2 challenge Schmick in Palouse-area primary

By Chris Mulick, Herald Olympia bureau

State Rep. Joe Schmick, R-Colfax, who faces voters for the first time as an office holder in the Aug. 19 "top two" primary, is being challenged by a sociology teacher and a community theater volunteer.

Schmick ran for a House seat in 2006 and narrowly lost to Mesa Republican Steve Hailey in the primary before being appointed to the 9th Legislative District's other House seat late last year.

This year, Pullman Democrat Tyana Kelley and the Green Party's Christopher Winter of Clarkston also are angling for a spot on the Nov. 4 general election ballot.

Save for the election of Hubert Donohue to the Senate in 1972 and 1976, the conservative district has elected Republicans to the Legislature exclusively since the 1930s.

The district spans the state's eastern border from Asotin, Garfield and Whitman counties north to the outskirts of Spokane. It also stretches westward to pick up Adams and north Franklin counties.

Schmick had raised almost $36,000 for his campaign through July 28 and had almost $30,000 on hand, with big checks coming from the House Republican Organizational Committee, Weyerhaeuser, farmers in the district and the state Farm Bureau.

Kelley had raised more than $4,800, with more than half coming from Democratic Party sources, and Winter had raised just $1,300 through July 28.

Schmick isn't arguing his one year in Olympia alone makes him qualified.

"I've got a lot to learn. I'm not going to kid you," the 50-year-old farmer says.

He says facing the budget deficit is a top issue but, like most legislative candidates this year, can't identify a single place where the budget could be cut.

"I think we've got plenty of revenue in this state. We just spend too much," he said.

But Schmick wants to protect spending on levy equalization programs that help support rural school districts and maintain funding for state colleges and universities.

"I hope we can hold the line," he said.

Schmick wants to promote small businesses by raising the threshold at which they must start paying business and occupation tax.

Schmick opposes abortion. And though he voted against this year's expansion of rights provided to gays and lesbians under the state's domestic partnership registry and believes marriage should be reserved for one man and one woman, Schmick stopped short of saying he'd vote against a bill authorizing gay marriage.

He believes funding should be accelerated to build a north/south freeway in Spokane and replace the floating bridge over Lake Washington.

And in health care, Schmick said the Legislature was wrong to once again allow the state insurance commissioner to regulate rates for individual health plans, something he fears will discourage more insurance companies from entering the market.

"That was the wrong thing to do," he said.

The daughter of union aluminum workers in Spokane, Kelley, 28, is running to diversify the 9th District delegation.

"I see a need for more representation for working-class people rather than just farmers and just business people," she said.

Her top priority is to expand the state's Basic Health Plan, now available to the working poor, and make it available to all state residents.

"Expanding health care to every Washington resident is very important," she said. "It's at the top of my priorities list."

She also wants to boost funding for college grants and cut rates charged for college loans.

"My big thing is to put a stop to basically what I call predatory lending," she said.

Kelley says the Washington Assessment of Student Learning is "socio-economically biased," doesn't account for the needs of second language learners and those with learning disabilities and shouldn't be used as a graduation requirement.

She supports abortion rights and gay marriage but doesn't have any ideas about how the Legislature should close the state's emerging budget gap.

Like Kelley, Winter also targets college tuition and loan programs and proposes tuition waivers for all undergraduate students at state colleges and universities.

He says tuition is "outrageous" and likens loan programs to "indentured servitude programs with a big yellow smiley face. It is a form of institutionalized slavery."

Students would have to pay back instructional costs for each class they fail. And they'd have to meet an attendance requirement to qualify for the waiver.

Winter, 49, proposes paying for the program, in part, by creating an education tax that effectively would be billed to taxpayers at the end of each year.

An adjunct faculty member who teaches sociology classes for a series of colleges, Winter also proposes new requirements that would give all full- and part-time workers in Washington a minimum of 30 days paid vacation.

"Work is a noble thing but also so is play," he said.

A supporter of abortion rights, Winter proposes to repeal the legal authority of clergy to bestow upon couples the legal benefits of marriage, restricting such authority to the state in the form of civil unions.

Winter offers a few ideas for closing the state's budget gap. He proposes to privatize liquor sales, thus abolishing the state Liquor Control Board, and proposes to combine the state's Department of Natural Resources and the state's Parks and Recreation Commission.

* Chris Mulick: 360-753-0862; cmulick@tricityherald.com; blog at www.olympia dispatch.com.

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Saturday, Aug. 09, 2008

2 challenge Schmick in Palouse-area primary

By Chris Mulick, Herald Olympia bureau