Helen Sommers: An Oral History

pg. 286 The Press
taxes to pay for public services for all those people
ain’t easy. Hence the anticipated shortfall.
But you don’t have to peer into a crystal ball to
see a revenue shortage. According to road builders,
we already have one. Duke Schaub with the Associated
Contractors of Washington State says road
projects are “dead” right now because of I-695. That’s
ironic, since the anti -car tab euphoria appeared to
be tied to a desire to see more road construction,
not less. Schaub says the current funding need
for road projects, which includes everything from
safety improvements to new construction, comes
to about $30 billion. Last year the state could only
budget about $4.02 billion of the demand. I-695 has
knocked the road allotment down to about $3.2
billion. “We’re in danger of losing this construction
season,” says Schaub. In other words, builders
are twiddling their thumbs on these nice spring
days when they could be building your new road.
Schaub says that contractors never got the go-ahead
for projects that were supposed to commence in
March, and he isn’t optimistic that April will be a
more productive month. Lawmakers aren’t likely
to come up with magic solutions to jump-start
construction anytime soon.
Meanwhile Eyman suggests that the $1.2 billion
state surplus could not only cover road construction
but also save bus and ferry routes, public health
clinics, and all the other services formerly funded
by MVET. Eyman says if the state suffers because
of his ballot measure, it is the politicians’ own fault
for not using the surplus.
Always a sharp knife, state Sen. Valoria Loveland,
D-Pasco, who chairs the Senate Ways and
Means Committee, anticipated this suggestion.
She proposes taking $300 million of the surplus
to make up for I-695 cuts.
But House Appropriations co-chair, state Rep.
Helen Sommers, D-Seattle, points out it took years
to build up that surplus. Would it be wise to spend
it when anti-tax sentiment threatens the state’s
ability to gather revenue in the future? To use it
now to make up for I-695 would be like “spending
your checkbook balance down to zero,” Sommers
says. Instead of using the surplus, Sommers and her
House colleagues suggest funding transportation
with general fund money.
But the general fund pays for education. And
the Senate is loath to make public schools bear the
brunt of I-695 cuts.
The third “solution” would be to simply put the
crisis on hold until next year. Both chambers have
agreed to immediately siphon off some general-fund
money to local governments and transit districts, and
to the ferry system. Loveland says most everything
else I-695 has hurt, including long-term road planning,
may have to wait until next year’s session. By
then, voters may have passed yet another Eyman
initiative that will make the state’s funding crisis
even more difficult to solve.
Clyde Ballard and Frank Chopp
are elected co-Speakers of the
state House of Representatives on
January 11, 1999
On January 11, 1999, state representatives elect
both Republican Clyde Ballard and Democrat Frank
Chopp to be Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The designation of two co-Speakers, instead
of the usual single Speaker elected by the majority
party, results from the November 1998 election in
which voters sent 49 Republicans and 49 Democrats
to the House. With no majority, the parties have to
share power, including the Speaker’s role, just as they
did 20 years earlier, the first time that the House
membership was tied between the two parties. Ballard
and Chopp will go on to serve as co-Speakers
for three years because the 2000 election will also
produce a 49-49 tie.
All Tied Up
Normally the majority party elects the Speaker
to preside over the session, designates the committee
chairs, and selects non-member employees. Since the
1995 session, the majority party in the state House