PORT ANGELES — Education, health care, jobs and the economy will be the Democrats’ priorities when they to head to Olympia next month for the 2007 Legislature, House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler says.
The 105-day session, which will include producing the 2007-09 state operating and transportation budgets, begins at noon Jan. 8 and is scheduled to adjourn on April 22.
“I’ve told our membership we need to prioritize and focus. We can’t do it all,” said Kessler in an interview with the Peninsula Daily News.
Kessler — along with Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, and newly elected Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim — represents the 24th District, which includes Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County.
She also has been House majority leader — the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat behind House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle — since 2003 and served as co-majority leader from 2001-02 when the House of Representatives was evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
Large majority
The temptation for the Democrats to try doing it all this session will be strong as they head to Olympia with their firmest grip on power in more than a decade.
The Democrats now have a 62-36 margin in the 98-member House and a 32-17 margin in the 49-member Senate — plus Democrat Chris Gregoire in the governor’s mansion.
The last time the Democrats had majorities this large was in 1993, when they held a 65-33 advantage in the House, a 28-21 edge in the Senate. Democrat Mike Lowry as governor.
But the Democrats experienced a reversal of fortunes in the two ensuing elections, reducing their numbers to 36 in the House and 25 in the Senate in 1995 and 42 in the House and 23 in the Senate in 1997.
Kessler vows that won’t happen this time.
“I’m one of seven who was there and I recognize it was a disaster,” Kessler said.
She also was a member of the small minority that survived the subsequent Republican takeover, she said.
Kessler said the Democrats squandered their majorities.
Democrats denied raises to state employee unions, which had been some of their biggest supporters, because of the recession, she said.
They also proposed juvenile justice reform that included gun control, and raised the business and occupation tax.
Then a Redmond-based software company began a period of tremendous growth, increasing state revenues that Republicans then pledged to give back through tax cuts, she said.
“This session is going to be a lot about education,” Kessler said.
