Enterprise, she has just finished going over a 15-page calendar that contained mostly listings of committee meetings. “… and we haven’t even started yet,” said Roberts, with mock dismay.
“I don’t think the changes will be overwhelming, quite frankly,” she said of her party’s majority rule in Olympia. “But a number of legislation will pass more easily.”
The example she gave was that of school levies being able to pass with a simple rather than super majority of the vote by the people. Because it involves a constitutional amendment, she explained, a super majority of legislators will have to approve the measure before it can be placed before the people for a vote.
Roberts said education, along with children, again will top her list of priorities for this year’s session.
She again will serve on the Early Learning and Children’s Services (a revamped name) and Higher Education committees. Roberts will assume the vice chairmanship of the Human Services committee, a new one that she said will contain an “interesting mix” of responsibilities, including overseeing services for the developmentally disabled and those in the welfare system and the department of corrections.
Roberts said her experience on the Edmonds Community College Board of Trustees will come in handy on the new committee. She said she is looking forward to helping improve educational opportunities for incarcerated persons. With better education and training “under their belts, they will be more successful in the community” upon release, she said.
During the session Roberts said she lives with her sister (“an underpaid state employee who can use the rent money”) in nearby Tumwater. The only “family” remaining in her Lynnwood home is a cat who Roberts said will be welcome in the cat-friendly Tumwater household.
Rep. Brian Sullivan, D-Mukilteo, again will get to know the length of I-5 between Thurston and Snohomish counties very well in 2007.
Sullivan, who shares an apartment with a fellow representative during the session, said he plans to make the drive to Mukilteo on Wednesdays and Fridays. Why? “Dinner with my kids,” a sixth-grader and sophomore in high school, he promptly replied.
Although he expressed excitement over his party’s majority rule in Olympia, he said the “good friction, bad friction” of bipartisanship is healthy for the political process.
Sullivan will chair the Natural Resources, Parks, Ecology, Agriculture and Water committee and sit on the Transportation and Local Government committees. The committee which he chairs has been refigured, which “doubles our workload,” he noted.
Sullivan said his personal priorities for the session are progress in the areas of alternative energy (“I have a big stake in bio fuels”); and education initiatives, including reduced school class sizes, increased teachers’ pay and improved test scores.
During the session, Sullivan said he applies some banked vacation time and takes an unpaid leave from his work as coordinator for Snohomish County Tomorrow. A temporary replacement is hired in his absence.
The Enterprise caught up with Sen. Paull Shin, D-Edmonds, in Olympia, where he already was working on duties that befall the chair of the senate’s Higher Education committee. He also will split his team between the Trade and Economic Development and Agriculture and Economic Development committees.
“I’m so happy we have a complete majority in the House and Senate … including the Governor,” enthused Shin. “But the bipartisan system,” he continued, provides checks and balances. But an all-Democrat majority … I just wish and pray we will do something good for the people of Washington state … not (just for) the politicians.”
Shin pointed out that the 2007 session is being held during “a budget year and it will be a controversial one.” Lots of vying for available funds will be going on, he predicted.
People want jobs, Shin said, and that is what he, too, wants from the upcoming session. Education also tops his priority list, as does health care. Transportation (“So much congestion, especially in bad weather …”) and crime are other areas in which he’d like to see action taken.
Shin emphasized he is a longtime supporter of a four-year higher-education institution in Snohomish County. He said it’s a “necessity” at the half-way point between Bellingham (Western Washington University) and Seattle (University of Washington, among others). The placement of Cascadia College in Bothell, he added, “is not what I had in mind.”
The former history professor admits to being bullish on math, science and engineering education. He said he plans to back a bill offering scholarships for study in those areas.
“Snohomish County,” he explained, “whether we like it or not, is going to be a high-tech county.
In the 19th century, everyone looked for the best farms. In the 20th, the best factories … the 21st century, it’s the best ideas,” he said.
He said he’s like to see private and public partnerships in education, such as those for which Microsoft is well known. With partnerships, students who are “trained properly” should be guaranteed a job in the state of Washington, he added.
Shin maintains an apartment in Olympia and an Edmonds home.
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