Helen Sommers: An Oral History

pg. 130 Jim Boldt
And, if she wasn’t, she would tell you. If she hated
your idea, she’d let you know, and you’d have to
get ready for a good fight. Helen and I had a lot
of similar philosophical views, but, because I was
from eastern Washington and she was from Seattle,
frankly she didn’t always support my personal
choices. There were times that we argued to the
point that we’d just pick a different issue to continue
with. But we were friends early on and I respected
her more than anyone else. I was 24 and she was
10 to 15 years older than me. I had a lot to learn,
and she was there for that.
When I first came to the House, there were
a couple of freshmen on Ways and Means Committee.
John McKibbin and I were the only
two freshmen who got the nod. So that put us
working on appropriations issues and working
with Helen right away. The other thing is, I had
a strong Latino population in Benton County
and I, frankly, was not as sensitive to immigrant
issues as I should have been. Well, Helen had
lived and worked in Venezuela, she was fluent in
Spanish, and she was knowledgeable about the
Latino issues. I was on the Education Committee
and Helen guided me through the state’s first
bi-lingual bill that I sponsored. She was, and
still is a good friend! We socialized together at
political functions, and we kind of hung around
together in those years.
The Democrats had only been in the majority
for two years when I came to the House in 1975.
In the ’73 session we had a 57-41 majority. The Republicans
had been in the majority the previous six
years. In 1973, when the Democrats were in charge,
Rep. Leonard Sawyer was elected Speaker of the
House. In the 1975 session, after I was elected, we
had a 62-36 majority! And, there were a lot of new,
young legislators who came to ‘change the world!’
Now, Leonard Sawyer was a brilliant man and
he was a strong Speaker of the House. I respect him
for what he did to give the Legislature a greater
role in state government. He probably, single handedly,
is the person that made the Washington State
legislative branch an equal partner in governance.
When Lenny became Speaker, he wanted to establish
the Legislature as a more equal branch of government.
For the first time, the Legislature brought
on year-around professional staff. We incorporated
some of the Boeing software information into our
budgeting process.
Before that, Governor Evans would throw a
budget on the table that his office had devised and
the House and Senate would all scramble around
and see if our districts were taken care of, and vote
yes or no!
The House and Senate actually became a participant
in the fiscal aspect of state government
with the arrival of Len Sawyer and the Office of
Program Research, which he established. He also
tried to implement almost a full-time Legislature
with his ‘continuing session.’ We would only recess;
we would not adjourn. In 1975 I think we went clear
until September in a rolling recess.
But there was a group of us newer members
who felt we should have more involvement in the
process; more to say. Our major objection was that
Sawyer just closed us out of the process. We were
considered the ‘back-benchers.’ That drew most of
the younger and newer members together. There were
some people there philosophically involved, but for
me, it was process. That culminated in discussions
of what we felt was the inappropriate direction the
caucus was headed as far as total governance under
Leonard Sawyer. A handful of members started
late in the spring of 1975 to actually lay the now
historical process in place for Leonard’s resignation
and replacement!
During the 1975 session, Helen was chair of the
State Government Committee, the first committee
she chaired. She also worked closely with Rep.
“Bud” Shinpoch, essentially as Bud’s ‘aide-de-camp’
on the Appropriations side because of her revenue
interests. She had her fingerprint on a lot of the
fiscal issues early on.
I think there were about seven of us who started
this Speaker of the House thing! Rick Bender and
I were roommates; Art Clemente, Chuck Moon,
Marion Kyle Sherman, Donn Charnley. That was
the core group. It was a secret core group during
the discussions. Helen did bring balance to some of
our fervor attitudes when she joined our effort later
on. She was a good person to help us do the right
thing. Helen respected Sawyer, but she understood