Delegation ready for busy session in Oly

Published 1:00 pm Saturday, January 15, 2005

Rockefeller, Woods and Appleton lay out their agendas.

OLYMPIA – Clutching a slip of paper scheduling every moment of his day, state Sen. Phil Rockefeller swings his long legs toward the shadow of the capitol dome.

With the governor’s inauguration only a half hour away, the Bainbridge legislator hopes to squeeze in a meeting with his fellow Democrats on the Senate floor. But first he must contend with the obstacle course that is the capitol campus.

An indirect pathway of slick sidewalks takes him through boggy grass to a massive steel side door bottlenecking a stream of senators and their attendants.

The parade of gray suits halts at the new security checkpoint, complete with X-ray machines and tubs in which to drop pocket change.

The four-term state Repre­sen­tative breezes through the metal detectors and weaves through marble-walled corridors and a pair of glass doors.

“The Senate is fascinting, but I’m no stranger to how this works,” he says, moments before exiting an elevator one stop too early.

“But I still sometimes get off on the wrong floor,” he says, squeezing back among smirking teenage pages and party staffers.

Only three days on the job, Rockefeller and his 23rd District colleagues, Representatives Bev­erly Woods (R-Poulsbo) and Sherry Appleton (D-Poulsbo) have entered a typically hectic, 105-day legislative session made all the more tumultuous by the never-ending governor’s contest.

But Appleton, newly minted as Rockefeller’s replacement in the House, said Christine Gregoire’s inauguration Wednesday puts the race to rest in her mind.

“I didn’t doubt the inauguration would happen today,” the former lobbyist said. “We voted to certify the election because that’s what the Constitution requires us to do.”

Appleton and Rockefeller were among the 80 members of the 147-member Legislature opposing action to delay Gregoire’s inauguration.

But the protests of a day earlier seemed distant as both both Democrats and Republicans filed into the House Chamber on Wednesday.

Appleton hopped from her seat with hands clapping above her head as Gregoire entered the packed room. Rockefeller leaned through the crowd to shake the new governor’s hand as she made her way to the podium.

Woods, among a sullen throng of Republicans, said she stood and clapped to honor the governor’s office, not the candidate she thinks will likely be looking for a new job within weeks.

“I might not agree that (Gregoire) is rightfully our governor, but I will stand and respect the position,” said Woods, a strong supporter of Gregoire’s opponent Dino Rossi.

Woods advocated delaying the inauguration for two weeks as the Chelan County Superior Court mulls Republican claims that many votes were illegally or improperly handled.

“I thought we should hold this off until the courts make a decision,” she said. “If the courts do call for a re-vote and she has to step down, how chaotic will that be?”

Woods said the number of votes in some counties is significantly larger than the number of registered voters.

“And if this election was supposed to have been won by under 130 votes, those over-votes in King (County) are reason enough to re-look at the election,” she said.

But Rockefeller said it was the Legislature’s duty to certify the election and make way for Wednesday’s inauguration once the Secretary of State and county auditors green-light the process.

“We have a final result and there’s no guarantee it will be changed,” he said. “The (Republican) effort is, in effect, a delay of our constitutional duty.”

Rockefeller added that it is the courts – not the Legislature – that must determine whether ballots were improperly or illegally cast.

Rockefeller also disagrees with the assertion that illegal votes swayed the election.

“That’s a fiction,” he said.

Rockefeller believes Rossi supporters aren’t taking into account many votes cast by overseas military personnel who vote locally but are registered federally.

He also said many victims of domestic violence are able to conceal their registration information for security purposes while casting legal ballots.

“The claim that phantom groups are voting disappears when one examines what is actually the case,” he said. “Some have claimed we had 484 ballots in Kitsap County that came from voters not on the active voters list. I was concerned about these allegations. So I called our auditor. She said that number is actually down to 18.

“To have only 18 not yet identified is rather marvelous in a county with about 100,000 voters.”

Session goals

Partisan politics aside, all three legislators are looking forward to a productive session.

Woods will serve on the House Local Government Committee and has become the ranking Republican on the House Transpor­tation Com­mittee. She says the move will boost her efforts to improve roads and ferry service.

“This puts me in a better position to help move things along, especially with our Kingston and Bain­bridge ferries and on (State Route) 305,” she said.

Woods pledged to bring Washington State Ferries back to the table for discussions on moving the ferry maintenance yard off Bainbridge Island.

“Many people want to see it go away and we budgeted money to study moving it,” she said. “But (WSF) arbitrarily said they’re staying in Eagle Harbor. That angers me. That’s not a WSF staff decision to make. That’s a legislative decision, and we’re going to re-look at that.”

Woods hopes to replace four aging ferries, reduce fares and restore food service to Kitsap runs.

Gor­don Bax­ter, a lobbyist for the union representing ferry food workers, looks forward to working with Woods on the food service issue.

“She’s really one of our favorite reps,” he said, meeting with Woods at the campus sundial for an impromptu policy discussion. “She was out there on Bainbridge at six in the morning with our workers as they demonstrated at the ferry terminal. She understands what they’re going through.”

Appleton, who will serve as the assistant whip of the House Democratic Caucus, also put improved ferry service at the top of her priority list. She wants to boost passenger-only ferry service, and lower the cost of prescription drugs as a member of the House Transportation and Health Care Committees.

The first-term representative is gathering signatures for a bill that would license Canadian pharmaceutical companies in Washington state, creating and preserving a link to safe, inexpensive drugs.

Appleton also hopes her work on the Select Committee on Hood Canal will improve the health of the west Kitsap waterway, where an annual 245-ton dose of sewage is choking oxygen levels and killing sealife, she said.

Moving on from the position now held by Appleton, Rockefeller’s freshman status in the Senate doesn’t mean he’ll be warming any benches. His appointment as the assistant to the senate floor leader means the Bainbridge resident will help dictate the issues that go before the Senate.

“It will be a challenge managing all the motions, the bills and procedures, but it means I’m directly involved,” he said.

Rockefeller will serve as the vice chair of the Water, Energy and Environment Committee and will hold membership posts in the Early Learning, K-12 and Higher Education and Ways and Means Committees.

Protecting the environment is among Rockefeller’s top priorities for the session. He plans to introduce bills curbing auto emissions to California standards, and to prevent oil spills by enforcing stronger shipping and pump-out restrictions.

One aspect of the session he’s not looking forward to is the inevitable hazing he’ll suffer during his first floor speech.

By custom, new senators are jokingly harangued for wasting the Senate’s time and insulted for having a poor grasp of policy issues.

Rockefeller will be required to “compensate” the entire Senate with gifts from his home district.

But with a state revenue deficit swelling to almost $2 billion, Rockefeller said he will set an example in frugality with a modest gift to his tormentors.

“I’m not intimidated by them in the least,” he said. “I will simply offer them some mouth-watering truffles from Port Gamble. One each only, though, because I’m not planning to spend big bucks.”