The Kent Reporter’s endorsements for state Legislature

The opinions expressed below are the collaboration of Kent Reporter Publisher Polly Shepherd and Editor Laura Pierce.

Send your letters and comments to Laura Pierce at lpierce@kentreporter.com

District 33: State Senator

Our choice: Incumbent Karen Keiser (Democrat)

This veteran senator earns our nod because of her experience as well as acknowledgement by various organizations, among them the King County Municipal League, which this year ranked her as “very good,” and her opponent, businessman Jack Michalek, as “good.”

Keiser has gone to bat for this region, especially when it came to flood issues in the Green River Valley. Working with fellow lawmakers in the House, Keiser was able to help win passage of legislation enabling the state to form joint underwriting organizations, so that businesses in the Green River Valley could apply for additional flood insurance.

Keiser also has been a leader in the health-care arena, chairing the Senate’s Health and Long-Term Care Committee, and providing leadership on a number of pieces of health legislation. These included a law banning a toxin from production of baby bottles, as well as an agreement with insurance providers, doctors and the state to ensure all children have access to vaccines.

Michalek, a successful and self-made businessman, is a worthy opponent, but right now our district needs the hand of experience and a proven voice, if it’s going to be adequately represented in this tough economic climate.

District 47: State Rep., Position 1

Our choice: Challenger Mark Hargrove (Republican)

While Hargrove has some worrisome inclinations when it comes to state funding of schools, we think he would do a better job representing this district than his incumbent opponent Geoff Simpson.

Unfortunately as regards Simpson, there is a 600-pound gorilla in the campaign picture: his legal entanglements involving an alleged domestic-violence issue. Regardless of the outcome, it’s a dark cloud over the good work he has done in the past as our state representative.

Further, the Municipal League has given Simpson an “adequate” rating this year, down from “very good” in the last election, in 2008. Hargrove this year received a “good” rating, up from “adequate” in 2008, when he ran against Simpson for the same seat.

Hargrove’s stated mission of cutting back on government spending is laudable, but it makes you wonder about his ability to actually focus on specific issues outside that mission. We find his statement below overly simplistic:

“We spend about $11,000 per student per year on education, about the national average. If I gave my daughter, who teaches math at Auburn High School, all of the third of a million dollars we spent on her students, she could rent classroom space, provide top-notch materials and instruction, and be thrilled with her huge paycheck.”

If elected, hopefully Hargrove will be able to temper his zeal for cutting funding with the complex and real needs of our schools and other publicly funded institutions.

District 47: State Rep. Position 2

Our choice: Incumbent Pat Sullivan (Democrat)

If there is one thing our region needs in this upcoming contentious political arena, it is experience and the proven ability to get the job done. In our estimation, Sullivan has ably provided those things.

Now running for a third term, and previously having functioned as Covington’s mayor and council member, Sullivan is a familiar face to his electorate. He’s also responded to their needs, as past successful re-election campaigns would indicate.

One of the most complex state issues involves school funding, and Sullivan has demonstrated initiative in working to address the problem, with education-funding reform one of his top priorities this past term, and his committed issue to address this coming session. This past session he served as vice chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education and as a member of the House Education and Appropriations committees, both powerful seats in finding solutions to school-funding issues.

If an incumbent is clearly not doing the job, that’s reason enough to support their challenger. But Sullivan, who has earned an “outstanding” rating by the Municipal League this go-round, is showing he is the right fit for the job.

We think his challenger Rodrigo Yanez, an able businessman and self-made man, who generated a “good” rating, is running against the stronger candidate.

District 47: State Senator

Our choice: Challenger Joe Fain. (Republican)

While the incumbent in this race, Sen. Claudia Kauffman, has done an adequate job for us in Olympia, we think her Republican challenger Joe Fain is the better candidate. While we feel experience is an important factor in this election, it is not the only factor.

Fain brings a new level of energy and ideas to the table. We have seen him in action during recent candidate debates, and he comports himself respectfully and as an innovator. If you want new ideas to fly in our state Legislature, you have to be able to connect with both sides of the aisle, and Fain has that level of charisma and leadership.

He may be a newcomer to state politics, but Fain already has proven himself at another level of government, having worked for 10 years in King County, most recently as chief of staff for King County Councilman Pete von Reichbauer.

Fain’s goals of revamping state tax and workers’-compensation programs to assist businesses certainly hold promise, but there is also the sense that he would be approaching the office with open-mindedness about other options for pulling the state out of its dire financial straits. We need that kind of intellectual flexibility.

Kauffman, while having represented our district adequately, simply does not jump off the page in the manner her opponent does. And during the 2009 Kent teachers’ strike, we found her response to the strike a bit of passing the buck.

“While I understand how much the state’s decisions affect the Kent School District’s funding, the School Board has control over its own budget,” Kauffman wrote in a Sept. 4, 2009 column to the Kent Reporter. “The district has comprehensive revenue sources. It receives not only state funds but also federal and local funds, grants/contracts and voter-approved levies. In addition, the district has a very healthy rainy-day fund.”

As vice chair of the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee, she did not acknowledge at least some state culpability in the diminishing funds that precipitated the strike.

We’d like an opportunity for Fain to demonstrate his abilities in our Legislature. That seems to be the conclusion of the Municipal League, which gave him an “outstanding” rating, while Kauffman’s was “very good.”