Helen Sommers: An Oral History

Mary Lou Dickerson
representative
mary lou dickerson
Speaks out about her
seat-mate Helen Sommers
Rep . Mary Lou Dickerson was elected to the
House from the 36th District
in 1994. Her seatmate was Rep.
Helen Sommers, who had
served from the district since
1973. Representative Dickerson
shares her story of her friend,
Helen Sommers.
Rep . Mary Lou Dickerson: I
think Helen Sommers was a
‘super star’ in the House of
Mary Lou Dickerson
Representatives. She came into
the House and rather quickly
established a reputation for herself as someone
with a great deal of knowledge about economics
and budgeting. She had the benefit of working for
King County in the budgeting office.
Before I came to the Legislature in 1994, I had
met her several times. I first got to know her when I
was a citizen lobbyist with the Children’s Alliance,
and would come to Olympia every year to lobby on
behalf of children’s issues. I would lobby Helen and
learned that I needed to make my point quickly and
succinctly and then that was about it; Helen needed
to move on to other things. As a citizen lobbyist, I
felt a little intimidated by Helen. But, when I was
elected to the Legislature from the 36 th District,
I didn’t have that sense at all. Helen was warm
and gracious and I learned so much from her. As
seatmates we are supposed to work well together
and Helen and I certainly did. She taught me a lot.
Helen is a person of great integrity; she was
always a strong advocate for higher ed. in the Legislature.
She was seen as the go-to-person for higher
education issues for many, many years!
pg. 149
Higher education funding is just out there – not
like K-12, which is in the Constitution. Helen always
did what she could to protect it.
When I was a freshman (1995) and in the minority,
Helen and I would confer on the controversial
votes. I learned a philosophy Helen had about protecting
the state’s money. At that point, the House
Republicans were in control and there were many
pieces of legislation to give tax breaks to business.
So, I learned that even though it might have been
politically popular to do that, if we gave those tax
breaks for business that meant we wouldn’t have
enough money for education, for higher education
or for human services. So I became rather conservative
just as she did, about the use of state funds,
whether it’s tax breaks or funding programs.
Helen served on the Appropriations Committee
for many years of her legislative career.
For a number of years, she served as chair of the
committee, and, yes, she was fiscally conservative
when it came to taxpayer’s money. But, sometimes
being fiscally conservative does not mean you’re
not willing to fund something. It means that you
need to have some sort of proof that what you fund
is going to be effective, and potentially will have
a benefit to the people of the state. Sometimes
funding programs that prevent greater cost is the
fiscally conservative thing to do. And, that’s what
I worked on with Helen.
When I ran for the House in 1994, the Democratic
Caucus had a 65-33 majority over the Republicans
that year. However, when I was elected and
came to Olympia for the 1995 session, the majority
switched, as the Republicans gained 29 seats for a
61-37 majority. So, I began my career in the minority.
When you’re in the minority, it’s very difficult
to pass legislation that you sponsor. The mood of
the new Republican Majority in 1995 was: “We
haven’t been in the majority for a long time, and
we’re going to take this opportunity to roll back
the legislation of the Democrats and replace it with
a conservative philosophy.” There were some Republicans
who treated Democrats very badly. So
that was not pleasant, but for the most part, they
simply ignored us in terms of legislation and went
about passing their bills.