Helen Sommers: An Oral History

pg. 180 Bernard Dean
weekends during cutoff, we would have the “Saturday
Marathon” as we’d call it. We’d begin meeting
around 9 a.m., and frequently wouldn’t finish until
midnight. Throughout those all-day-hearings and
executive sessions, Helen was chairing the committee
continuously, and hardly would ever hand the
gavel over to her vice-chair. I believe she was in her
early-70s at that time, but she’d never tire; she’d be
able to just work right through it. It was amazing
to see her keep up with all those issues, and be so
focused. I think a lot of us were “punch drunk”
by the end of the night. But, not Helen! (laughter)
With the budget process we had in place, she’d
frequently spend evenings in her office working
with her vice-chair, the majority leader, other staff,
and me. We’d sit around and kind of go through the
budget line-by-line. Sometimes Helen would want
us to go into more detail for larger issue areas. The
meeting often wouldn’t start until after the conclusion
of the Appropriations Committee meeting; so,
often we wouldn’t meet until 6 o’clock, and those
meetings would stretch late into the evening – 9 or
10 o’clock. Sometimes, this wouldn’t leave us much
time for a dinner break. It was funny, though, Helen
was a big lover of the Trader Joe’s snacks, which
she’d frequently bring down from Seattle. She’d pass
them around the table as we were working.
She definitely had an eye toward detail. It was
interesting when staff would prepare briefing documents,
it was always conveyed to us: “Make sure to
number your pages!” (laughter) Helen would frequently
flip back and forth between different parts
of presentation materials. So it was very important
to know what page she was on.
It was also interesting to see how she managed
those late night committee meetings. I think she
definitely recognized how important it was to be
able to have everyone who wanted to testify, to be
able speak. So she typically placed time constraints
on how long folks could speak.
One of the things that was always funny to explain
to our policy counterparts on the committee staff
during the cut-off period briefings with Helen as
chair, was when the staff was finished making their
presentations to the committee, to always finish with
“That concludes my remarks.” as opposed to “I’d
be happy to entertain any questions!” (laughter) We
always got a kick out of that. However, it helped
move the committee meeting along.
Helen is incredibly focused. I think sometimes
people would misinterpret that focus as coldness.
But as you really got to know her, you realize that
it’s just the intense focus that she has. Sometimes,
you would catch her walking down the hallway and
she would be deep in thought about some funding
issue. There’s not a smile on her face and, as you
approach, you might say “Hello.” Maybe a smile
would appear and she would greet you but sometimes
not. I’ve heard a lot of stories of people being
intimidated by her. But when you know Helen, you
know that she’s a wonderful person but she is very
focused, and very intense when she’s doing her job.
Helen was also a very big supporter of higher education.
She believed that higher education was a key
component to drive the state’s economy. I think she
definitely felt that higher ed. was a way to encourage
economic development, both in terms of research
that is undertaken at the institutions and in terms
of educating the state’s work force.
Now that Helen has retired, there are those
who are concerned about her leaving the role she
played for so long supporting higher education. I
believe Helen’s concern always was that over time,
the portion of the higher ed. budget that was supported
through the ‘general fund’ – as opposed
to from tuition and grants – would diminish over
the years. So I think she was very leery of further
reducing general fund support to higher education
in the budget.
One of the other things I recall of Helen, too,
is she liked to be able to share her knowledge with
the committee. She really wanted the members
to appreciate and understand some of the details
behind the budget. In essence, the budget supports
three basic functions: to educate, medicate and incarcerate,
as they say. (laughter) So Helen took an
intense interest in getting members to think about
the long-term consequences of the decisions they
make here in Olympia. A lot of times, when you
have a fiscal note attached to a bill – particularly
if you’re in the second half of a biennium – you
would see in the upcoming fiscal year, there is
a very minimal impact. But three or four years